Gia Carini is a badass.

That’s all I can think about as I carry the sexiest woman I’ve ever met back to our hotel room. Her heels are digging into my side. Heels that she used to kick that son of a bitch in the balls.

It was amazing to watch. I always knew she was strong and fucking incredible. But I never realized just how fucking badass until now. I know Gia’s brothers didn’t let her get too involved in the business side of things. They wanted to protect her and for good reason. So I doubted she would kill Roman when I handed her my gun.

I knew she was angry. I knew she needed revenge, but I thought if she found the strength to pull the trigger, she’d miss and I’d have to finish the bastard.

She aimed right for his heart and killed him without a second thought. She’s more like me than I could have ever imagined.

She was just dark and dangerous, but earlier in the car she was the sweetest, funniest woman. And that makes her even sexier. One moment she could live out my fantasies, and the next she could kill me. Especially since I let her keep the gun.

She won’t use the gun to kill me. I know her well enough to know that. Her feelings for me are too strong. She’s not pissed at me like the others, even though I’m just as much of the reason she is in this mess as Roman or Dante is. I’ve hurt her the same. So if she does decide to use the gun against me, I deserve it.

But she needs the gun for her protection. Now that I know she is capable of proficiently using a gun, I trust her with it. She could kill an intruder as easily as I could. And it will make her feel better protected now that she is starting to make enemies.

I’ve planted the story that Roman stole her back. He was the one that stole her from Dante. Dante will be looking for her with a greater intensity now. And I’ll be the one to find her. She will want to help me.

I can’t focus on Dante now. Now I have the sexiest, most incredible, amazing, awesome, badass woman in the world. And I plan on making good use of her wanting me while I have the chance.

We burst through the door of the hotel room I sprung for. I never buy anything this expensive, not anymore. I only told a half-truth when I told Gia why I don’t have anything nice or expensive. I don’t find much use in more expensive things, it’s true, but I also don’t feel worthy.

I got this hotel room for Gia. She’s worthy of a penthouse. She’s worthy of a lot more.

Her hands claw at my neck, desperate to put the adrenaline and high she is feeling to use. And she wants to use me.

“Slow down, princess,” I say as she kisses my neck and starts undoing my tie.

“Why?” she purrs.

“Because I want to savor you.”

“You can as long as it’s dark and dirty, as fucking messed up as it was last night.”

Last night was incredible. The best night of my life by far when it should have been my worst. I’ve never gone that far with a woman before. No woman has ever been able or willing to take on the sadistic side of me. The controlling asshole that lives in the dark.

But she craved it, same as me. And now she wants more.

“Be careful what you wish for, beautiful.”

She grins. “I want everything. All of your darkness. I want to feel it all.”

Her words are what I’ve wanted to hear all this time. I’ve needed to hear them for so long, but no woman has ever measured to her. Now the woman of my fantasies finally exists. She’s real.

She rips my tie off. “I want to know all the darkest parts of your soul.”

I smile. “You already do.”

She cocks her head to the side and whispers in my ear. “You haven’t found my darkest places yet. So find them.”

Damn, my cock is hard.

I’m the one who is going to need to fucking slow down. I’m still holding her in my arms, and we both grow wild at the same time. She rips off my tie, and I kiss down her neck, hungrily until I reach her cleavage, which is far too exposed in this dress for going in public. I want her to myself. I don’t want to share, even a glimpse of her.

My tie is off, my shirt is unbuttoned, and my cock strains against my zipper about to burst through my pants. I remove the gun from the back of her dress, toss it to the nightstand, and let our bodies fall to the bed. I don’t have any of the dark toys I had before to play with her, but that doesn’t mean this session is going to be light. I don’t know how to go back into the light with her.

Her nails dig into my chest, and I know that she is still in the dark with me. If I don’t tie her up, she’s going to be just as rough with me as I am with her. I welcome it.

Last time, I needed control. This time, I need her with me.

I grab her dress and rip it down the middle, the sparkly sequins scattering to the bed as I rip.

She glares at me. “I loved this dress. Why did you ruin it?”

“Because you can’t wear it in public anymore now. I can’t stand to see other guys looking at you in it.”

She blushes. I think she’s going to scold me. “Are you jealous, Caspian?”

“No, jealous would imply you look at other men in a room. You don’t. I’m infuriated with any man that looks at what’s mine.”

Her eyes darken, her breath catches, and her nipples stand at attention waiting for me. My caveman words turn her on, instead of turning her off.

“Fuck me, Caspian,” she says, growing impatient with our pause.

I grab her legs and pull her cunt to me so I can taste the sweet pleasure I know is dripping there. My tongue darts inside her, and her body sings.

“God!” she moans, unable to even say my name, as I make her body wiggle beneath me.

I smirk, pushing my tongue deeper inside her and bringing her right to the brink. She wants to come so badly, but she also wants what comes next.

I push her, moving my tongue deeper inside her body as I hit the sweet spot that will make her do anything I want.

She explodes around my tongue.

“Yes, Conti!”

Her screams still me. She’s called me Conti several times before, and every time she does, it reminds me of someone else. And it melts my cold heart. This time it shatters the ice holding it together until there is nothing left.

I sit up abruptly, not believing what I’m doing.

“Conti?” Gia sits up slowly, feeling the coldness in the room. The chill that won’t go away until I start talking.

I feel tears burning my eyes. Tears I haven’t cried in almost five years.

“I should have saved you.”

Gia shivers as she wraps the ripped dress around her body.

“You did save me.”

“No, I should have saved you the second you fell into my lap.”

“You couldn’t. Dante would have killed you.”

“No, I could have saved you. It would have ruined my relationship with Dante, sure, but I could have prevented every horrible thing from happening to you, and I didn’t because I was selfish.”

Gia scoots closer to me but doesn’t touch me as we both sit half naked on the edge of the oversized king bed. I never expected to spill my heart to a woman again, but here I am, ripping my own heart to shreds. Gia doesn’t say anything. She waits until I can speak again.

“I needed revenge more than I wanted to save you. You shouldn’t want to fuck me. I’m a bigger monster than Dante and Roman combined.”

She nods. “I know you could have saved me. I know you were torn and wanted to. Adela told me. At that moment, I hated you, but I knew you had to have a reason for not saving me. And last night I realized you were watching over me, making sure I never got hurt so badly I couldn’t recover. You saved me the second you could.”

“No!” I grab Gia’s face as tears stream down my face. “I let that disgusting excuse of a man hurt you. I let him touch you. I let him rape you, and I did nothing. There is no excuse good enough to let you go through that.”

Tears burn her eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall. “Just tell me why.”

“I had the perfect wife—”

She gasps when I say, wife. And then she realizes she shouldn’t act surprised and relaxes.

“I had the perfect wife. She was beautiful, smart, determined. She was a nurse. She devoted her life to helping kids that didn’t have any money to pay her. She only took enough money to feed and clothe herself. She was a saint.”

The tears will never stop now that I’ve started.

“She was my light. She kept me pure. She knew there was a darkness inside me, but she kept the darkness at bay.”

“She sounds wonderful.”

“She was. She was heavenly. Purer than an angel. She saved me, helped me find my purpose in providing security systems to protect the innocent from the evil.”

I can’t look at Gia as I talk about my wife. It’s too much. So I stare at my hands. Hands that have done so much wrong.

“But security isn’t pure. I got mixed into a world of evil. I tried to stay away, but it sucked me in like a vacuum I could get free of.

“We’d been married two years when she was taken in the middle of the night. My security system had failed us…failed her. Yesterday was the anniversary of her being taken.”

I roar out my anger needing the pain to go away. I’ve been numb for too long to be able to handle this pain now.

“I searched every day for her for a year. One year I searched. I found her, but it was too late. She was dead and gone, tossed out like trash. I brought her back to my home in the woods and buried her in the garden, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to get her revenge.”

Gia nods but keeps her hands in her lap, even though I can tell she wants to comfort me, she knows I won’t accept it right now.

“Dante Russo was the one who took her. I vowed the day I found her, I would torture and kill him the way he did her. I needed the best security system to get a way in. I needed a system he would want. So I became the best. And then I needed something Dante would truly mourn when I stole it.”

“Me,” Gia says.

I nod.

“I’m not valuable to him. I’m just a body he can fuck. He doesn’t care about me any more than he does any other woman.”

I shake my head. “I planned to install the system, watch him, and find his weakness. But the second I saw you run out of the car, I knew it was you. You would become his weakness because you instantly became mine.”

She sucks in a breath.

“I’ve watched him every day since I took you. He’s gone mad. He would do anything to get you back. And now that I’ve tortured him with your disappearance, can I kill him.”

Gia takes a second to herself and then grabs my cheeks, wiping my tears with her thumbs. “I forgive you.”

More tears fall. Of all the things she could say now, I never expected her to say that.

“You can’t forgive me.”

She smiles carefully. “I just did. You don’t get to tell me how I feel. I forgive you. I can’t understand what you’ve been through. I’ve never lost someone like that, but I’ve experienced pain and if there were something I could do to make that pain lessen for someone I love, then I would. Even if it meant hurting someone else.”

I grab her neck and kiss her firmly on the lips, sucking all the air from her.

“How can you be this perfect?” I ask against her lips.

She kisses me again, needing our lips together. “I’m no more perfect than you are. We are just kindred spirits, both searching for the same thing. Revenge.”

I devour her lips now. I need to be inside her as quickly as possible. She needs the same thing. Her hands are at the waistband of my pants, trying to push them off.

I rip her panties down and push inside her without waiting to see if she is ready for me or not. From her wince, her body wasn’t prepared, but her moans and clawing on my back tell me she doesn’t care. Her soul can’t wait.

I rock in and out of her, gripping her tightly as I fuck her. But I’m not just fucking her. There is something different happening, but I can’t find the word to describe it. Because no word can describe the connection between us. No matter what happens next, it’s unbreakable.

“What was her name?” Gia asks, and that’s when I realize what’s happening. This is for my wife. For a connection I had with a woman that was stolen from me too soon. A woman I never deserved. Whatever beautiful connection is happening now is because of her.

“Clara Conti.”

Gia pauses for a second, honoring her, and then she kisses me hard on the lips. And I fuck her like tomorrow might never come. And it might not.

I don’t know how this ends with Gia and me. How am I going to give her up? Because I can’t keep her.