“Can you girls grab the drinks?” I ask before walking away without waiting for them to answer. I can’t spend another second in his presence, especially when he’s acting so weird. Maybe this wasn’t their first stop tonight, and he’s already drunk.
The problem is, I don’t know where to go. I can’t just leave. I won’t let him win by running me out of here. I have just as much right to be here as he does.
I’m about to turn the corner at the hall leading to the restrooms—because where else does a girl go when she’s trying to run away from a strange guy at the club—when a broad, hard chest gets in my way at the last second.
I rebound off it but am saved from falling backward by a pair of large, strong hands that take me by the arms. I know these hands. I know the scent of the cologne on his clothes and skin. Spicy. Warm.
I know this man.
And now my insides feel all hot and shaky, and my lungs forget how to work. Gianni is here, and he’s holding me upright, and now I have no idea how to feel. I was trying to escape Luciano, only to end up in the grip of a man who might be the devil himself.
I chance looking up at him, and I wish I hadn’t. His expression is murderous, holding onto me while glaring over the top of my head. I shrink back from the rage burning behind his eyes. Rage I’ve seen while he was pointing a gun at me. I should scream and fight to get away, but fear—and sick, twisted excitement—hold me in place.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
He’s the man I’ve gone out of my way to avoid and the man I’ve wished night after night would kick the door in and ravish me. I don’t know whether to weep in dread or relief that he’s finally touching me again.
“The better question is, what areyoudoing here?” he growls in return, still shooting daggers across the room while his fingers bite into my flesh. “What do you think you’re doing, letting some stranger flirt with you?”
“Huh?”
The weight of his stare settles on me, and I flinch. “What. Do you think. You’re doing?” he demands, his voice shaking.
Instead of waiting for me to answer, he pulls me along with him to the rear of the room, past clusters of strangers who shoot curious glances our way but don’t seem to care enough to ask.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” he growls as we go. I stumble along behind him, fighting to keep up with his long strides.
“I’m here with friends from work. I can’t leave them.” I’m talking to myself for all the good it does.
“Does flirting with a bartender have anything to do with those friends?” At first, it looks like he’s touching his hand to a random spot on the black-painted wall. Like magic, a door swings inward. I would never have known it was there, and I guess that’s the point. Beyond it sits a narrow, metal staircase.
“I wasn’t… I mean… how do you—”
He gives me a shove, sending me toward the stairs. I take hold of the railing and turn in time to find him swinging a hinged bar into place, which I guess serves as a way of keeping outsiders from opening the door. “You weren’t flirting? Laughing at that asshole’s jokes? Why did you hang around the bar when your friends were dancing?”
I can’t keep track of everything coming at me at once. There’s only one thought that rings out in my overwhelmed mind.
He was watching. My intuition was right.
“Go up the stairs.” His jaw works, his words grunted through clenched teeth. “Now.”
Instinct tells me to move my ass, but I wonder what would happen if I didn’t. Would he throw me over his shoulder and carry me up the stairs? I wish the idea wasn’t so appealing.
This is a very dangerous man, but right now, the only danger is slipping on what’s soaking through my panties.
At the top of the stairs is the office I imagined sitting behind the tinted window. It’s sleek and masculine, with a large desk like the one at home and a leather sofa sitting along the opposite wall. The window takes up almost the entire wall opposite the door and allows the perfect view of the bar and dance floor.
It’s sort of like playing God. I can see them, but they can’t see me. Everyone from work is down there, drinking their drinks. My martini is sitting untouched on the bar, but nobody seems too concerned with my disappearance.
Gianni could hurt me, and no one would even know. I know fear is something I should be feeling, but that’s the last thing I feel.
“As I asked earlier…” Gianni presses me against the window, his body pinning me to the glass. He’s breathing heavily, and his breath hits my neck in hot bursts that make me squirm. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, flirting with another man?”
“I wasn’t,” I whisper, my thoughts racing almost as fast as my beating heart.
“I should blow his fucking brains out.”