Seized Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle

Mia

When I open my eyes again I have to fight to keep them from shutting before I can force myself to sit up. The pain in my body is gone, thank God, but I feel fuzzy, like I drank too much wine and then stayed up watching sitcoms until I passed out on the TV.

But I’m not at home and I sure as hell haven’t had anything to drink in a while.

He drugged me.

The thought washes over me and I moan, anger coursing through my body. What an utter asshole, to think that he could just give me dugs like that without worrying about what it would do to me. My head pounds and I rub my temples, really massaging them hard.

I need to get out of here.

At least now when I stand up, I don’t feel so dizzy. My legs are a little wobbly but they don’t feel like they’re going to give out under me. Slowly, I make my way to the door, but before I can even reach for the handle, it flies open.

Lorenzo fills the doorway, anger etched across his face. Without thinking, I stumble away from him, the backs of my thighs hitting the mattress and forcing me to sit down.

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. There’s a little voice in the back of my head screaming at me that I need to make a run for it, but there isn’t anywhere for me to go. I don’t know what to do, so I grip the edge of the mattress, my fingers sinking into the soft pillow top, and stare at him.

“How do you know Taylor Hunt?”

Shaking my head, I try to reconcile his angry expression with the question he just asked. “What?”

“Taylor Hunt.” He walks up to me, grabbing my thighs and pinning me to the bed. “How do you know him?”

Heat and longing course through my body even though I know that I’m more in danger than anything else. I shouldn’t enjoy the way his fingers press into my legs and I certainly shouldn’t be thinking about what it would be like to have his hands on the rest of my body.

Dragging my gaze up from his full lips to his eyes, I shake my head a little. “Taylor Hunt,” I finally manage, his name disgusting in my mouth, “I don’t really know him. Not well, anyway. He wants—or wanted—he wanted to be with me. He was always around work, always slipping me extra money when he said that I looked too thin.”

“He took care of you?”

“Yes, but no, not really. Just a hundred here, a hundred there. If he knew that I was short on rent then he’d hand me extra.” I pause, trying to read his mind, but it’s like trying to read a novel in a foreign language. “Why are you so mad? Do you know him?”

“I do.” Stepping back, he lets go of my legs and I’m instantly sad to feel the heat from his touch disappear. Lorenzo scrubs his hand over his face and stares at me before he says anything else. “He’s here in town. For you.”

“For me? Yeah, right.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them but it’s easy to see that Lorenzo isn’t taking this as lightly as I am. “I don’t know him, really, I don’t. He’s just a guy who gave me money.”

“For fucking him, am I right? There’s no reason why someone would just hand out money like that unless they were getting something in return.”

The fuzzy feeling that I woke up with is gone and I push up to my feet. “Are you seriously calling me a whore?” I want to hit him. I want to rage at this man and make him hurt but instead I clench my hands into fists and hold them at my sides. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I spit at him.

“Wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you to let someone like Taylor Hunt take care of you?” He grabs my arm, pulling me to him before I can try to yank myself out of his grip.

His body is strong and hard, wrapped in muscle. I shouldn’t like being held this close to him, but I can feel every muscle in him as he moves. Shaking my head, I try to come to my senses, and I yank back on my arm to try to get free from his grip.

“Let me go, you asshole!”

“Oh, no, Mia, you don’t get to make the demands here.” His eyes are hard and dark and his lips curl up into a smirk. “You were in bed with Taylor on something, I’m sure of it. Maybe you didn’t fuck him, but he sure as hell wants to do just that with you.”

“That’s not my fault,” I say, pulling on my arm. “And you’re hurting me! Let me go!”

My blood chills when Lorenzo shakes his head. “No can do, darling. You belong to me now and I want to figure out why the hell Taylor wants you so badly. You belong to me, understand? I don’t give a shit if you like it or not.”

Letting go of me, he spins to the door. Anger radiates off of him like heat from a light bulb and I know that chasing after him is stupid, but I do just that, grabbing him by the shoulders and trying to get him to turn to me.

It’s like trying to turn a fucking house by pressing on an outside wall.

“Don’t lock me in here!” I cry, pulling back on his shoulders as hard as I can. “You can’t leave me in here, Lorenzo! I don’t know what you want from me!”

When he turns, he moves so quickly that it almost knocks me off-balance, and I gasp, hanging onto him to keep from falling.

“I want you,” he tells me, grabbing my chin and lifting it so that I have to look him in the eyes. “I want you to come clean with me about Taylor so that I can bring him down, and then I want you in my bed every fucking night.”

His fingers burn my skin and I want to pull away from him but I feel like I’m caught in place. I’m an insect in a spider’s web and it doesn’t matter one fucking bit that I’m terrified.

I’m also more turned on than I have ever been in my life and I hate myself for that. Who the hell would feel throbbing between their legs when faced with a monster like this?

Only someone really fucked up.

“I don’t know anything about Taylor,” I say, putting as much honesty into my words as possible. I want him to believe me. I need him to believe that I’m not lying to him, that I wouldn’t dare do that. “I promise you, Lorenzo, I don’t know him beyond him giving me money sometimes. He wanted me to sleep with him, but I wouldn’t.”

“You wouldn’t. So you don’t just open up those legs for anyone, am I right?”

His words and his tone are so cold and harsh that I can’t help the tears that spring to my eyes.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “I’ve never...I’ve never done that.”

Fire blazes in his gaze and he lets go of me, pushing my chin roughly away from him like now I’m the one hurting him. I see desire there, but it’s mingled with something else. Something I can’t put my finger on.

“We’ll see about that,” he finally says, his voice thick. “If you are lying to me, Mia, I will find out about it, I promise you that. And if you are lying to me then you better hope that I’m feeling kind in that moment because I kill liars.”

A chill rushes up may body and I rub my hands up and down my arms to try to warm up. I believe him. I don’t know him, but I honestly believe that he will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. “Please,” I whisper, but he shakes his head.

“I hate begging.”

Fear grips my heart. “I have to pee,” I tell him. It’s not a lie, but it also wasn’t what I was going to say. I was going to beg him not to hurt me, but those words have dried in my mouth.

“Come on,.” He turns away from me, leading me out into the hall without looking back at me. If he’s afraid that I’m going to make a run for it, he sure isn’t showing that fear. He sounds irritated and I know that I’m on thin ice.

As quietly as possible I follow him down the hall, turning into the bathroom when he stops and points at an open door.

“I’ll wait here for you,” he says, his voice a growl. It’s filled with the promises of what he will do to me if I fuck up, and I give him a brisk nod.

Inside, I shut the door and reach to lock it, but there isn’t a lock. My fingers brush against the handle and I finally feel the tears I’ve been holding back start to stream down my face.

He’s a monster.

God help me, I want him.

But he’s going to kill me, I just know it.