“I’m going to bed. Let yourself out. You’re done for the weekend.”
“Wait, Prime?—“
He turns his back on me, shoulders tense. “See you Monday morning.”
I’m left alone on his expensive pool table wondering what the hell just happened and whether my life is ever going to be the same again.
CHAPTER 3
PRIME
“Hey, Prime, how come you look like you broke your favorite toy?” Johnny Camarda places a fresh bourbon on a napkin at my elbow. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here without a smile and at least one gorgeous woman on your arm.”
“New shit happens every day.” I give the bartender my best smile and take a long drink. “Keep them coming.”
He walks off to fill another order. The grin fades into nothing and I hunch over my glass, turning it, watching the condensation roll along the side. Just like the sweat down Deanna’s legs, heading toward her perfect pussy, that slice of heaven, the taste immaculate, her moans?—
Fucking stop it.
I grunt and take a long pull to drown the hunger growing in my belly.
It’s Sunday evening and I’ve done nothing since she left my house but think about my personal assistant. Which isn’t ideal,considering I had planned on fixing a lot of problems this weekend. That redhead was going to be a brief distraction, a way of getting my rocks off and clearing my head. What was her name? Lacey? Linda? Doesn’t even matter anymore. The second I saw Deanna with her legs spread on my pool table, I lost my appetite for anything but her.
That’s a real god damn problem, because I use sex to keep my mind working right. The longer I go without that lovely taste of pleasure, the fuzzier my brain becomes, and right now I need to be sharp. This isn’t the time to get all fucking soft.
I grip my glass tightly and check my phone. A dozen different messages, half of them from girls looking for a date. I ignore them all. I could have a woman here in ten minutes if that’s what I really want, but the idea is like ash on my tongue.
Not since I sucked my stuck-up assistant’s fingers.
God, who would’ve thought? Stiff, prickly, stuffy Deanna, stroking her pussy on my pool table, and I’m pretty sure I heard her moaning my name. That’s what really broke me. That shattered my resolve.
Not that self-control is usually my thing, but still, I’ve been good when it comes to her.
It’s supposed to be business with that girl and nothing else. Doesn’t matter if her serious-office-lady routine gets my dick harder than iron and her constant scorn makes me want to fill her pretty mouth with cock. I don’t fuck where I work. Most of the time, anyway.
And technically,technically, I still followed that rule.
Tasting her and getting her off wasn’ttechnicallyfucking.
Too bad a technicality can’t get the memory of her shuddering breasts and the heavenly scent of her orgasm from my head.
“Ah, Mr. Spadaro, there you are.” A heavy gentleman with a bushy mustache appears at my shoulder. He’s got on a gaudy pinstripe suit like a TV gangster and his thinning hair is shoved across his skull in the worst comb-over I’ve ever seen.
“I appreciate you coming, Mr. Salerno.”
“Call me Ricardo if I can call you Prime.”
“Take a seat then, Ricardo. What can I get you to drink?”
The big man settles into the chair beside me and asks for a wine. We make small talk and I force myself to banish the thought of my personal assistant from my head. For once in my life, I have real work to do.
“I’ll be straight with you.” Ricardo holds his glass perched in his meaty fingers. “Mr. F is curious about your offer. We spoke at length about the parking lot business, about your real estate ventures, about how you’ve expanded your territory, and he’s very impressed.”
“I appreciate that.”
“However.” He holds up his pinky. It’s a weird gesture. I want to reach out and snap it sideways. Maybe rip that ugly mustache from his smug face. He cringes with an apologetic smile. “Mr. F is a very busy man, and while your proposal was very interesting, he isn’t going to follow through with further talks.”
I mask the sudden ring of failure and anger by taking a low drink. Even approaching Augustus Fontana with a simple business proposal was like walking across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope. The man’s famously paranoid and rarely, if ever,gets involved with other crime families. It took a lot of work, dozens of favors, and hours of dogged persistence to get a single message across his desk. It’s a minor miracle even this low-level member of his organization is sitting here speaking to me in person.