The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (30 page)

Now it seemed like there was just Tino and Nova left.

Echoes from the past, romantic in a way, but so very isolated too.

Left behind.

Forgotten.

That night, under the glow of the streetlights, Brianna could almost feel old Italian Harlem still humming around her. Like she could reach out and touch the ghosts.

Quite different from the building itself, the apartment was beautiful, smelling of fresh paint and new furniture. Carina and Bobby camped out in front of the television, scattering DVDs everywhere, complaining about how old the titles were. Brianna got the impression the movies were left over from a time before Tino’s and Nova’s lives here stopped.

Nova and his girlfriends disappeared into a bedroom down the hall.

So Brianna wandered into the other bedroom. The walls were lined with old trophies and Bruce Lee posters. It was mustier, as if this part of the small apartment was the least important, forgotten like Tino and Nova had been.

Then she spied mousetraps on the floor, and feeling as dazed as she was, she decided she didn’t want to be standing there. She crawled onto the bottom bunk bed that was bigger than the top, so she scooted back against the wall because it made her feel hidden. She drew her feet up and looked down at the trap, which was probably too big for a mouse.

She kept staring at it, feeling like she was seeing rat ghosts just like she was seeing Italian ghosts. Lost lives. Lost memories. Lost dreams. The reflections of light on the floor seemed to come alive. Living, breathing, begging to be remembered, and what if it was real?

Tino came into the room and pulled off his jacket. She stared at his back, with those hard, cut muscles decorated with the faint white lines like painful memories carved into his skin, and she felt unbelievably sad.

About all the stories that were lost in the walls.

And all of Tino’s pain that was still very visible.

He set his gun on the dresser. Then he pulled off his jeans, sliding his underwear down with them, and Brianna couldn’t help but look. Italians had such nice asses. At least Italians with the last name Moretti did. Carina was always getting comments on hers, but her brothers didn’t lack in that department either.

Firm, round, incredibly grabable.

It was only for a couple of seconds, and then Brianna must have made a sound. Tino jerked his jeans up and turned back to her. “I thought you were watching movies with Carina. What’re you doing?”

“I’m hiding from the ghosts.” She let her gaze run over Tino standing there shirtless. For some reason she remembered riding on the train with him that first time to Bed-Stuy when she wondered what he was going to look like in a few years. Nothing could have prepared her for how quickly he grew into himself, and she couldn’t taper the hitch of longing in her voice as she asked, “What are you doing?”

“I was gonna take a shower.” He frowned at her. “Ghosts? Are you freaking out?”

“I think so. Are you gonna leave me?” She looked back to the rattrap on the floor, seeing the reflection of light from the window and feeling again like she was seeing something alive, but not really there. “Can I come with you? I won’t look. I swear, I just—”

“Come here,” Tino cut her off by crawling into the bunk. She was still curled up against the wall, knees up to her chest, so he caressed her ankle. “Shoes on the bed. Is that how you do it at your house?”

“There are ghost rats on the floor,” she told him as he pulled off one of her shoes and tossed it aside.

“Ghost rats I can deal with. It’s the living ones I hate.” He grabbed her other shoe and slipped it off her foot. “You have to think about something nice. Something beautiful. Otherwise you’ll ruin the roll.”

“How do you know?” she whispered as she watched Tino kick his shoes off. “Because you’re a drug dealer now?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you like being a drug dealer?”

“I don’t care.” He reached up and caressed her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “It could be worse. A lot worse.”

“Would you kiss me like Nova kissed those girls?” she asked because she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Tino’s fingers in her hair felt too wonderful, and nothing else really seemed to matter. “You said I’m supposed to think about something beautiful. That’s…beautiful.”

Tino’s eyes were so dark it was difficult to see the irises as he stared at her. He took a sharp, hard breath as if he was fighting a battle she couldn’t see.

Then he rolled onto his back and looked up to the top bunk. “Bri—”

“It’s just as friends. So I know what it feels like,” she explained quickly so he didn’t get the wrong idea. That she thought about him constantly. That she begged and pleaded with Jasmine to put them in as many routines together as possible because he was the only partner she wanted to dance with. That she went to bed every night dreaming about him. “’Cause you’re my friend.” She took another deep breath. “Just friends, Tino.”

“You don’t know what it feels like?” he asked her, sounding shocked. “You haven’t kissed anyone? What about Vito Brandini? I thought—”

“He smelled like black licorice.” Brianna stuck out her tongue and made a gagging sound. “I mean, I guess, but—” She shuddered from the memory. “No.”

“I wanted to kill Vito. He said he touched you. That he
felt
you.” Tino looked away as he said it, his shoulders tensing as if he was remembering it. “Jesus.”

Brianna probably ought to be really pissed off at Vito.

She was fascinated with Tino instead. Especially when he sat up and cupped her face. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, making her shudder as all the fine hairs on her arms stood on end.

“Just as friends?” Tino asked.

She nodded. “So I know.”

“I don’t know either.” He raised his eyebrows as he looked at her mouth. “I haven’t—”

“Never?” she asked in surprise, because the girls at the warehouse and pretty much any female with a pulse who got near Tino clearly wanted him.

“Not with anyone I want,” he corrected himself, which made no sense, but then he said, “Not with anyone I think about.”

She frowned at that, knowing somehow it wasn’t right, but Tino slipped his hand to the back of her neck before she could ask. He tugged her hair, one sharp jerk that made her gasp because she wasn’t expecting it at all. Then he leaned in and licked at her parted lips, tasting her like it was something he craved.

It was a wet kiss.

A dirty kiss.

With his tongue brushing against hers.

It was a kiss like the ones on the train. Open. Indulgent. Blatantly sexy for anyone to see because that was what she’d asked for.

His hold on her hair was still tight, and he tugged her head back, forcing her to break the kiss only to lick at the line of her throat, dragging his tongue up slowly to her ear before he asked, “Like that?”

Her breath felt trapped under the wave of pleasure.

Crushing, shuddering pleasure that hazed out everything but the feel of his breath against her skin and his fingers tight in her hair.

“Like that,” she agreed, clutching at his bare shoulders.

She didn’t want to let him go, even if he’d already done what she’d asked. So they stayed there, their breathing harsh, so very hot and sweaty in that bunk, but suddenly she liked the hot.

She loved the sweaty.

She ran one hand down Tino’s bare back, savoring the slick feel of it. Somewhere in the distance, past the hum of the television, Brianna heard the sharp, hard, feminine gasps of pleasure from the other bedroom. They ricocheted through her like a pulse, a throb, over and over again. Once she heard it, she couldn’t stop. It was like all her senses homed in on it, making her almost feel it with her own body. The sounds came alive like the lights on the floor had.

Tino slipped his other hand under her shirt, caressing the bare skin at her waist, and she moaned just from the feel of it. From the sounds washing over her again and again and again. Building somehow. Getting louder. More desperate.

“I could make you sound like that.” Tino breathed against the curve of her neck, making it obvious he was sitting there listening to the same thing.

“
¡Ay! Si, Papi, dámelo más duro! Asi mismo! Sigue, Nova! No pares!
”

“I could make you scream like that.” Tino’s voice was low and gravelly, as if he was feeling it like she was feeling it. “You want it?”

“Yes.” She nodded quickly and pulled back to look at him, seeing his dark gaze running over her body, his muscular chest rising and falling with heavy breaths that made him seem primal in a way that had her shifting her hips from the ache between her legs. “I want it.”

Brianna moved to slip her shirt off, but Tino stopped her, pulling it down over her shorts. “We’re keeping ’em on.”

“But how—” Brianna asked, because she could hear what they were doing in the other room.

She could practically
feel it
.

Tino switched their positions and pushed her down against the bed, with her head on the pillow. He ran one hand up her thigh, beneath the fringe of her cutoff shorts, and then slid his palm around to the inside. He forced her legs apart, his gaze on hers as he said, “You’re gonna use me.”

“For what?”

Tino answered by draping himself over her, crushing her into the thin mattress. She wrapped her legs around him on instinct, because he felt so amazing lying there between her thighs, and she wanted to touch him everywhere all at once.

“Like this,” he explained, and when the next hard gasp of pleasure came from the other bedroom, he thrust against her, making Brianna jerk and cry out under him because the ecstasy vibrated through her body like a bolt of electricity. “Good. I wanna hear you.” He leaned down and licked at her neck once more. “Lemme hear you, Bri. Gimme that.”

He pushed his hips against hers again.

And again.

And again.

She touched his back, feeling the scarred muscles under her fingers, but he grabbed her hands and forced them against the bed.

Tino trapped her there and made her feel the pleasure of him moving against her until she wasn’t hearing the moans in the other room anymore. She barely even noticed the scream of release that was cut off suddenly, as if someone had kissed the other woman, keeping the bliss for themself.

She was too busy fighting for her own release, moaning, panting, feeling like she was burning up from the inside out. Her shirt was sticking to her. Her hair was clinging to her sweaty neck, but Tino felt so good. His weight, the chafe of him moving just right, hitting her in a way that forced everything to wind tighter, making her moans louder and more desperate.

“Gimme something nice to think about.” Tino licked her collarbone and thrust against her again. “Make it easier for me, baby.” There was so much unrestrained desperation there, like she could somehow heal Tino just by lying there and feeling him. “You’re beautiful. Do you know how fucking beautiful you are to me?”

She believed him, deeply, in a way she’d never thought to believe a compliment in her life.

So maybe that was why she bowed under him, shuddering with the next hard thrust. Crying out for anyone to hear, but then Tino captured her lips with his, swallowing her pleasure like he wanted to keep it to himself.

It was a kiss like the ones on the train, tongues brushing, open and hungry.

She got so caught up, and the pleasure didn’t stop like she expected it to. It peaked and then built again, making her want it more, and more, and more, and she didn’t think that was how it was supposed to work.

“I need it again. Something beautiful.” Tino panted into her mouth. “Okay?”

She nodded breathlessly. “Okay.”

So she gave it to him again.

And again.

And again.

Until Tino started pushing against her extra hard, extra fast. Then his muscles tightened as he shuddered and cursed in Italian against the curve of her neck.

But they could never seem to stop moving.

Stop needing.

It got soft for a little while. Soft kisses. Soft touches over sweaty, clingy, sticky clothes.

Then it got hard again.

With that dirty train kissing Brianna liked so much.

Thrusting.

Crying out.

It didn’t stop until the early-morning light came in, washing away the ghostly glare from the street lamps. It was just plain light. No life. No personality, and it sort of gave her a headache with all that unoriginality.

So she fell asleep with Tino draped over her to hide from it.

And looked for the ghosts in her dreams.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The ecstasy comedown took longer than Tino expected.

No wonder he sold so much shit.

He was still feeling relatively upbeat despite the lack of sleep when he’d left Brianna passed out on the bottom bunk, still dressed, because he didn’t think there was a drug in existence that would allow him to take her virginity when the two of them were high.

He took a quick shower, knowing he was supposed to be freaking out.

’Cause he was fairly certain he was broken now.

He wanted to crawl into that bunk and stay with Brianna forever. Everything in him needed to shut the door and hide with her. To find a way to escape his life.

Even if he knew it could be so much worse, tasting the other side, seeing what it could be like with someone he liked… It made him think that maybe his life did suck—
epically
—in really terrible and fucked-up ways and some sort of weird coping mechanism had kicked in at some point to let him dismiss it.

Usually he could deal, but this morning, the idea of touching another woman…

Of touching Mary…

He shuddered and just decided not to think about it as he tugged on the clean pair of jeans he brought with him into the bathroom, and then towel dried his hair. He might as well enjoy the ride for as long as it lasted.

He was going to crawl back into his old bunk bed and pretend reality wasn’t ever going to show up, but he walked past the living room and stopped.

Nova was standing there looking over the back of the couch and drinking a cup of coffee. A deep frown was etched into his forehead as he said, “What I can’t figure out is if he just showed up like he smelled an Italiana in heat or if she went out and found him.”