“Tell me, Brianna. You’re supposed to be paying for it.” Tino’s voice was hard again, demanding. “That’s how this works.”
Honestly, for a long second, Brianna didn’t remember what he was talking about, but then he stroked himself, and the surge of desire made her so wet with need it was impossible to forget.
“Yes,” she admitted, wanting to do it right now, because she didn’t think she’d ever been more sexually pent-up than she was at the moment. “I, um…” She shrugged again. “I get myself off.”
“How often?” He was staring at her, as if he expected a lie and planned to call her on it.
Brianna decided against lying. “A couple times a day.”
Tino turned his head and moaned, showing off the strong-corded muscles of his neck as he moved his hand up the thick line of his dick. He rubbed his thumb over the head, making it shiny and slick.
He looked gorgeous, wearing moonlight, with the glimmer of the city casting shadows over the living room. This wasn’t an act Brianna had considered particularly sexy before now. She’d never fantasized about Tino jerking off, but there was something so raw about his pleasure, so exposed and honest.
Life had been unbelievably cruel to him, and seeing it did something to Brianna. Something deeper than the blinding thrill that came from watching him do this for her, perform for her; it was deeper than that. If hearing one little, forbidden confession of hers made him that hot, she wanted to tell him anything he wanted to hear.
“Sometimes, at night, if I know everyone’s sleeping, I get naked. Just strip down to nothing, and I do it all night.” Brianna’s voice was breathy as she admitted it, and it had her cheeks hot because it was an extremely private thing to confess, but seeing the way Tino’s hand moved faster, with strong, firm strokes made her want to lay herself completely bare to him. “I do it for hours. Until I’m sweaty and exhausted, and I know I should go to sleep, but I always end up doing it one more time and another until I’m sore the next day.”
“Cazzo.” Tino grunted and looked back to her. His eyes were so dilated with passion they looked near black. “Tell me how you do it? Do you use something or—”
“No, just my fingers.”
“On your back?” Tino was stroking it again, making the head of his cock flare once more as he fisted it tightly. “All spread out on the bed.”
She thought of lying, of feeding the fantasy he was painting for himself, but the whole point of this was payment, of making herself vulnerable so they could be equals. It somehow felt like less of a sin if she was putting herself out there too.
“No, I, uh—” For the first time she thought of looking away, but she stared at him instead, the lines of his abdominal muscles, the sprinkling of hair on his powerful thighs. “I do it differently. On my hands and knees, with my face in the pillow so no one hears me moaning. I just reach between my legs and—”
“Fuck, baby.” Tino arched his hips again, and this time Brianna knew it wasn’t an act. The lust and need pulsing off him were so strong they were almost choking the air out of the room. She could see the first gleam of sweat on his tanned chest. “Why do you like it like that?”
She shook her head frantically. “I dunno,” she said honestly. “I just do.”
His gaze ran over her again for one hot moment before he asked, “Who do you think about?”
“You know I think about you.” She slid her cross along the chain again. “It’s always been you. Since I first started doing it. I wouldn’t even know how to come without you there.”
Tino was silent after her confession, but his hand was still moving up and down his dick. His muscular chest rose and fell as his breathing became harsh. Brianna could see a fine sheen of sweat on his tanned skin now, reminding her of that fateful ride on the train, when she leaned over and licked him to taste the adrenaline and desire.
Then he broke the quiet spell of harsh breathing and rhythmic slap of his hand on his cock by asking, “Do you want me from behind? Is that what you think about? Me over you, pushing you against the bed, grabbing your hip, fisting your hair, and fucking you dirty. You finger yourself fantasizing about me owning you. Claiming you. Like an animal. Is that what you want, baby?”
“Yes,” Brianna gasped, a shiver of pleasure running over her all the way to her core. She didn’t even think about it before she answered; she just did it because that was exactly what she thought about. “Every time.”
Tino’s eyes flew open, wide and stunned.
Brianna realized he’d been trying to scare her.
With every stroke, he was upping the ante, trying to get to the place where Brianna would run away.
Who, exactly, did Tino think he was dealing with?
“I know who you are,” she said in answer to his unspoken question. “I know what you are, and I know what you do.”
“You have no idea what I do, Brianna.” Tino’s voice got dark all of a sudden, dangerous, making a different sort of thrill roll down her spine. “I would never let you know what I do.Never.”
Brianna shifted again, hearing a thousand dark confessions, things that would probably give her nightmares, but she knew enough about Cosa Nostra to say, “And I’d never ask.”
It was the right answer.
She knew it was.
