Page 16 of Secondhand Secrets

But her impossible stillness shot holes through his hope, at least until her pupils expanded into wide, black pools, and her next words poured out on a breathy exhale. “I want you to kiss me.”

Electricity shot through his arm, and he lashed out a hand, hooking his fingers to the back of her neck and pulling her in, her eyelids snapping shut in an open invitation.

He closed the final distance and brushed his lips over the silkiness of hers, that tentative first caress already pushing his heartbeat to an erratic thunder. Suddenly, ten years of suppressed emotion surged through every inch of his body, and he gave in to unspoken longing, deepening the kiss.

After a lifetime of her in his orbit, no time or distance could dull this thrill.

Where she offered a sense of gentle femininity, he countered with his hard and shameless need. Though she took a moment to join him, her fingertips soon curled either side of his face and she demanded more of him on a low and hungry moan.

Impulsive. Impossible to contain. She, and this kiss, surpassed everything he’d imagined. The exchange didn’t live only in his head but existed as real as the heat off her body and the warm wetness of her mouth. Every time he penetrated her with his tongue, her taste seemed designed to increase his yearning, so lush and addictive.

And yearn he did. With a mind skilled at conjuring possibilities, he grew desperate for relief, hot need rushing his veins so that his length hardened.

Though her mother’s voice called for her from downstairs, he didn’t let Ally go, and she didn’t pull away either, so he dared to take this further. Dared to grasp for what he wanted most right now. Her in his lap.

But his quick tug at her body brought the sharp sound of shattering clay. She broke the kiss, leaping from his hold and onto the mattress at his side. Her gaze fused down to the wood floor beside the bed, her glossy stare quick to hit him next.

Sure enough, the red vase she’d held in her lap, lay in a cluster of broken pieces.

“Ally?”

She shook her head silently, her tongue darting out to lick her red and kiss-ravished lips, as though she sought to confirm what had just happened.

Never wanting to destroy one of her pieces, he wished to apologize. But truth be told, his only true regret was that the kiss had ended. So, the only honest thing he could think to extend was an offer to help clean up.

“Have you got cotton in your ears, girl?” Her dad burst through her closed door, his presence forcing a metaphorical gulf between them, one that had Ally leaping back even farther away from Chip.

Her dad’s brows dipped in the middle, and he passed his gaze between Chip, Ally, and the shattered clay, his voice momentarily stammering before he spoke again, “You two come on down, the surprise is waiting.”

His attention held for a moment longer, and then he slowly turned and padded out the door.

Ally’s incredulous stare dropped to the mess on the floor again, then sprung back to Chip, her mouth hanging agape. “Oh God. That shouldn’t have happened.”

The shock in her eyes indicated she spoke of more than the broken earthenware. As in, the kiss shouldn’t have happened.

If hearts could sink, then his most certainly did—along with his instinct to reassure her—since reassuring came close to convincing, and he sure as hell wouldn’t do that. Not now. Not ever.

Besides, her silence spoke volumes. It said that they’d been apart too long to call each other friends, and one kiss didn’t make for lovers.

“Come on.” Burying the internal sting from her regret, he stood and reached for her hand. “The mess can wait. Your parents won’t.”

Eight

Mark Farro settled into the brown leather chair in his new home office. His scowl landed on the mahogany bookcase to his right before he trekked his gaze along the leather-bound tomes, intersecting with the occasional antique alabaster bust or brass armillary globe.

Just as he preferred, everything he’d carted over to Boston from New York screamed luxury and expense. Only his beautiful setting didn’t at all fit with the video call he was set to take.

He would have liked to visit his cousin Luciano in person. They’d lived apart for close to a decade, their branches of the Syndicate stretching opposites sides of the country, but now that Luciano resided in a Minnesota prison and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future, Mark had new priorities.

Though Luciano’s arrest struck a genuine blow, Mark would deal with his anger in the best way he knew how. Productively. With research. With a plan. Hence his move to Boston, where his presence would make a far bigger difference to Luciano’s problems than any fleeting prison visit.

A notification appeared on Mark’s open laptop browser, Luciano’s call connecting. Within seconds, the man’s joyless face appeared on the screen, his complexion gray and the skin beneath his eyes wrinkled and wary.

Mark fought an unfamiliar battle to find words, but then Luciano spoke first. “You gotta plan?”

Mark nodded through the weight of a heavy frown, his attention sliding from his cousin’s once meticulously slicked black hair, now sporting an inch of silver regrowth. Mark’s own image mirrored back to him in a smaller window on his screen—his thick, bronze waves and his tailored, navy-blue oxford shirt—a styled contrast to his cousin.

“Nice to see you too, Cousin.” He cleared his throat and told himself to get a grip.

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