"The damage was done the moment our eyes collided."
~Xavier De Luca
***
One life-altering night ignites a soul-scorching passion between a gangster and a good girl...One that could burn everyone they know and love to ashes.
Loyalties and legacies...
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Everything and nothing made sense. Duty and desire warred within me, endlessly tossing like the waves pummeling the shore. I just ran out on everything and everyone I know and risked my ass running across PCH, to see about a dame I didn'tknow.
A gentle breeze stirred the skirt of her gown, fanning the black velvet against the moon-bleached sand. She also didn't have those cock-tease stilettos she had on earlier. I don't have a foot fetish, but all I'll admit, the idea of her bare legs wrapped around me in those heels made me harder than granite.
Silence stretched between us as we eyed each other with caution, both hyper-aware of the tentative line we wanted to cross.
I've lived long enough to understand that stillness is the most powerful tool in my arsenal. I enjoy letting the quiet in, because in those moments, I hear more, and I see the truth.
Only, I couldn't get a read on Grace. Which probably had something to do with the picture of that lucky motherfucker on her phone.
I recognized his pretty boy face right away. He was a wannabe Babbo. Our bouncers had caught him and his buddy harassing the dancers at one of our titty bars in the past, not that she needed to know that. Plenty of good girls like Grace had cocky assholes for a boyfriend (like him).
"I doubt you're old enough to have owned a cassette tape," I was addicted to the way her ochre eyes swelled when I spoke.
It was insanely erotic.
"My brother's car has a tape player, but it doesn't work," she shrugged, glancing at her phone. The puzzle pieces slotted together in my mind, and I realized that they were siblings. Twins, possibly, by the look of them. "We make a lot of playlists that we call our mixed tapes, which is why I have this thing."
I couldn't even count the number of ways I wanted to take her. To ruin her for other men altogether. I'd be fucked if she ever realized she possessed the power to level me with a single word.
"And what do you listen to when you're not at work, Grace?" I detested small talk, despised it really, but I couldn't stop saying her name.
Fuck, I was never going to hear the end of it from Christian, or Ma for that matter. She was already fit to blow a gasket when I marched out the front door without saying a word. And leaving Mia like that was a dick move, then again, she was well aware that I'm an infamous asshole.
"Recently?" Her breathy laughter made my erection throb against my zipper. "Mostly Bon Iver, and James Horner, and a little Tom Waits too."
I cocked my head to absorb the eclectic information, filing it away to use for later...But when? And how?
Bringing someone like Grace into our world would be a cruelty worse than even I'm capable of. She didn't deserve the relentless death and pain I'm all but numb to.
