Read On The Ropes for Free Online Page A

ruined.
    At the last second, I tried to wiggle back, to stop the ferocity of it from claiming me. I didn’t want to come like this, not here. My climax wasn’t meant for them to see. Even if I was giving it only to him, to Giovanni, they would know what I was.
    I wouldn’t be able to hide anymore.
    He cursed and hauled me right back, drawing a sharp cry from my throat as he nearly tipped me off the table to slam his cock deeper. It sent me soaring, and I let out a scream of fury, of terror, of sheer, overpowering relief. All the while, he continued to fuck me in precise, churning strokes, his eyes burning on the verge of madness.
    A vein throbbed crazily in his temple, warning me. Then he exploded inside me, so deep that I jerked back to try to escape. He dragged me in again and buried his face in my hair, sucking in long draughts of air that didn’t seem to fill his lungs.
    Somehow I found myself patting his back, holding him to me through his endless shudders. I was still trembling too, but I didn’t think it was for the same reason.
    Almost on accident, I glanced over Gio’s heaving shoulders straight into the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen. Marco . How had I missed the meanness in them before?
    I’d missed so much.
    He started to slow clap, and in my arms, Gio shuddered one more time. I stroked his hair and set my jaw. “We’re leaving,” I said, setting my bare feet firmly on the grimy floor. The movement forced Gio to leave my body. He stumbled back, wiping his mouth though he hadn’t kissed me. I’d begged for that kiss wordlessly, and he’d held it back.
    This wasn’t real lovemaking. Just a hard, fast fuck to slake a need and fulfill an unholy obligation.
    I held my hand out to Gio and he stared at it as if he didn’t recognize the gesture. I took an unsteady step toward him, and when I tried to right myself, my knees simply buckled.
    All at once, he seemed to snap back into himself. In one smooth move, he caught me and tucked himself back into his pants. Hiding away the evidence of what we’d irrevocably changed.
    How we’d been irrevocably been changed.
    “We’re done here,” he said, and his voice was every bit as cold as Marco’s eyes. A new round of shivers seized me and I clung to him, my weakness emerging in the face of his strength.
    Then he swept me up in his arms and carted me out of the room where I’d been broken and reborn in one night.

4
    Giovanni
    I gnoring the stares , I carried her down the stairs and out the front door of the club. People called out to me and I paid them no mind. They didn’t exist.
    There was only the woman in my arms.
    God, the girl. Not even a woman. She was a baby. Only eighteen.
    Eighteen .
    Outside the door of the club, I stopped just beyond the awning and lifted my face to the rain. It washed away some of the heat from my skin, but not nearly enough. I was on fire inside. For her. Always for her.
    Tonight, I’d burned her. I’d taken her choice away. I’d…violated her.
    “Let me down.” Her voice intruded in the world I’d disappeared into, and I blinked away the rain, surprised to see her face so close to mine.
    In a fingersnap, I’d gone somewhere else. A place where I didn’t even register the insubstantial weight of her in my arms.
    She was so small. So easily broken.
    “Gio.” Her fist met my chest, cracking open another layer of the ice that encased me. “Put me down. Now.”
    I started to obey her, then noticed her bare feet with their sparkly toenails. Somehow the sight sent rage careening through my veins all over again. “Where are your shoes?”
    She ducked her head, her damp hair falling down like a curtain to hide her face. “My shoe broke. The heel, I mean. That’s how he got my attention.” She took a quick inhalation of breath. “He took the other…off before we got to the room. Said I’d attract too much attention in only one.”
    I faced straight ahead, barely registering the passing people and cars. Rain slanted