Page 10 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

She huffed, adjusted her skirt, and stormed past him. The door slammed shut with a loud bang, and then… silence. Just how I liked it.

I closed my eyes and took another drag, but they snapped open when my sharp instincts told me something wasn’t right.

I wasn’t alone.

My gaze locked onto the huddled body in the opposite corner of the large converted cellar. A tumble of messy brown ringlets hid her face as she stared down at her knees, her arms wrapped tight around them as if trying to fold herself out of existence. I took another slow drag, watching her through the smoke, wondering who she was and why she was down here, in my fucking space.

There were only two reasons McKenna threw anyone down here with me. To scare them into compliance, or they wanted them dead. I was too exhausted for this. I’d get it done quickly.

I pushed myself out of the chair and crossed the bunker. She didn’t scurry away or shrink further into the shadows. She stayed unnaturally still. For a second, I wondered whether she was already dead.

Crouching, I shoved my hand through the curtain of tangled brown curls. I grabbed her jaw and forced her head up. When her big hazel eyes met mine, two unexpected things happened. First, she didn’t scream. She didn’t even flinch. Second, I had a thought that wasn’t rooted in violence.

She’s beautiful.

Too beautiful. More beautiful than anything I should ever dare to look at. I didn’t see beauty in anything. I didn’t value it. My world was solely darkness and decay. Nothing and no one could survive in my orbit. Especially not something that looked as pure as her.

I gripped her jaw tighter, forcing her full lips apart. I waited for the emotions that always took over when they saw their death in my eyes. The hysterical crying or fearful whimpers as they begged me to spare them. They never understood that it only made me end them faster so I could restore the silence again. But neither came. She just held my gaze.

That threw me. And it kept the monster in me caged.

Acting on impulse alone, I leaned closer and breathed in deeply, catching the new, invasive scent of her in my space. If I’d ever had the chance to walk through a meadow of wildflowers on a warm summer’s day, I imagined it would smell just like her. Feminine, sweet and intoxicating, yet it had no right to belong in a place like this. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to rub it all over me or kill her for how much I liked it.

I let her go and stood, glaring down at her. She kept looking up at me from the filthy floor, those innocent hazel eyes holding more fighting spirit than most of the men I faced in the cages.

After a moment, she lowered her chin to rest on her knees again and stared at the ground. I clenched my fists.

Backing away, I headed to the small bathroom and splashed my face with cold water in the grubby basin, trying to decide what the fuck to do about my new problem. I knew what I was supposed to do. Terrify her so she’d scream for them to help, and if they didn’t come to her rescue, she’d become another victim of my darkness. So why the fuck hadn’t I?

I never hesitated. But I’d never killed anyone in silence. I was conditioned to react to noise and aggression, to begging, shouting, and crying. If I sensed a person’s anger, pain or fear, whether I heard it or saw it, I acted without thought. I’d kill without feeling.

A hollow man with no soul, only pointed at targets. A weaponised monster.

She was obviously in shock. The reality of her situation would soon catch up with her. When it did, the noise would come. Until then, the silence was the only thing keeping her alive.

Safety In Silence

The heavy steel door was shoved open, and I froze on the floor. The single hanging light in the centre of the space was too far away to reveal either me or the man who had just stormed in, followed by the woman who dived at him.

Everything happened so quickly. I barely had time to process it before I realised I had a front-row seat to a porno. The silhouettes of their bodies, her on her knees in front of him and his hand in her hair as his hips thrust fast and hard, forced my lungs to give up oxygen. They clearly had no idea I was there. Should I make myself known? Did they live down here together? Were they a couple? What the fuck should I do? Before I could unscramble my thoughts, he lifted her off the floor by her throat and spun her, slamming her against the wall.

Oh, merda. Perhaps this wasn’t consensual. He was being so… rough. I glanced around, looking for anything I could use to hit him over the head with, until I heard her ask for it that way, as if the anger and violence he was radiating were just a game to her. A thrill.

My eyes widened as he started fucking her so brutally; it sounded like she was being murdered by his dick. I’d watched porn a few times, more out of curiosity and research than anything else, but I’d never seen anything like this. Witnessing it in real life… Well, it was eye-opening. Quite literally.

When her moans and screams grew louder, he yanked her head back by her hair and slammed his hand over her mouth, not once easing his punishing pace. In the dim lighting, I could only make out the broadness of his back and the flex of his ass as he pounded into her.

I couldn’t look away, and it was flooding my body with a hurricane of sensation. My heart raced. My stomach twisted. Every inch of my skin burned, and a strange fluttering grew between my legs. I slammed my hand over my mouth to stop any sound from escaping, but that didn’t help at all because my twisted mind made me her. I was the one pressed against the wall, fucked like a broken toy, unable to breathe. Would I like that? My body seemed to tell me I might.

A deep groan echoed through the bunker, and he slammed into her once, then twice. He threw his head back for a second, and the single light caught the sheen of sweat-coated black hair. Without a word, he moved away from her, chucked something into the bin, and strode across the room to the battered armchair in the corner.

I gulped as he walked under the light, giving me my first glimpse of his shirtless, broad shoulders and a back sculpted with black ink and solid muscle. He dropped into the chair, directly in my line of sight, and I immediately looked down at the floor, thinking that would be the moment he’d spot me.

The door unbolted and opened.

That meant… she wasn’t staying. I was about to be left alone with…

I chanced a glance at him. The soft glow of his cigarette as he inhaled distracted me from his face, but my gaze slid down his torso, where the flickering ceiling light barely reached. It wasn’t just his back that was heavily tattooed. Every inch of him was marked in ink and shadow. From his neck to his hands, over his chest and bulging abs, and travelling lower into his waistband, tattoos crawled all over him like a second skin. A thick gold chain hung around his neck, glinting in the light, which was a bright contrast to the rest of him.