soft. Before I met Irina, I wouldn’t have even thought
about that shit.
I prowled the empty halls looking for her, moving faster
and faster. I was desperate to see her again. She was
the one thing in my life that wasn’t turning to shit.
The Russians were still eating away at my territory,
shaking down bars and restaurants for protection
money. I had Rico paying each place a visit, reassuring
the owners that they were under Baroni protection and
always would be, but people were scared. And the
illegal businesses were suffering too: three different
bookies had been smashed up by Russians with baseball
bats, often with Mikhail himself doing most of the
smashing.
Now they were going after my partners. This morning, it
had been a ring of car thieves we used to steal high-end
rides—they’d suddenly decided they’d be better off
taking Russian money instead of ours. I’d had to swing
by their garage and sweet talk them into coming back.
And I had a feeling worse was to come.
I wanted revenge. I wanted to unleash an army of
enforcers and goddamn hitmen and show the Russians
what happened when they messed with Angelo Baroni.
But once bodies started hitting the floor, the war would
start and there’d be no stopping it. I promised Irina….
And now, on top of the Russian problem, some psycho
had hurt one of my escorts. I’d had no luck tracking
Kirsty’s attacker down, even with the twenty-five grand
reward. Either he was good at hiding or other girls had
had run-ins with him in the past and they were too
scared to talk. My hands tightened into fists. When I get
my hands on that son-of-a-bitch….
The anger made me move faster. I wanted Irina and
the sweet relief she would bring. Soon, I was stalking
down the hallway, crashing through each set of double
doors as I came to them, glancing into each practice
room as I passed and grunting in disapproval as I found
them empty. Where the hell was she? I needed to feel
that silken hair against my fingers, needed to pick her
up and press that sweet body against mine—
I rounded the corner and slammed straight into
someone coming the other way. I got a brief glimpse of
a leather jacket and long, dark hair and then she was
rebounding off me. I was so much bigger than her and
traveling with so much more momentum that I pretty
much just came to a stop, while she went flying
backwards and skidded on her ass on the linoleum.
“Asshole!” spat Rachel. She lay there glaring up at me
for a second.
I started forward and offered her my hand, but she
waved it away. She rolled back on her shoulders, long
legs flexing under her jeans, and then sprang up onto
her feet like a bad-tempered ninja. “You’re the one from
the park. The one dating Irina. Angelo, right?”
I wasn’t sure how much Irina had told her. “Right.
Sorry.”
She narrowed her eyes and moved closer. “Irina said
you were a banker. You don’t look like a banker. You
dress like a banker, but you don’t look like one.”
“You meet a lot of bankers?” I leaned in a little, looming
over her. That usually scares people into shutting up.
But it didn’t work with her. Her eyes had gotten big: she
was afraid, but something stronger was winning out.
She reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who.
“You don’t sound like a banker, either,” she said.
She had me there. I still talked like a blue-collar kid
from Brooklyn. Couldn’t change it and wouldn’t want to
if I could.
She tilted her head to one side. “You know who you do
remind me of? Those guys that come around to our
house to see Irina. Her uncle and his friend.”
Why did people keep comparing me to them? “I’m not
Russian.”
“Yeah. Thanks. I figured that out. But what are you?”
She crossed her arms. “What do you really do, Angelo?”
I suddenly realized who she reminded me of: Rico. That
same iron-hard loyalty. I’d never seen it in women
before. Either I never met a woman’s friends because it
was a one night stand, or their “friends” were back-
biting bitches competing for my attention. With Irina
and Rachel, it was different. I straightened up and tried
not to loom so much. “I’m not going to hurt her,” I said
in a softer tone.
“You’re goddamn straight, you’re not,” said Rachel. A
lock of dark hair had fallen over her face and she blew it
out of the way. She stared at me for another few
seconds, arms still crossed, and then said, “She really
likes you. Irina doesn’t do happy. She’s too freakin’
Russian. But I can tell when she’s thinking about you
because she smiles. She deserves to smile more.”
I nodded.
Rachel leaned in close. “I heard the two of you on the
phone. Well, her end of it. Anyone who makes a girl
make those noises can’t be all bad.”
Our eyes locked. Damn, she was fiery and sexy as hell.
I only had eyes for Irina, but some guy was going to
need a reinforced bed.
“I don’t care who you are,” Rachel told me. “Break her
heart and I’ll kick your ass.”
Before I could answer, she was off down the hallway.
“She’s in the last room on your right,” she called over
her shoulder.
I didn’t need telling twice. I raced to the end of the
hallway, grabbed the door handle...and stopped.
Irina was alone in the huge, wood-floored dance studio,
balanced on one leg with her arms overhead. She was
facing the windows and the setting sun painted the front
of her body with reds and oranges: her platinum-blonde
hair gleamed like liquid copper, her white leotard turned
to polished brass. Her back was icy perfection, the Lycra
stretched tight over the sensuous arch of her spine and
the firm curves of her ass. My ice maiden, half
consumed by fire.
I was desperate to get in there. I needed to kiss her,
touch her, fuck her...but she was so perfect, standing
balanced there, that interrupting her would have been
like taking a sledgehammer to a priceless statue. If
someone had told me, a week before, that I’d stand
there and watch a woman instead of muscling straight
in there, I’d have called them crazy. But then I’d never
met anyone like Irina.
She slowly came out of the pose, her arms and legs
descending as gracefully as ribbons drifting on the
breeze. She turned and our eyes met.
Enough goddamn watching.
I threw open the door and strode across the room. I
had her face between my palms before she could speak,
my lips spreading her open so that I could plunge deep
and—Jesus! Kissing her felt so good, all my anger and
frustration evaporating in an instant. I didn’t care about
the Russians or territory or anything else. I just wanted
to keep feeling those silk-soft lips against mine. The
very tip of her quick, pink tongue brushed mine and I
felt it all the way down to my toes.
I needed this woman. I wanted to fall into this woman
and never surface. She bathed away my sins, freed me
of my troubles. And all the time, the lust that had been
building in me for days was burning hotter and hotter,
demanding that I melt away all that icy self-control and
make her scream my name.
I laid my hands on the back of her head, just under the
tight bun of hair, and drew them very slowly down her
neck. I broke the kiss because I wanted to hear the
noise she made. At first, it was a slow pant, her mouth