The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (8 page)

He wasn’t careless about anything.

He was quite possibly the most diligent person she’d ever known, all the more so for doing it without anyone noticing.

The invitation was obvious.

Brianna stripped down quickly, staring at the unlocked door the entire time. She opened it before she lost her nerve, because she needed to be the one to claim it. To have control with this one thing when the rest of her world had shattered around her.

Tino was nothing but a tanned form behind frosted glass. He remained still for a long moment before reaching out and pushing the shower door open.

Maybe he needed the control too.

He stood there, the small hotel soap bar clasped in his hand as the suds slid down his cut, muscular body. His dark gaze was hooded as he stared at her, naked and exposed.

The water splashed out on the floor between them. The hum of it faded to the background behind the heartbeat throbbing in her ears. She hadn’t been wrong earlier. Tino was more thickly muscular than he’d been before he left, more cut and deadly.

He’d always been beautiful, but now there was a raw strength that radiated off him, and for the first time, Brianna thought the Borgata was in real trouble. They likely remembered him the same way Brianna did, damaged by life, a slave to drugs because it was the only way he could endure the agony of his job.

They didn’t understand what it meant for Tino to overcome his demons and try for a life outside the mafia.

Even if it hadn’t worked, the fact that Tino was strong enough to try when the ability should’ve been beaten out of him long ago made Brianna realize the Borgata might have created their own demise in him.

She could feel his hot gaze sweep over her like a caress, even as she stood before him battered and bruised. If there was anyone she could be bare and damaged in front of, it was Tino. She had a lot of things to be ashamed about, but she wasn’t going to hide someone else’s sins. She had enough of her own to deal with.

“Can I join you?” she asked as she looked pointedly at the soap in his hand. “I’m dirty too.”

“Don’t say that.” Tino shook his head. “You’re beautiful. You’ve always been so beautiful.”

Brianna smiled at that, even as fresh tears were stinging her eyes. “So are you.”

She stepped into the shower and pulled the door closed. The water was a little too hot, but she turned toward it rather than back away. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the sting of hot water washing away the pain.

When she was younger, Brianna never thought she’d understand Tino’s need to wash away the sins that left him scrubbing his skin until it was nearly raw, but she did now. She understood it completely.

“They made whores out of both of us,” she finally whispered with her back still to him. “I don’t think there’s enough hot water.”

She waited for him to deny it like she used to do with him, to somehow attempt to erase it with feigned innocence, to lie to her. Instead he stepped up to her and wrapped an arm around her waist. Brianna took a long, shuddering breath when he pressed a kiss against the base of her neck.

He ran the soap over her stomach, and she looked down to watch him do it. To see his tanned fingers against her skin, knowing it was Tino touching her. It was his hard cock pressing against the small of her back, and for the first time in so many years, being touched didn’t make her skin crawl.

She let out a sob she couldn’t hide, because the collision was crippling. Lust and despair. She might have fallen in the face of it, but Tino was there, holding her closer as he buried his face against her neck.

He didn’t tell her to stop crying. He let her do it as he washed her body and tried to soothe her soul in a way only he could. Tino had always been the kindest killer she had ever known. Maybe because he was never supposed to be a Cosa Nostra hit man, just like she wasn’t supposed to be standing there bruised by a man she had never loved, but married anyway.

“Do you think I’m disgusting?” she finally asked as the soap ran down her body and did absolutely nothing to make her feel clean.

“Oh Jesus, Bri.” Tino’s voice was a rasp of agony, cracking with tears as if he understood why she was asking. “No.”

“Am I, Tino? Tell me. Don’t lie. I don’t want you to lie to me.”

She wiped at her face, making her eyes sting from the soap she hadn’t realized was running down her fingertips. She held her hands under the spray, blinking at them past the burn and seeing nothing but the glint of her rings that she had put back on her finger after the show.

She pulled them off and threw them against the wall. She stared at the golden wedding band when it rested next to her foot by the drain, and kicked it again for good measure, because she hated it and all the pain it represented.

Before she could kick the engagement ring too, Tino cupped her cheek and forced her to turn to him. Then his fingers were tangled in her hair, and his lips were on hers. She moaned at the feeling of exotic nostalgia that slipped into her veins, and he took advantage of it by thrusting his tongue into her mouth. He was moaning too, something raw and primal and pained as if he was experiencing that same adrenaline shot of pleasure and emotion.

Like they had never been forced apart, suddenly they were pressed together, wet skin against wet slippery skin, clinging to each other because they were both traumatized and terrified the beauty would be ripped away before they could taste it.

Tino moved his lips down to her neck, licking at the water, nipping at her shoulder. His hands were on her ass, his cock hard against her stomach, but she could feel him somehow slipping through her fingers, moving lower as if something deeply rooted was forcing him down.

Brianna’s head had been tossed against the wall, but she jerked forward and grabbed his face, her nails digging into his cheeks that were rough with stubble as she barked on instinct, “Who am I?”

Tino’s dark eyes were glazed and glassy as he stared at her tits rather than her face and whispered in a faraway voice, “You’re Brianna,” as if he wasn’t sure if she were real. “You’re
my
Brianna.” He ran a hand up to the small of her back, pulling her closer. She arched into him, enabling him, completely weak in the face of seeing him again. “
Dio
,” he groaned and sucked one taut pink nipple into his mouth with a reverence only Tino could show.

She didn’t want to enjoy it, the worship that at its core came from such a horrible, dangerous place. Tino’s words of warning from the past reared up and haunted her, because they had been burned into her brain whether she wanted them to be or not.

“You don’t love a whore, Brianna. Never forget that. You take from whores. Use them. Don’t love them.”

She flinched as Tino said it, but all she could manage to choke out was, “Why?”

“’Cause they’re love starved. They’ve been hurt and beaten for so fucking long they are desperate for kindness. Love them, really love them, and they’ll die for you. They’ll bleed for you. Like a fucking dog. My father knows that. He used me against Nova for years. Why do you think Nova’s so feral? He knows not to let anyone too close when the Borgata owns him like it does. They own me too, Bri. A different job wouldn’t change that. They still own me, and I can only have one owner.”

“But I don’t want to own you. That’s not what I’m asking for,” she promised solemnly, even if taking possession of such a sensual, purely sexual man would never stop being a temptation. “Can’t we be equals instead? If we can’t have the rest, we can at least have that.”

“Don’t ever say that.” Tino’s voice was harsh, but his lips were soft as he pressed a kiss in the valley between her breasts. “Just let me take care of you. Gimme that.”

“No.” She shook her head, even as she caressed his dark hair, pushing it away from his face that was almost too handsome to be real. “I want it all. I want it for both of us.”

She didn’t understand back then the real danger of having Tino, someone so deadly, be unbendingly and undeniably loyal to her, but she did now. She knew it too well, but she still wanted it all.

She caressed his hair as she had that day, pushing it away from his face that was even more striking. His features had lost the last bits of youth during their separation, leaving the carved, hard beauty of a man in their wake. The shadow of stubble darkening his jawline made him appear more rugged than she remembered, but it was a look that worked surprisingly well for Tino.

“Let me.” He breathed against her breast before he licked at the trail of water running down the slope of it. “Let me, baby.” He tightened his hold on her hip, his fingers almost bruising in his desperation. “Please.”

She didn’t agree out loud. She couldn’t give voice to just how much she needed it. She didn’t know how this had happened to them. How life could be that cruel to turn her into this woman, damaged by life, love starved and willing to use Tino for his beauty and raw sexuality that had always been more of a curse than a gift, because damn if he wasn’t good at it.

And damn if she wasn’t letting him do it.

Even if she hated herself for it.

She tried not to think of the reasons why Tino had reverted to his old ways and was on his knees within five minutes of being naked with her, but she knew it probably made him very popular in Garnet. He was a sexual chameleon, able and willing to be whatever they wanted with complete and total disregard for his own needs.

No rules. No hang-ups. No limits.

Gorgeous and rentable to any woman willing to use him instead of love him.

Even now, Brianna wasn’t totally certain Tino even knew what his own needs were. They’d gotten lost somewhere along the way, and Tino might never know what he would’ve been if life had been kinder to him.

She moaned, feeling his rough palms on her thighs, his lips moving down to the back of her knee, and it felt good, but she tightened her hold on his hair anyway.

“No,” she whispered, before he could move lower and kiss her feet with the same reverence with which he was worshipping the rest of her. “I’m not her. I’m not any of them,” she reminded him and then asked again, “Who am I, Tino?”

“I know who you are,” he said against the back of her other knee. “I would do anything for you, Bri. I would spend a lifetime in that basement for you.”

“I would never ask you to do that,” she said softly. “How many women did you let use you like this? You promised, Tino. You promised you wouldn’t let this happen.”

Tino lifted his head and pressed his face against the flat plain of her stomach. “Does it make it better if I pretended it was you?” he asked like he really didn’t know the answer, as if it was something he had asked himself a thousand times before.

“No.” She tried to fight the tears. “That doesn’t make it better at all. I hate her. I hate her more than anyone in this world, and I hate the Borgata for turning me into her.”

“You’re not her, Bri.” Tino licked at the dip in her belly button. “You could never be her. You could never be any of them.” Then, as he kissed her hip bone once more, he reminded her, “You made me a promise too.” His voice darkened with a thread of anger when he asked again, “Was last night the first time he hurt you?”

She bit her tongue rather than answer and finally had to concede they had both broken their promises. Who the hell was she to give him shit about unhealthy relationships?

So screw it. They could both be fucked-up.

She slipped out of his arms and fell to her knees next to him. The hard tile stung, but she ignored it as she reached out and cupped Tino’s face. “How do you like it?” she asked, not for the first time. “When you think about it? When you’re all alone? What do you think about?”

“With you?” He raised his eyebrows and looked down at her body once more. “I like it all.” His hand slid up her rib cage slowly, making goose bumps dance over her skin, his touch soft and torturous at the same time. “I wanna worship you one time and pull your hair the next.” He brushed his thumb over her nipple, making her suck in a hard breath. “I like all the flavors of Brianna. It’s the only thing I was ever really sure about.
Needing you.
”

She considered that for a moment, before she admitted, “Well, I like all the flavors of Tino. So I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“No, Bri, I know.” He tried to pull away, but she held on. “I’m still fucked-up. I’m probably
more
fucked-up. Miami fucked me up. You have no idea how much Miami fucked me up. It churned up a lotta old shit.”

“What do you want?” she asked rather than question him about Miami. She pulled Tino closer and pressed her forehead against his. “Right now. In this moment. What do you want? You want to bend me over and fuck me until I’m begging? Or do you want to stay here and lick me until your knees hurt? You choose. I want you to choose, baby. I’ll be any flavor of Brianna you want tonight.”

Tino’s breath caught. He cupped her face too, leaving the two of them clinging to each other, their foreheads pressed so close together that their hard breathing mingled over the thrum of water.

“I missed you.” Tino’s voice cracked with emotion. His eyes were glassy as Tino and Brianna stayed there, hidden from a life that wanted to hurt them both. The corner of that shower in West Virginia felt like the only safe place in the entire world, because it was just the two of them. He tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear and admitted, “I just missed you. Missed you so fucking much. So much I don’t even know how I lasted four years.
Sober.
Jesus.”

She remembered that one moment where she wanted to let David choke the life out of her rather than keep living and sighed. “Ditto.”

Then they were kissing, with Tino’s tongue pushing past her lips and his fingers in her hair. There was nothing choreographed about any of it, when everything Tino did in the bedroom had always been about calculated seduction, too smooth, too perfect, too well trained, but this wasn’t that.

This was inelegant and needy, with shaking hands brushing over slick skin, and Brianna found herself in Tino’s lap, his hard cock trapped between their straining bodies as she pulled his hair too and arched into him.