Page 52 of The Mad Don
He pulls back enough to look at me.
His mouth is wet. So is mine. I can taste blood. I can taste him.
He smiles.
That dangerous, half-lidded smile that makes my stomach tighten even as my mind screams at me to move. Before I can, he reaches back with one hand and pulls his shirt the rest of the way off. The fabric slides off his shoulders and drops to the floor.
God.
His body is carved from muscle under olive skin with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist; traces of scars cover him everywhere. The snake tattoo coils across the scarred chest, the head resting just below his collarbone, its unblinking eye staring straight at me. More ink decorates his ribs and disappears beneath his black pants, intricate lines that shift with every breath.
I swallow hard.
He steps in again, crowding me against the desk, and grabs my face with one large hand, fingers digging into my jaw. His eyes lock onto mine, black and burning.
“One day, I’m going to fuck you so hard,Lupa,” he says, voice low and rough, “that you forget how to scheme for Kirill. The only name in that pretty head will be mine. Giovanni, over and over until you can’t think of anything else.”
I shove at his chest, palms flat against warm skin and hard muscle, but he doesn’t budge. He catches my wrists, pins them behind my back with one hand, and kisses me again. His mouth is ruthless. His tongue forces its way past my lips, stroking deep, tasting me like he already owns me. I feel hostage to it, to the solid wall of his body pressing me down. My will to fight drains away just like last night, replaced by treacherous heat flooding my veins. My mouth softens under his, and my lips part wider. I hate how easily he does this to me.
He pulls away and looks down at me with a grin. “Kirill doesn’t shut you up like this, does he?” he murmurs, smug even while wrecked.
I try to push him off and sit up, but he catches me easily and pulls me back down against him, tucking my head under his chin.
“Be a good girl,” he says.
I should shove him away. I should hate the way he’s holding me. But more than I want to push him off… I like him being there.The solid heat of his body, the steady thump of his heart against my cheek.
What is wrong with me?
Chapter Thirteen
Yana
The car pulls up to the gallery, and Giorgio gets out first. I step out beside him, and I take a moment to look at him while he straightens his jacket and fumbles with the button. The suit is two sizes too big across the shoulders. His head is tipped slightly down. His glasses are thick. His whole body has folded itself back into the apologetic curve I first saw at Annika’s show.
I watch him, and I think about how easily I was fooled.
For the length of one evening, I looked at this, and I saw a nervous collector’s son. I saw a coward in a suit that didn’t fit. I felt the wrongness underneath, but I let it be a question instead of an answer, and that one evening of doubt is the only thing that separates me from every other person in that gallery who looked at Giorgio Ferrante and saw exactly what he wanted them to see.
The loser’s slouch. The oversized jacket. The thick glasses. All of it was built to hide the calculation in his eyes. The eyes donot match the body. They never did. I am the only one in this building who knows it.
I am his consultant tonight. We go in.
The gallery is bright and full. Giorgio shuffles half a step behind me, nervous, and I do the work he told me to do in the car. I shake hands. I make introductions. I tell people that Mr. Ferrante is here on behalf of his father’s collection and that we are very interested in the early modern Italian pieces, and people warm to me the way people warm to anyone who is calm and certain and seems to know which fork to use.
I am halfway through a conversation with a dealer from Geneva when I see Max.
He is coming toward me. He does not look at Giorgio. He does not acknowledge him at all. He touches my elbow and steers me a few steps away from the dealer into the gap between two display walls.
“Yana. What is happening?”
“Max.”
“Annika told me she’s not working with Giorgio anymore. Just stopped. Won’t take his calls, won’t sell to him, won’t tell me why.” His eyes search my face. “And now, you’re here. With him? What is going on?”
I look at him.
Annika did not tell him about Giorgio being Giovanni. I keep my voice low.
