Chapter 28: Just for Tonight

HAYLEY

“Just get it over with.”

She’d heard him come in, had peeked at him as he removed his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves, had faked being asleep when he sat on the bed. And she could hear him toying with the blade she’d put on the bedside table.

She opened her eyes. “Just kill me already.”

Her heart was pounding.

He shook his head and put her knife back down. “I wouldn’t kill you like that.”

She sat up with her back against the headboard, noticing the gun holsters under his arms.

“I would make sure you were awake,” he explained as he stood up and stepped away from the bed.

“I’m awake now.” She slipped out of his comfy king-size bed and noticed his eyes drop to the hem of the shirt she was wearing, to the tops of her thighs.

“I’m not going to kill you. Unless you piss me off, Hayley, which you seem to find easy to do.” He removed the holsters and placed them on the dresser.

Hayley put her hands on her hips and scowled at him. The man was incredibly irritating. “You do things to make me piss you off. How dare you lock me in here!”

Instead of replying, he walked over to the little table in the corner that had a decanter and crystal tumblers on it. “Drink?” he offered as he removed the stopper from the decanter.

She shook her head. She needed her wits about her around this man.

He shrugged, then poured himself a glass and threw it back.

“You locked me in. That was unnecessary and dangerous. What if there had been a fire? Or what if I had fainted or—”

“Hayley.”

She glared at him for interrupting her.

“You couldn’t have been safer. This room, along with all my rooms, has CCTV, and Nic was always watching.”

Her mouth fell open as she thought about the night she’d slept with Luca—could someone have been watching them then? She felt her cheeks turn red.

“Don’t worry, the footage is only for security. My men don’t watch it unless there’s a security risk. Us fucking doesn’t constitute a risk.”

She turned her nose up at his choice of words. How could he be so cold about what they did?

“Don’t mention that, Luca. It’s something I’d rather forget.”

But she was lying, of course. She didn’t really want to forget the night she’d let herself go, the night she’d allowed Luca to conquer her.

“Whatever,” he muttered, and she watched as he took another drink. “We have to talk about what happened.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “You killed a man. What is there to talk about?”

She was still hurt by how casually he’d used the term ~fucking~ in reference to their night together. And how he didn’t seem to care that she wanted to forget it. He was a pig.

“Hayley,” he said, sounding like he was losing patience. “I need you to tell me ~everything~ about what you heard.”

Hayley swallowed hard and nodded.

“What did Artem say on the phone?”

She tried to remember what seemed a lifetime ago, when in fact it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.

“He said something about meeting the boss, that they don’t suspect a thing…then something about killing the boss and owing someone his life.”

Luca nodded slowly as he walked closer, his deep chocolate eyes boring into hers.

“Did Artem speak English?” he asked.

Hayley’s heart raced. She couldn’t say yes—because if she did, it would raise questions, questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

A normal English girl wouldn’t know Russian. French, yes, but Russian? They don’t even teach it in schools. Unless you request it like her father had.

“Yes,” she whispered. It wasn’t a lie. Artem did speak English.

Luca nodded firmly. “That’s all I need to know.”

LUCA

He walked past Hayley, picking up his guns on the way to the chair. He’d finish Thomas off himself.

“What? Why?” she asked, watching him put on his holsters and pick up his tie.

“I have a traitor, a man who was meant to be watching Artem.” Luca rolled down his sleeves and fastened the buttons on the cuffs. “He missed the fucking call.”

He huffed as he put on his jacket. “Or he chose to ignore it. If you heard it, he should have too. He lied to me, saying Artem made the call in fucking Russian.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked in a panicky voice as he reached the door.

He stopped and exhaled violently. She wouldn’t like the truth. Only people like him would understand what he did.

“All traitors must die. I could have been killed. You could have been killed.”

Her face went pale, and she looked like she was going to faint.

Too bad. The guy deserved to die. He’d explain all this to her later, but right now, he had to get rid of Thomas. Luca pulled open the door.

“He did!”

Luca turned to look at the beautiful girl wearing his shirt.

“Artem did make the call in Russian.”

Luca quietly shut the door behind him, but kept his trained eyes on her.

She took a deep breath. “I speak Russian. You can check with Dimitri if you don’t believe me.”

He felt the anger draining from his body.

“I’m sorry! I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t want to talk about it. My dad’s mother was Russian, and my dad made me learn the language. You see, she couldn’t speak English well, and he sent me to a private school.

“I learned German, French, Russian, and Spanish. I could have been an interpreter…”

But Luca wasn’t really listening anymore. All he could think about was Thomas and how close he’d come to killing him. He pulled out his mobile and messaged Frankie.

Luca

Thomas was telling the truth, give him some cash and my apologies.

He placed the phone back in his jacket pocket, then removed the jacket and placed it on the chair along with his tie.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as he removed his holsters and placed them on the dresser once again. “I hate discussing my family.”

He took a deep breath and turned to face her.

“Your family is Russian?”

HAYLEY

She shook her head. She couldn’t tell him who her father was. No one could know—he could find her. She shuddered at the idea.

“Just my grandmother,” she said simply.

Luca walked closer to her.

“I want to know more about you, Hayley,” he said, cupping her chin and drawing her closer for a kiss, but she pulled away.

“You can’t treat me this way, Luca!” she said fiercely. “You told me there was nothing between us. You pushed me away. Yet you say things like you want to get to know me…you call me ~baby~.”

He dropped his head and stepped back from her.

She turned to walk out, not caring that she was just in his shirt and had nothing on underneath. “I’m leaving, Luca.”

“Hayley, wait.”

His voice was soft yet firm, and it made her heart stop. She turned to face the man she couldn’t stop thinking about.

“I push you away to protect you,” he said. “To keep you safe.”

“I’m not yours to protect.”

He shrugged. “I can’t do love.”

“I never asked you to love me, Luca.”

Although deep down she wanted him to scoop her into his arms and tell her he felt something for her, she knew that wouldn’t happen. Yet, she couldn’t help but cling to the littlest bit of hope.

“But I know it’s what you want, Hayley. You want a hero.” He moved a couple of steps closer to her. “You don’t trust men. You don’t trust anyone. The man who hurt you—what happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Luca.”

He took her shoulders gently. “Like I said, cara mia, I want to know things about you.”

“Why?” She shook her head. “I’m just another girl to you.”

“You’re not just another girl, Hayley.” He lifted one hand and gently touched her cheek. “You have something more about you, and I hate the idea of any man hurting you. Please tell me what happened.”

She pulled away from him and sat on the edge of his bed. He followed and sat next to her.

“You really want to know?” She found it hard to believe the boss of the infamous Marcello family was interested in her life.

He nodded.

“Okay.” She took a shaky breath. “I was in a relationship. He was a few years older than me. I was just eighteen when we first met, nineteen when we split.”

She’d hadn’t spoken to anyone about Alex Hunter since Siobhan took her in, and now she was telling Luca Marcello—it was painful.

“We were drunk. We had just been to a party. He was rough, but he liked it rough. But then things got out of hand.”

Luca placed a hand gently on her thigh, and she smiled weakly at him before continuing.

“It started to hurt. I told him this, but he was drunk and I was drunk. It was over soon enough. He finished up and that was that.” She swallowed back her tears.

Alex was a dominant. Their relationship had been focused around BDSM, but he’d broken her trust. She still remembered the sounds of the riding crop on her arse.

And she still remembered the morning after, when he told her it was over—the heartache when she couldn’t find him, the realization he was never coming back.

LUCA

“He raped you,” Luca spat out, and his mind flashed back to the little shit he’d taken care of, the one that had tried to hurt her in his club. He remembered her saying she wouldn’t be a victim again.

She shook her head. “He hurt me, but I consented to sex,” she explained.

Luca didn’t want to push—he could see the pain behind her beautiful eyes—but he also wanted to ask about what the guy did, find out his name, send his men to track him down.

He knew girlfriends often didn’t see the assault for what it was—but he couldn’t imagine any boyfriend hurting his woman like that.

Luca got up and walked to the dresser, removing his watch. He also took off his shoes and socks.

He looked over at Hayley as he began to unbutton his shirt, revealing his ink.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He folded his shirt over the chair and unbuttoned his dress pants. “We’re going to bed. It’s late.”

Her eyes widened.

“Don’t worry, all PG,” he said, slipping off his pants and draping them next to his shirt.

He walked around the bed in his boxer briefs and got in, with Hayley still perched on the end.

“Together?” she asked, and he chuckled.

“We’re grown adults, Hayley.”

She gave him a stern look.

“Look, you can either stay up all night or come to bed. In the morning, I’ll take you home, or wherever. Just come to bed.”

She bit her lip, then scooted along the bed and got in beside him. She was facing him, and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

“I’ve never told anyone about him before,” she whispered. She looked down at his naked torso and touched his gun and dog tags tattoo.

“‘Niccolo Marcello’ and ‘Franco Altera,’” she read aloud off the tags, then looked back up at him. “Why do I throw away all sense with you?”

He slid his hand up the outside of her thigh. “I have the same problem,” he confessed.

She was like a siren—he couldn’t resist her call. He moved his hand to her hip, pulled her closer to him, and kissed her. And this time, she let him.

He pulled away a little. “Tell me you want this.”

“For tonight?” She exhaled a long breath. “Yes.”

He tugged on the collar of the shirt she was wearing, giving him access to the soft skin on her neck, while his other hand slipped under the hem and discovered she wasn’t wearing any panties.

He began to tease her sensitive clit, and she started to moan.

“You’re so wet, baby,” he murmured into her neck before claiming her lips. God, she was incredible—he had never wanted a woman so badly.

He felt her hand through the thin material of his boxer briefs, and she began to rub him. He was so hard for her.

He moved so he was on top and she was under him, unbuttoning the shirt she wore, exposing her breasts.

She thrashed and moaned as his tongue swirled over one nipple while his fingers made sure the other wasn’t left out—then he traced kisses down her soft skin until he found her center. He pushed her thighs apart.

She was exposed and entirely at his mercy.

Her back arched at the touch of his tongue, and he pushed her hips down and continued to lap her pussy and suck her clit.

“Fuck, Luca!” she moaned, and his cock twitched at his name on her lips. He growled and nipped at her clit before plunging two fingers into her tight pussy. That was her undoing, and she cried out his name as she came.

He gave her a second to breathe as he quickly removed his boxer briefs and grabbed a condom from the bedside table. While he was on his knees rolling it on, Hayley pulled herself up and began to kiss him.

She climbed on top of him and began to slide herself onto his hard cock.

“Hayley, baby…” he moaned as she shifted on top of him, pushing him further into her. She began to move, and he kissed her neck, her hair grazing his face.

She sped up her rhythm, and they came together, calling out one another’s names, her breasts bouncing in front of him.

He gently rolled her onto her back while he was still inside her, then kissed her as he tried to regain his breath. She’d managed to take him to the highest high. She was amazing.

There was silence between them. The three words that could have been said—that in a normal relationship ~would~ have been said—hung in the air. But this was just too fucked up. ~He~ was too fucked up.

He eased out of her, discarded the condom, and slipped back into bed, pulling her into him.

He knew tomorrow would bring regret and pain. But for tonight at least, she was his.