The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (48 page)

Just a little bit.

A taste.

To make her look hot on that dance floor, with those tiny tendrils of red hair that escaped her ponytail clinging to the curve of her neck that he wanted to bite and lick and mark until everyone in this club knew she was his.

Even if he was the last fucking man who should be touching her.

He wanted to know what tattoo she’d gotten. It was like undiscovered treasure. A tease. One more thing that made Tino feel like a wild animal, released out into civilized society after life made him completely feral. They had him on a leash. They thought he only barked when they needed him to scare someone or bite when they needed a problem to go away, but they didn’t know he was protecting the ship for Nova,
not them
. He had a cause, and it had kept him focused for two years, but now they’d thrown Brianna in the cage with him when he’d spent all that time staying away.

It scared the shit out of him, because Brianna was fucking ripe.

At eighteen, without any real boyfriend for the last two years of high school, sexual frustration was bleeding from her pores. Tino was trained to sniff out the need. The desperation. To prey on it. To make her ache for him enough to lie, steal, and cheat for it, and Tino was fueling the flames on purpose. For a long time it was survival—knowing someone wanted to buy him meant terrible shit wasn’t going to happen—but now it was an instinct.

He just couldn’t fucking stop himself from doing things like taking off his shirt when she was around. It didn’t matter if it showed his holsters and weapons. Tino knew the danger tasted good, even when it shouldn’t, especially to a good girl like Brianna.

He tried to rein himself in, always playing the game of blow, booze, or jerking off to keep himself in line, but sometimes it was hard.

Tonight it was fucking impossible.

Then the music switched; the sexual twang of a guitar echoed over the dance floor when they’d been playing nothing but salsa and merengue all night. The throb of drums being replaced with something softer, more sensual, and Paco pulled Carina close, like a man who knew what the DJ just gifted him with.

All Tino could think was…

“Fuck, no.”

He said it out loud as he got up and left his drink on the bar.

Tino ignored his sister and Paco, effectively failing at babysitting as he came up behind Brianna on the dance floor. He grabbed her arms to pull her back against him and glared at her friend Aaron over her shoulder.

“Get lost.” Tino didn’t give the blond a second look. Instead he leaned down and buried his face in Brianna’s hair. He let his breath hit her ear, making her shudder in his arms as he asked, “Still want me to dance for you?”

Tino ran a hand down her arm and over her hip possessively, before he caressed her bare thigh underneath her dress as the sound of the
bachata
played in the background. The anthem for lovers everywhere that Tino really had no business dancing with Brianna to, but he’d stopped playing by the rules a long time ago.

He tugged her hair with his other hand because he wanted to feel it in his fist. Brianna rolled back against him, putting her hands on his hips behind her, thighs spread, letting him press his leg between hers. He was fucking rock hard, watching her straddle his thigh in that tiny black dress.

Tino slid his hand higher on her thigh in the two seconds it took Brianna to decide if she was going to move against him. Her skin was fucking smooth as hell. This wasn’t good-girl smooth. It was hooker smooth. Like a woman who relied on her body to survive, and something about it sorta fucked Tino up.

He took the job of making a woman look good very seriously.

Like protecting the ship, it was life-and-death.

For a long time, Lola had depended on him for it as much as he had depended on her. He knew it wasn’t Lola in his arms, he was highly aware it was Brianna, but it was always something more than pleasure for him.

He stepped back and grabbed Brianna’s shoulder, forcing her to turn to him. Brianna did it with flair, a double turn, showing off long, strong legs, with those professional dancer heels sparkling under the lights.

When he stopped her in a check move and pulled her to him again, her face was down, soft and submissive in the curve of his shoulder. It was part of the act of for this dance, but it felt real in a way it hadn’t when they were sixteen.

IT ALL LOOKED spontaneous, like something out of a movie when Tino stepped in. It gathered a lot of attention, but they were technically cheating.

Tino and Brianna had done a bachata routine what felt like a million years ago, but not this close together, not this sexual, with Tino’s hard cock pressed against her stomach every time he pulled her tightly against him. Not nearly this explicit, with Tino’s hands forcing her already short dress to ride higher, and while this particular dance was undeniably sensual, it had never felt like they were fucking on the dance floor.

Tino had always been an amazing dancer.

It was part of Tino’s strange gift. He had a whole collection of unique talents, some of them deadly, like his black belts, some of them extremely impressive, like the front tuck he’d never grown out of as most young male gymnasts did when they became men. Yet he managed to remain largely unnoticed, invisible behind the great wall of Nova, muscle with a gun and a handsome smile, until he stepped up and decided to steal the spotlight for reasons only he understood.

And when that happened, he could make an entire room speechless.

Later Tino would say it was Brianna who caused the rest of the room to stop dancing and just watch. It was her long legs and million hours of dance practice that led the DJ to put on another bachata, and then a
kizomba
, another sexually charged, very intimate dance that allowed them to fuck on the dance floor in front of all those people who would rather watch them than move to the music.

But Brianna knew it was Tino.

It had to be, because the entire room didn’t become rapt with her dancing until Tino showed up. Not until it was his hands on her hips. His warm breath against the curve of her neck. His strong, muscular body making her sweat in a way she hadn’t before, forcing her to remember the time she’d spent in a bunk bed with Tino’s voice against her ear, telling her to use him until she was gasping and moaning his name.

Over and over again.

Only this time there was no climax, though the press of his thigh between her legs was just as intimate as it had been that night. Perhaps more so, with everyone watching the way he guided her moves, and she followed, blindly, with complete trust, even if something about it felt very dangerous. Like flames dancing in the night, she wanted to touch it. She didn’t care if she got burned.

Brianna was breathless by the third song, and it wasn’t from the dancing. Everything in her was wound tight. Her nipples were so taut with need. She knew they showed under the colored lights, but she didn’t give a shit. She wanted the lust to show. She wanted him to know how much he was affecting her.

The truth was, she would’ve done anything for him if he asked.

That was Tino’s magic. For whatever it was worth, she would’ve gotten down on her knees for him if he asked her. She would’ve sucked him until he came, because he was tormented too. She could feel it vibrating off him, the sexual tension that was building between them for too long.

He wasn’t going to crumble empires one day like Nova, but he could make a woman feel like a goddess on the dance floor, and that would always be sexier to Brianna. That was a brand of magic that made her see stars when she was twelve, and it still did.

It
always
would.

Four songs and it felt like the world had finally righted on its axis after two years, like the Savio basement never happened, like Cosa Nostra hadn’t ruined it for them before it even started.

Then the chaos of a raid shattered the club.

Brianna didn’t know what it was at first, the rush of police through the doors, the press of people trying to get out. She caught the flash of bright yellow ATF on the officers’ uniforms, but she didn’t have time to put it together.

Tino grabbed her hand and jerked her arm so hard it hurt, but she followed him, letting him pull her through the crowd to Carina. Then he let go of her and swept his sister up. Tino actually tossed Carina over his shoulder like she was a bag of flour, and then caught Brianna’s hand again as Carina shouted for Paco.

Tino roughly shoved his way to the bar. It all happened in less than a minute, but Brianna remembered people falling to the floor in the wake of his determination.

When they got to the bar, he handed Carina to the bartender, who held Carina’s hand as she crawled over the polished wood.

Brianna turned to look at the ATF agents pushing their way in from all sides, and Tino smacked her ass in response. “Don’t look back! Move!”

She moved automatically, jumping over the bar and knocking over drinks in the process. The bartender had already pushed Carina toward the back, and Brianna followed after them, but she needed to make sure Tino was still with them.

She turned to look behind her once more, but Tino smacked at her ass again, closer than she realized as he shouted, “Go, Bri! Run!”

She nearly tripped over one of the other bartenders as she followed Carina into the back. They ran past offices, but the bartender jerked open a door at the end of the hallway, revealing a staircase. The hall was a dead end, the one place the ATF agents couldn’t sneak in when they were pouring in from all the other exits.

This staircase was the only way out.

They left the bartender there, and the three of them took to the stairs, hearing the
click
of a door being locked behind them.

When Carina hit the first landing, Tino pushed Brianna to keep moving and said to his sister, “All the way to the top. Get to the roof.”

“What about Paco?” Carina argued but kept dashing up the stairs, sounding breathless by the second landing. “He’s got weed on him.”

“I’ll bail him out.”

“Stronzo—”

“Run, Carina!” Tino shouted rather than argue. “Now!”

So they ran until they got all the way to the exit door leading out to the roof. The door was swollen and stuck, like it hadn’t been opened in ages, and it didn’t even budge when Carina tried to open it.

Tino jumped past her and jerked it open like it was nothing, allowing the icy Manhattan winter air to smack them in the faces. Tino was in the lead now, sprinting across the roof like a man on a mission.

They followed after him, and Brianna pulled the door shut again, making sure it was fully closed. It was a vain hope that the ATF officers would just give up when they found a sticking roof exit that didn’t want to open.

“What’re we gonna do now?” Carina threw up her hands, even though Tino was on the other side of the roof and couldn’t see her. “They’re gonna check the roof, and it’s not like we can fucking jump. We’re sitting ducks, genius.”

Tino didn’t answer her. Instead he ran past them, carrying a large ladder like he had a plan. He slid it out, making it longer and longer. Brianna and Carina walked up, watching him do it. They must have both realized at the same time what he planned.

Brianna whispered, “Oh my God.”

Just as Carina said, “Fuck, no.”

Tino wasn’t paying attention to either of them as he stood at the edge of the roof, his body tight with intense concentration. He was balancing the ladder as it reached high into the night, and then he pulled it over to the left as he eyed the building next to them. He didn’t drop it over in a rush; instead he used incredible strength to make it land as quietly as possible.

Carina shook her head quickly. “I’m not doing this.”

Tino moved the ladder to the left again, sliding it along the cement ledge of the other building, leaning way too far over the edge for comfort. He was talking to himself as he was working, mumbling, “Come on, baby,” before he reverted to Italian in harsh, desperate whispers like he was praying for help.

Brianna rubbed her arms, shivering, because she’d left her jacket in the bar. She squinted into the night, trying to see what he was angling for, and asked, “Do you need light?”

“And send a beacon to the government surrounding the building downstairs? I’ll pass.” Tino was still fighting with the ladder, but then it made a clinking sound, and he jerked it back hard, only this time it didn’t budge. “Got it! Carina—”

“No,” Carina said before he could finish. “I’ve been drinking and—”

“You don’t have a choice!” Tino pointed to the ladder. “I got it secured. It’s not gonna fall. All you gotta do is get across it.”

“Oh, is that all?” Carina asked manically. “Be my guest if it’s so easy.”

“If I go first, you’re not gonna follow. I know how you play your game. So you go first, then Bri, and I’ll go last and pull up the ladder.”

“Nope. No way.” Carina gestured to the ladder. “For all I know, I’ll plunge to my death on the first step.”

“You don’t fucking trust me? Your own brother. I’d take a fucking bullet for you, and you think I’d tell you to do something that’ll send you plunging to your death?”

“I’ll go,” Brianna said before they got into a full-fledged Sicilian sibling fight on this rooftop. “I trust you. I’ll go first and hold it from the other side.”

The situation was anxious, so all Tino did was shout, “See! Bri trusts me!”

“Bri’s not thinking with her head. She’s thinking with something completely different when it comes to you. I don’t have that problem, and we’re twelve stories up! You’re nuts if you think I’m doing that! I’m not climbing on that fucking ladder in the dark!”

Brianna ignored them as she tested the ladder herself, tugging it toward her while her hair blew in the cold breeze dancing over the rooftops. It seemed stable enough, or at least as stable as a slide-out ladder caught on two hooks drilled into the side of the other building could be. She had no idea how rusted those hooks were. It was too dark to see them. They could’ve been put in by long-dead mobsters for all she knew. This was New York City. There were parts of Cosa Nostra’s network that dated back well over a hundred years in the city. She just really hoped these hooks weren’t that historic as she crawled up on the ledge and promised herself she wouldn’t look down.