Page 1 of Professional Liar
One
Pierce
Italian mafia princessesdon’t make house calls. Not with our history. Not to a rival family’s heir. Not dressed like a stripper without a birthday cake. The rain had darkened her slinky-tight dress from blood-red to wine. Water slid down the side of her neck and pooled in the depression at her throat. A throat I’d traced with my teeth so, so, so many times.
Her soaked skin threatened my resolve. But every time she stood at my door, I ended up gutted.
Water dripped onto the black marble of my entryway. We both ignored it.
“Baby girl, don’t you know it’s rude to drop by unannounced?” I braced my arms on the doorframe, not inviting her inside. Something must have popped loose in hell to bring her here.
She didn’t answer. But she took in my inked chest, St. Patrick medallion, and baggy sleep pants. I fought to keep my face neutral.
“Did you get a new tattoo?” Her voice reached into me, sleepy, low, seductive. Despite its softness, it shattered the foundations of indifference I’d only recently thought set. She eyed the exact spot where a newer tattoo covered the letters K-A-T. The letters a dumber, younger, Pierce thought spelled his future.
“No.” She’d seen the new one at least fifteen times since I erased her name from my life. Every time she asked about it since had to be to screw with me.
She traced the edges of ink on my bicep. I ignored the tingle inspired by her fingertips.
Once upon a time, I might have fallen into her trap. “What did you do with Rico and Sam?”
She raised a shoulder like she couldn’t give a shit. “I left your bodyguards outside with their knitting.”
Despite trying to play it cool, she still got to me. I refused to acknowledge the hard-on tenting my pants. Faced with five and a half feet of almost naked, soaking wet, woman affected me. No matter how much history lay dead between us.
Her gaze dipped low, and her lips curled seductively into an all too familiar I-want-something-and-I-deserve-it smile. “You want me. Let me in.”
“My wanting you has never been a secret. If you consider my hard-on a victory, you set sub-par standards.”
She cocked a hip and smiled. “What’s that saying about battles and wars? This is simply the battle, and you’re too arrogant to concede what your body already knows.”
“If you don’t leave now, I’ll have my boys carry you back to your car. If you knee them in the balls, they won’t be gentle.”
“Pierce, all I need is five minutes.” She squeezed some of the water from her brown hair over one shoulder. It dripped into her cleavage. Even the elements were on her side.
Eighteen-year-old Pierce wouldn’t have hesitated to give in. Thirty-year-old Pierce knew better.
“Baby Girl, that act won’t work anymore. A man only needs to be burned once to know he should stay the fuck away from the fire.”
Her mask fell away. I stared down into her eyes, waiting for whatever lie she’d spin. “Five minutes. Then I’ll leave.”
“Five minutes of my time costs a lot more than it used to.” I licked my lips and swept my gaze over every wet inch of her body. “How are you willing to pay?”
She didn’t blink. She slapped her manicured hand against my chest and shoved me through the doorway.
This woman wielded her beauty like a blade. The strategic slice of her cheekbones. The purposeful plunge of her cleavage. Hell, even the pout I watched her perfect punctured my internal organs.
The crew christened Kat, the shrew. And I’d fallen into her snare.
She backed me to the black couch in the middle of the living room. I held my hands up in fake surrender as she scrambled to straddle my lap. No grace or glamour in her now. More Mickey Mouse than Marilyn Monroe.
She shifted her weight on either knee and dragged her dress up around her hips. Letting her in was a bad idea. The willing woman on my lap posed more danger than I let myself believe. There were lines I wouldn’t be able to claw my way back across.
I rested my arms on the top of the couch and focused on staying still. “Baby, I like a woman on my lap, and if you came here to fuck, I’m game. But if you want something, spit it out.” The soft floral scent of her skin grated my composure with her every breath.
Her eyes flashed to mine, and I caught something there. For less than a second, she looked…vulnerable.
“I need your help.”
