Page 23 of Ruthless Sinner

At last we stopped at a hilly park that was high up, and had a great view of the bay. Marco stopped the motorcycle and got off, offering me his hand.

“Never took you for the gentleman type,” I teased him, but I took his hand anyway. It was warm and strong. I liked the way it made me feel grounded.

“I thought women liked gentlemen?”

“To a certain extent.” I looked around. “Why are we here?”

Marco rubbed at the back of his neck, like he was nervous. Big bad Marco Russo, nervous? The idea was endearing.

“This is one of the areas my family bought outside of the city,” he explained. “One of the ways we maintain our strength in the mafia and the legitimate business world is focusing on charity efforts. It gives us a good reputation with people, helps us with our public image. Vincent’s new wife, she’ll pick her own charities she wants to work with, where her focus is, but my mom was all about community outreach and the environment so she built a lot of parks. Like this one.”

He gestured towards a sign I hadn’t noticed before. It dubbed the placeMarco’s Parkand below it had a few lines explaining who built the park and in what year.

I looked at him in surprise. “This one’s yours?”

“Yeah, we all have one. Mom liked to name them after people in her life. And I think she knew that we all needed a place to go and breathe. I don’t know if Vincent goes to his park a lot, but I like to come here when I need to get out of the city and just chill.”

“But you love the city.” New York City was vibrant, pulsing with life, and so was Marco.

“Most of the time.” Marco leaned back against his motorcycle and looked out over the city, its lights gleaming like so many fireflies. “But what I do for the family… I see the dirty side of the city. The grime, the blood, the ugly. Sometimes I gotta get out and take a few deep breaths away from it all.”

“I understand,” I said softly. Working in the FBI wasn’t the glamorous catching of bad guys like you saw on television. A lot of the time I didn’t know if we were really the good guys or if there were only shades of gray. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

Marco gave me a small, soft smile, and it tugged at my heart.

“Who knew the bad boy with a motorcycle had such a soft side?” I added, trying to ignore that feeling in my chest and hoping to get myself back onto safer emotional ground.

“Hey, I’ve got layers,” Marco protested with a smirk. “And you can’t say you don’t like the motorcycle. I saw your face light up when you saw it.”

“Well,” I admitted, feeling there was no harm in telling him, “I’ve always had a bit of a thing for bad boys.”

“Congratulations then, you hit the jackpot.” He winked at me. “You ever ridden one yourself?”

“A motorcycle? No, just tandem.”

“Well c’mere then.” Marco patted the seat.

I laughed. “Are you going to teach me to ride it?”

“Why not?”

“It’s one in the morning.”

“Exactly, night’s still young.”

I slung my leg over and settled onto the seat of the motorcycle. “This is probably a terrible idea.”

“People keep saying that when I introduce them to my ideas,” Marco said, faking a thoughtful voice.

I leaned forward to get a better look at the dash, my hips rotating—right as Marco turned on the motor.

Vibrations shot right up against my clit and I gasped. I couldn’t help it.

Marco stared at me for a moment in confusion—not as if he didn’t know what had just happened, but like he wasn’t sure if what he had seen wasactuallywhat he saw or if he was just imagining it.

His hand tightened on the throttle and he revved the engine.

“Ohfuck,” I gasped out, as powerful vibrations rippled right up against my clit. With the way I was leaning forward, I’d tilted my hips at just the right angle to get all that power against my pussy, even through my jeans, like I was using a goddamn Magic Wand.

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