The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (50 page)

Tino was a hired killer.

A former prostitute.

With family ties bloody enough to make any woman with an ounce of self-preservation run the other way.

Not that Brianna’s self-preservation was all that great. It sucked balls if Tino was being honest. Her sensors were completely fucked-up thanks to the Morettis, but Tino cared about her enough to know touching her was a bad idea for both of them.

He needed her too badly, and enforcers weren’t supposed to have weaknesses like that.

Nova would freak the fuck out if Tino got tangled up with Brianna, considering the last time Tino got involved with her; the breakup sent him in a downward spiral that landed him in the Savios’ basement.

Still, he felt like he was going out of his fucking mind.

He wanted to see the look on her face. He wanted to catch her staring and see her cheeks go pink.

Her innocence was compelling to him, like forbidden fruit he wanted to bite into, and the tease had officially pushed him over the edge.

So he opened his eyes.

BRIANNA STEPPED BACK when she saw Tino staring at her.

Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment.

She glanced away from Tino still spread out on the couch, thighs apart, cock straining against his jeans, with his washboard abs, broad chest, and thick biceps all on display. His full lips were illuminated in the moonlight from the glass windows showing off the six-million-dollar Midtown view Moretti money afforded Carina.

He was a fantasy come to life, and she would have to be dead not to look, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t mortified to be caught. “Y-you were talking in your sleep,” she lied. “I was checking to see if you were okay.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

His voice had a rough edge to it that gave Brianna goose bumps. Still she avoided looking at him as she argued, “You made a sound. You were dreaming.”

Tino quirked an eyebrow at her. “I knew you were watching.”

“Oh.” She closed her eyes when she realized that low groan and the arch of his hips were for her benefit. “You wanted to embarrass me. You succeeded. So congratulations.” She didn’t know if she was angrier with Tino or herself. “I’m going back to bed.”

She turned to leave, but he called out, “I’ll let you watch. If that’s your thing…I’ll do it.”

Brianna turned back to him with wide eyes, because she really couldn’t believe he meant what it sounded like he meant.

Who would do that?

Tino stared at her, unblinking, bedroom eyes hooded and dark in the moonlight. “Is it your thing?”

“Is what my thing?” Her voice was raspy with fear and desire. Her heartbeat was thundering, and the ache between her thighs was overwhelming. “Watch what, exactly?”

“Watch me jerk off thinking about you,” he said without even flinching. Then he cupped himself through his jeans like he had before when she thought he was sleeping, and arched his hips up. “Want it?”

She felt hypnotized by him and the raw sexuality that was choking the air out of the living room. She nodded silently, her gaze on his hand and the way he grabbed himself.

“Yeah,” she said, not sure if she shocked him more or herself when she admitted, “I want it.”

He raised his eyebrows skeptically, making it obvious she surprised him, but he pulled at the button to his jeans anyway. “You sure?”

Brianna looked to the opened fly, the zipper sliding down from the strain of his cock pressing against it. She nodded again. “I’m sure.”

Maybe she just wanted to know she could meet him halfway.

There was such a hard, deadly air to Tino now. Life made him feral, and no matter how beautiful he was, touching him now was dangerous, but she still wanted it…desperately.

He forced the zipper the rest of the way down, still watching her intently, making Brianna very aware of the spaghetti-strap nightgown she wore. The way his gaze ran over her body had her realizing the city lights behind her caused the thin blue material to be see-through. He stopped and stared at the V of her nightgown, unapologetically eyeing her tits.

“Scared?”

Brianna’s nipples had tightened, and Tino noticed because he missed nothing. She folded her arms over her chest and shifted where she stood.

“Yes. A little,” she admitted and looked toward the closed door to Carina’s room. “Aren’t you?”

“Nope.” Tino pushed his jeans down to prove his point, exposing a pair of tight blue designer briefs that made him look like an underwear model.

Brianna knew he was big, but seeing the way his cock filled out those briefs, curving to the left and nearly pushing past the waistband, had her gripping at her grandmother’s cross around her neck simply because she needed to do something with her hands.

He actually went so far as to kick off his jeans and push the blanket to the floor, leaving himself vulnerable to Carina or Paco walking out. More so, putting himself on display for Brianna, and she couldn’t help but ask, “Aren’t you embarrassed?”

He cupped himself again. “Do I look like I have something to be embarrassed about?”

“No.” Brianna shook her head. “It’s just something so”—she shrugged—“intimate. Private. I think it’d be hard to let someone watch.”

“Are you joking?” Tino raised his eyebrows again. “Lola told me you were there when she sold me out to Nova.” He narrowed his gaze at her. “I know you know.”

Brianna shifted uncomfortably again, because they never talked about his past or what she knew about it. “She was discreet. She didn’t give us details.”

“Now I’m giving you details.” He stroked himself through his underwear, from the base up, forcing her to see how thick he was even if it was still hidden. “You wanna see why they paid so much? You want me to sell it?”

“Maybe this isn’t healthy for you.” She nearly choked as she said it, but she couldn’t ignore it. As taboo as this all felt to her, it hit her all of a sudden that this was sex to Tino. It was the only way he knew how to do it. “You don’t have to sell it. I’m already sold, Tino.”

“Oh yeah?” He completely ignored everything else. “How are you gonna pay me for it?”

“What do you want?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Do you get yourself off?” His voice caught, like just saying it did something to him. “You’re fucking ripe. No boyfriend. You gotta get yourself off.”

She gasped, not just at his words, but the way he pushed his underwear down, forcing his cock to spring free. It was cut, smooth, with very little hair at the base. When he fisted it, the head flared, and seeing Tino’s hand wrapped around it just made it seem bigger.

She grabbed her grandmother’s cross again, sliding it along the chain to keep herself from reaching out and touching him. A white-hot sheen of lust washed over her, and she had to bite her lip to catch the moan that wanted to slip out.

“Tell me, Brianna. You’re supposed to be paying for it.” Tino’s voice was hard again, demanding. “That’s how this works.”

Honestly, for a long second, Brianna didn’t remember what he was talking about, but then he stroked himself, and the surge of desire made her so wet with need it was impossible to forget.

“Yes,” she admitted, wanting to do it right now, because she didn’t think she’d ever been more sexually pent-up than she was at the moment. “I, um…” She shrugged again. “I get myself off.”

“How often?” He was staring at her, as if he expected a lie and planned to call her on it.

Brianna decided against lying. “A couple times a day.”

Tino turned his head and moaned, showing off the strong-corded muscles of his neck as he moved his hand up the thick line of his dick. He rubbed his thumb over the head, making it shiny and slick.

He looked gorgeous, wearing moonlight, with the glimmer of the city casting shadows over the living room. This wasn’t an act Brianna had considered particularly sexy before now. She’d never fantasized about Tino jerking off, but there was something so raw about his pleasure, so exposed and honest.

Life had been unbelievably cruel to him, and seeing it did something to Brianna. Something deeper than the blinding thrill that came from watching him do this for her, perform for her; it was deeper than that. If hearing one little, forbidden confession of hers made him that hot, she wanted to tell him anything he wanted to hear.

“Sometimes, at night, if I know everyone’s sleeping, I get naked. Just strip down to nothing, and I do it all night.” Brianna’s voice was breathy as she admitted it, and it had her cheeks hot because it was an extremely private thing to confess, but seeing the way Tino’s hand moved faster, with strong, firm strokes made her want to lay herself completely bare to him. “I do it for hours. Until I’m sweaty and exhausted, and I know I should go to sleep, but I always end up doing it one more time and another until I’m sore the next day.”

“Cazzo.” Tino grunted and looked back to her. His eyes were so dilated with passion they looked near black. “Tell me how you do it? Do you use something or—”

“No, just my fingers.”

“On your back?” Tino was stroking it again, making the head of his cock flare once more as he fisted it tightly. “All spread out on the bed.”

She thought of lying, of feeding the fantasy he was painting for himself, but the whole point of this was payment, of making herself vulnerable so they could be equals. It somehow felt like less of a sin if she was putting herself out there too.

“No, I, uh—” For the first time she thought of looking away, but she stared at him instead, the lines of his abdominal muscles, the sprinkling of hair on his powerful thighs. “I do it differently. On my hands and knees, with my face in the pillow so no one hears me moaning. I just reach between my legs and—”

“Fuck, baby.” Tino arched his hips again, and this time Brianna knew it wasn’t an act. The lust and need pulsing off him were so strong they were almost choking the air out of the room. She could see the first gleam of sweat on his tanned chest. “Why do you like it like that?”

She shook her head frantically. “I dunno,” she said honestly. “I just do.”

His gaze ran over her again for one hot moment before he asked, “Who do you think about?”

“You know I think about you.” She slid her cross along the chain again. “It’s always been you. Since I first started doing it. I wouldn’t even know how to come without you there.”

Tino was silent after her confession, but his hand was still moving up and down his dick. His muscular chest rose and fell as his breathing became harsh. Brianna could see a fine sheen of sweat on his tanned skin now, reminding her of that fateful ride on the train, when she leaned over and licked him to taste the adrenaline and desire.

Then he broke the quiet spell of harsh breathing and rhythmic slap of his hand on his cock by asking, “Do you want me from behind? Is that what you think about? Me over you, pushing you against the bed, grabbing your hip, fisting your hair, and fucking you dirty. You finger yourself fantasizing about me owning you. Claiming you. Like an animal. Is that what you want, baby?”

“Yes,” Brianna gasped, a shiver of pleasure running over her all the way to her core. She didn’t even think about it before she answered; she just did it because that was exactly what she thought about. “Every time.”

Tino’s eyes flew open, wide and stunned.

Brianna realized he’d been trying to scare her.

With every stroke, he was upping the ante, trying to get to the place where Brianna would run away.

Who, exactly, did Tino think he was dealing with?

“I know who you are,” she said in answer to his unspoken question. “I know what you are, and I know what you do.”

“You have no idea what I do, Brianna.” Tino’s voice got dark all of a sudden, dangerous, making a different sort of thrill roll down her spine. “I would never let you know what I do.
Never.
”

Brianna shifted again, hearing a thousand dark confessions, things that would probably give her nightmares, but she knew enough about Cosa Nostra to say, “And I’d never ask.”

It was the right answer.

She knew it was.

Women didn’t ask questions, not in this life when knowing was dangerous for everyone. The organization was sexist, there was no arguing it, but this wasn’t about that. It was about protection and making sure the government would never have a reason to use Brianna against him.

It was about keeping what they had together safe.

No matter what.

“Enforcers don’t have wives,” Tino reminded her. “They have
comares
. Is that what you want?”

She couldn’t look at him for so many reasons. She didn’t want to wince, knowing his mother had been a comare—a mafia mistress—but Brianna grew up around too many Cosa Nostra kids not to feel the sting. It sounded like such a foul word to her. It brought to mind desperate women who would do absolutely anything to please their sponsors. The dirty women bad-mouthed by all those mafia brats who were angry on their mothers’ behalf, because every wiseguy had one. Yet she knew most of the boys from her graduating class were already guilty of the same sin, even while they dated the good girls from the right families.

Half the time their fathers pointed them in the right direction. It wasn’t just accepted; it was expected. They would never treat their wives like that, so they had girlfriends to fuck dirty, and they started young.

She didn’t want to be that woman, but she would.

For Tino, she would, and the confession must have shown when she looked back to him.

“Diavolo,” Tino cursed, and she could actually see the desire and horror war with themselves on his face. He shook his head slowly, glancing once more to the V of her nightgown. “No.”

“Yes.” Brianna pushed at one strap of her nightgown, simply because he couldn’t seem to look away. She wanted to be equal with him, naked and exposed, so she pushed at the other strap and admitted, “I’d be a comare for you,” as her nightgown fell to the floor.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tino whispered even as he got on his knees.

He leaned against the couch and slid his hands to her bare back. Then he bent down and sucked one pebble-hard pink nipple into his mouth. She cried out, partly out of shock, mostly from the adrenaline shot of lust.