Chapter 6

Chiara

“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I got scared and I thought I should go out and--”

“You mean you want to intrude,” the man interrupts, his voice low and raspy. “I do not take kindly to intrusions, Chiara.”

“I really don’t know what’s happening here.” I swallow hard and shake my head. “I heard noises and they woke me up. I was so scared.”

There’s a pause in the air. A very charged one, almost like I said something that I shouldn’t have. I clamp my lips together, not realizing how much I’m shaking until I take a step back.

But as though to make things worse for me, he takes a step forward to erase the distance I tried to put between us.

“Noises, you say?” he asks. “What noises? Tell me.”

“Howls,” I whisper. “Growls and roars. From monsters.”

“Monsters,” he repeats, then he lets out a low, rumbling laugh. “How did you know there were many of them? What if . . . there’s just one?”

I open my mouth to answer, but the man suddenly lunges toward me. A shrill scream escapes my lips and rings inside the hallway, echoing across the empty spaces. A dry sob makes my chest rise up and down as I look up at him.

Because of the moonlight slanting from the big windows, I can see the faint outline of his nose and his lips. The high planes of his body are also emphasized, giving me a silhouette of a very attractive man. Maybe even beautiful in a way, like a Roman statue of a god.

The only problem is that his eyes are much too bright in the darkness, much too intense for a god, and much too cold for a normal human.

My senses are tingling. There’s something wrong with him. I thought it was just my fear dictating my thoughts at first, but now I can say for sure that he can’t be normal. There’s just no way.

And now his eyes are the only thing I can see, because he closes the distance between us and I have nowhere to go.

I press myself harder against the wall, wishing it can absorb me. “Please, I really didn’t mean to get out. I was just scared.”

“I know you are,” he whispers. “I can smell your fear.”

I swallow hard, closing my eyes briefly as I feel his warm breath on my face. I try to swerve to the side and maybe run, but then he blocks me with his hand and cages me in his arms in one go.

His body is pressing on me, pinning me against the wall. His warm skin seems to be searing through the fabric of my clothes, his muscles firm and strong. There’s a certain scent emanating from him, something I don't expect to smell from anywhere in Sicily. Woodsy and musky, cool and fresh, like a forest in winter. A blast of freezing air. His body is feverishly warm in comparison, and as he puts his entire weight on me, I realize something.

He’s naked.

A small cry comes out of my mouth, but I don’t think it’s from fear.

I feel the familiar searing warmth between my legs, and I shut my eyes, willing it to go away. But it doesn’t. It only gets worse when I feel something hard bumping into me.

“Please,” I beg him, not daring to open my eyes. “I-I will do anything. Just let me go. Please.”

The man just clucks his tongue. “Turn around, Chiara.”

“Please,” I say again, but this time I don’t get to say anything more because he grabs my shoulder and turns me around, my face merely an inch away from the wall.

With that, he gently bunches my hair in his hand, tugging softly to angle my head so he can whisper in my ear, “I’ll give you a chance to go back to your room. But if I catch you, you have to do something for me.”

He brushes his lips on my ear and I nearly collapse, but then he starts to count.

“One.”

I don’t know what he wants to do to me, and even in my messy state, I don’t think I want to find out. He steps back from me to allow me some space, and I take this as my chance to run as fast as I can away from him before he can count to two.

* * *

When I reach my room, my heart is pounding seemingly everywhere. My chest, my head, my ears, and annoyingly, even between my legs.

“What the fuck, Chiara,” I scold myself, burying my face in the pillow and letting out a muffled scream.

What in the blazing hell was that all about?

He’s a mafia boss, so that makes him a murderer. He literally kept me captive here. Sure, he tried to spare me, but who’s to say he won’t do anything worse than straight up just shooting me in the head?

Not to mention that the man may quite literally be something inhuman.

So why did I feel so hot and bothered because of him?

I turn around to stare at the ceiling, trying hard not to remember where the moonlight hit his body and what I felt pressing against me.  Breathing hard to get the unholy feelings out, I slowly drift off to deep sleep. . . .

At first there’s just darkness. I find myself surrounded by it, and I’m just walking around aimlessly with no idea where I am.

But then, I see something surfacing.

Bright amber eyes.

I flinch in my dreams, and it feels so real. I try to step back and will the dream to change, but then colors and shapes start to form until I find myself back in the hallway.

And the man is standing in front of me.

Gasping, I try to run, but I’m petrified in my spot like I was in real life. He comes closer to me, his body hidden in shadow, his eyes the only prominent thing about him. My nose gets filled with that cold fresh scent, then in a flash, I find myself pressed against the wall with my back turned to him.

“I told you I would count to three and give you a chance to run away from me.” His breath is warm against my ear. “But I caught you. You let me catch you, didn’t you, Chiara?”

He trails a fingertip from my jaw to the curve of my neck, his lips touching my ear ever so lightly and sending shivers down my spine. I clamp my thighs together to stop the warmth from spreading, but I still end up feeling that familiar wetness between my legs.

I gasp. “Please.”

“That’s right, beg.” He laughs and raises his hands, grabbing my waist and trailing them up slowly, until his thumbs are brushing the swell of my breasts. “Because now I will make you do something for me.”