Read Patrick: A Mafia Love Story for Free Online

of the leather chair, striding across the hardwood floor as he made his way to her room. She would likely be there, since it was almost eleven p.m. She’d better be there alone. And that email had better be a colossal fucking joke.
    He pounded on her door before stepping inside, not waiting for permission to enter. She was just coming out of the bathroom, and he stumbled to a halt when he saw the thin robe clinging to her damp curves. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose, trying to rein in his raging heart rate and ragged exhalations. He felt like a stampeding bull as he stared at the innocent woman before him.
    Innocent? He snorted softly. Physically, she might be, but emotionally, she was a forty-year-old seductress with years of experience behind her. Years of manipulating men.
    She tied the sash of her robe as she looked at him through the veil of her eyelashes. “What are you doing in here?”
    “Are you really planning to sell your virginity to some dirty old bastard?”
    She didn’t even blink or have the grace to look embarrassed at being caught. “Yes. How did you find out?”
    His lips tightened, and he scowled at her. “Someone sent me an email. It had your face on it, along with six other naïve idiots. What has gotten in to you, Lauren?”
    “Nothing yet,” she retorted softly. “But that’ll change by next weekend, when the bidding closes. The owner claims some of the girls go for a million bucks, but I’m not expecting anywhere near that.”
    He shook his head, staring at her with uncomprehending eyes. “Why are you doing this? If you need money, I’ll give you money.”
    Her eyes were frosty as she stared at him, her expression otherwise neutral. “You don’t owe me anything, and I’m not going to rely on you for everything. I want to get rid of my virginity, I don’t care who takes it, and so I might as well make some money from it. I’m going to be moving out soon, maybe even moving on, and I’ll need money to get started.”
    He balled his hands into fists at the idea of her leaving him, even though he had tried to orchestrate just that scenario last week with the impromptu internship in London. “I won’t let you do this.”
    Lauren scoffed at him as she strolled closer to her bed, turning her back on him. “Just how do you think you’re going to stop me, Patrick? It’s my virginity, and I’ll sell it if I want to.”
    He literally saw a red as he stomped across the room toward her. All the admonishments in the world couldn’t make him rein in the impulse when he stepped behind her, grasping her upper arms in his hands. “I can stop you quite easily.”
    “Yeah, how?” The words were a challenge, but he didn’t miss the breathless excitement underneath them.
    “If you have no product to sell, you can’t go through with this nonsense.” As he spoke, one of his hands gentled on her arm, sliding down a few inches and to the left to cup her breast. She was a little more than a handful, with a responsive nipple that beaded at the lightest flick of his thumb across it. “If you’re so anxious to get rid of your virginity, you can give it to me.”
    As she sank into him with a groan, his erection pressing into her lower back, he knew he had lost. On one level, he was aware this was what she had wanted, that she had driven him to this. On another level, he just didn’t give a damn. He wanted her, and there was no way he was going to let someone else have what was his.
    She rubbed against him like a cat, arching her buttocks backward to rub against his upper thigh. Impatient with the silk separating them, he released his hold on her arm to move to the lapel of the garment, pulling it open more roughly than he’d intended. It pooled around her waist, though the silk clung tenaciously to a couple of damp spots on her body. With her breasts bared to him, he couldn’t resist the allure of holding them in his hands.
    He cupped their pleasing weight, circling his thumbs