DARK ANGEL: A Mafia Romance -- Book Three: A Violent Love Affair (Erotic Romance) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Angelo DeSilvo stood framed in the doorway, looking like a dark god, so handsome he didn’t seem real. His midnight black hair was tousled as if he had been running his hands through it all day, and his dark eyes looked haunted. Dressed in black lounge pants and a casual white, linen button-down shirt, he still looked good enough to grace the cover of any magazine. His casual apparel did nothing to mask the masculine beauty of his body. It didn’t matter what he was wearing – in a suit or in jeans, he would still be just as devastating to my senses.

God, I wanted him.

Just seeing him again had me growing wet, my body preparing for him.

My breath caught and my heart pounded in my chest as our eyes met and locked. I saw his hands grow white with strain as he gripped the doorway tight. My body clenched as I remember the feeling of those hands on my body, and I had to fight back to urge to throw myself at him and rip off his clothes.

“
Cara mia
.”

His voice was lik
e sex, dark and sinful. He was the same dark angel he’d always been, the man who’d somehow captured my soul and laid claim to my heart.

It didn’t make sense. N
one of it did. I’d only known Angelo for a little over a week, but somehow I had begun to fall in love with this man standing before me. I wanted to tell him, wanted to throw myself into his arms and never let go – but of course, that couldn’t happen. We had things to discuss.

“Hello, Angelo.”

We stared at one another, as if searching for some way to figure each other out in the silence. It pained me, this distance between us. After a long moment, I gave in and forced myself to take the first step to bridge the gap between us. I reached out to him, and the relief I felt when he immediately took my hand in his almost brought me to my knees.

My hand tingled where he touched me. I knew there was nothing I wanted more that to be with this man. I allowed him to pull me into his apartment, and simply breathed him in as he wrapped his arms around me, burying his face into my hair. I stood there, content to just hold on to him, taking comfort from his embrace. He smelled of a shower, clean and fresh with a faint masculine scent that was all him, all Angelo. We stayed like that for a long minute. Finally, he pulled back. He looked into my eyes, his own sober as he closed the door and locked us in.

I put my purse down onto the table in the hallway, and allowed him to lead me into the living room. I relished the intimacy of his casual gesture. I knew he was a man who liked his privacy; he didn’t have to say anything for me to know that not many people were invited into this inner sanctum of his. Looking around the room, I realized how much it told me about him. This was his domain. The deep, rich colors that Angelo had chosen suited him. The warm dark brown leather couch and loveseats were accented with red and gold pillows. He had a variety of old world Italian art on the walls on the shelves of his bookcase that I knew cost a fortune.

I didn’t care about his money, though. I wanted the man behind the polished veneer of wealth and privilege. Shockingly, I realized that I loved it best when Angelo was wild and untamed.

But no matter how attractive I found his dark side, I need to protect myself, and I couldn’t do that unless I knew what was going on.

“Please, have a seat.”

Looking at the coffee table, I saw that Angelo had opened a bottle of red wine that he’d poured into a decanter to breathe. I took a seat on the couch next to him and watched as he poured the dark-ruby liquid into two wine glasses.

Okay, Karen,
I told myself.
Enough stalling.

The time had come to lay it all out between us, and see if we could survive the fallout.

“I lied.”

I blinked as I said the words.
Crap.
I hadn’t meant to start with this, but there it was. It had been festering inside me and I could no longer contain it. I watched as he set the decanter and glass he had just filled on the coffee table. He looked at me with those dark, mysterious eyes of his and saw his beautiful lips curl up in a sad smile.

“I know,” he replied, his eyes not betraying anything more than that.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to see you,” I insisted. “I just… I had deadlines, and…”

It was true. I had edits I had to send off to my publisher, but they weren’t as pressing as I had made them seem on the phone to him last night. I blew out a breath. I had planned what I’d wanted to say, but my mind was too jumbled to keep on task and this distance between us was killing me. I desperately needed to find out what had happened to Carlo, but for some reason I needed to deal with my own guilt first. And right now, the sadness on Angelo’s handsome face was making me tremble with the need to put this behind us quickly, so we could get back to that happy place I felt the world had created just for us.

He turned so he was facing me, his dark eyes sober. “Enough of this. I need to know, Karen, are you here to end things with me?”

“No!” I gripped his hands in mine and struggled to find the words I wanted to say to him. Taking a deep, calming breath, I took the plunge. “I don’t want that. I want to be with you, but… I’m worried, Angelo. I have some concerns.”

His nostrils flared, and his eyes took on a heated intensity that made me clench my thighs together. “Well then tell me,
cara.
Tell me what I need to do to ease that worry.”

His demand made me melt. That one hoarse statement said it all. He was just as determined as I was to make this work. And if he was willing to fight for us, how could I do anything less?

“Well… yesterday when I had lunch with your sister, she told me some things that made me uneasy.”

His hands tightened on mine as his dark eyes glittered with anger. “Damn it. What did Maria tell you?”

“It wasn’t anything concrete, but she told me the same thing you did – about… about your family. That there were things that I was better off not knowing. That I shouldn’t ask any questions. It makes me think there are things you are hiding from me… and that troubles me.”

There, I’d said it. He opened his mouth to speak, but I gently placed my finger over his lips to silence him. I wanted to get everything out on the table before he responded.

“I went home, thinking I would clear my head for a bit before I came back here to meet you. But then I saw the news…” Angelo’s body stiffened and I knew he was aware of what I had seen. Still, I felt the need to say it.

“…I saw that Carlo Fenerlli had been found dead.”

He pulled his hands away from me, his dark eyes going instantly blank. “Do you think I killed him,
cara
?”

“No!”  My answer came immediately,
and it surprised me with its forcefulness. As soon as I said the word, I knew without a doubt that I trusted him. In my heart, I didn’t believe he had killed anyone. He must have sensed this in my answer, because his body relaxed again. He stayed silent, eyes probing my face, waiting for me to speak again.

“No, I don’t,” I continued. “But it scares me that you and that Vincenzo guy were talking about Carlo, and then he ended up dead the same night. It’s just so crazy. All of this is way out of the ordinary for me, and… I just don’t know what to think.” I stared at him deeply. “I need you to tell me what is going on, Angelo.”

His dark eyes searched mine. He spoke slowly, choosing each word with care. “You believe me when I tell you I didn’t have anything to do with Carlo’s murder?”

“Yes, I believe you. Of course I believe you.” I felt so cruel for doubting him. My eyes welled up with emotion, and my voice cracked as I spoke. 

I hadn’t even finished saying the words when he grabbed me and pulled me to him, dragging me onto his lap and holding me so tight I could barely breathe. I yelped in surprise. His face was filled with pure, unadulterated relief. “Thank god,
cara mia
. I thought I had lost you.”

His lips crashed down on mine, stoking the fires between us so that the connection between us was instantly and passionately reaffirmed. There was a hint of desperation in his kiss and I stroked his tongue with mine, meeting him beat for beat, soothing his frantic need.

I felt the hard ridge of his erection underneath me and my body instantly answered with a rush of liquid proof of my desire for him. My body clenched, wanting to feel him moving inside me again, but I fought to hold my need for him until we finished talking.

“Don’t fight me,” he whispered before he took my mouth again in a bruising kiss. “I can’t take it if you pull away from me again.”

“I won’t,” I swore, giving in to his kiss. “I’m here. I’m right here with you.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him close to me as I felt his big body shudder with relief.

We fed off each other, giving and taking in equal measure. The desperate need I felt in him eased until his hands rubbed my back in soothing motions instead of holding tight as if trying to stop me from pulling away. I gentled him with sweet kisses, kneading the thick muscles of my shoulders with my hands.

“I can’t do without you,
cara mia
,” he whispered, and my heart soared. Leaning back, I cupped his beloved face in my hands and leaned my forehead against his.

“I want to be with you, Angelo. So much that it scares me.”

He smiled. “Don’t be afraid of what is between us, Karen. You’re safe with me.”

I paused at that. “Am I?” I’d meant it to sound teasing, but the words came out deadly serious. Still, I couldn’t help but ask. I knew I was asking a lot from him -- we hadn’t known each other long, but the things I felt for him made me vulnerable to him. I couldn’t give myself to a man I didn’t know anything about, despite how much I wanted him.

“I need to know what you are hiding from me,” I said, my words falling out of me in a rush. “I’ve been lied to in the past, and I can’t – I
won’t
be with someone who isn’t honest with me. I don’t want anything standing in the way of us being together, and you keeping secrets is doing that. It makes me question everything. I know we’ve only known each other for a short time, but—”

He stopped me mid-sentence with a caress of my lips.

“Shh,
cara mia
. I feel the same way. I want only truth between us, believe me. You have to understand that this is hard for me to talk about.”

I wrapped by arms around him, pressing my face into the crook of his neck. He held me to him tight
, and I loved the way my body fit against his as I nestled into him. We lay there together a moment, in comfortable silence. I felt him pull the clip from my hair so he could run his fingers through the thick strands.

“
When I heard the news of Carlo’s death yesterday, I knew you’d have questions. It’s a complicated story,
cara.
I was sad when I heard, but you have to understand that he lived a very dangerous life.” He sighed. “For you to understand everything, I… have to give you a little history.”

I sat up. “Okay.”
This sounded promising. Reaching out, I grabbed the wine glasses and handed him one. I took a sip of my own and waited until he was ready to speak.

“My father used to own a butcher shop
, passed down to him by his father. The shop was humble, but he had a dream – he wanted to build a life here, and the family business was his ticket. He worked hard, found success, and from those beginnings created DeSilvo’s. It started as a small family restaurant, but he put his heart and soul into it. It grew, of course – and then he met my mother. They used to talk about how it had been love at first sight. She had come in to DeSilvo’s and their eyes had met from across the room… and that was all it took.”

My heart fluttered as he took my hand in his, linking our fingers together. His parents
’ story made me think of my first meeting with Angelo. All it had taken was one look, and I’d been hooked – no matter how hard I had tried to fight it. Watching Angelo’s dark eyes glittering back at me, I knew he was thinking the same thing.

“Even in this day and age
, some of the old Italian families are at war with one another – you’ve heard the stories in the news. But my father always steered clear of all that. He always wished Italians would just stick together. It’s a close-knit community, after all, and everyone knows each other. But even though we’re so connected, there’s always some conflict or another going on – some disagreement between factions of the community. And my mother’s family was no exception.” He grimaced, taking a sip of his wine. “My mother’s family has a certain…
reputation
in the neighborhood. At first they’d been upset that my father hadn’t taken their side in their disputes, but in time they came to respect him for his ability to stay neutral. Somehow, despite all the feuding, my father was able to stay above it all.”

He leaned back on the couch and sighed. “I’ve worked v
ery hard to keep the legacy my father passed down to me. When my parents died, they left my sister and I a very generous amount of money. I invested it wisely, and it’s given me a comfortable living. I expanded DeSilvo’s, bought Bliss, and—” he looked at me hard for a second. “This is a bit of a secret, but I’m also a silent partner in my cousin’s club – Fever. You’ve probably heard of it.”