Page 16 of Born into Mayhem
“I was trying to get you to back down. Sometimes walking away is the smartest choice, Mia. You can’t fight your way out of every situation. You have to know when to stand your ground and fight and when to walk away. You were exhausted. You should’ve admitted it and backed down from the challenge. You almost passed out from exertion.”
“But I finished it all,” I say, “and it wasn’t a fight. You were being an ass, and I was trying to wipe that smug grin off your face.”
“Did I have a smug grin? I’m not so sure you could’ve seen it even if I had because you were focused on the floor and trying like hell to not pass out.”
“You had a smug grin,” I say. “I could hear it in your voice while you counted each rep.”
He smiles, and damn if it doesn’t knock me on my ass harder than all those burpees and push-ups had. Straight white teeth, beautiful olive skin, and enough stubble to ensure it would leave a mark if he kissed me—the man is fucking perfect. The fact that his dark hair is wet with sweat and the white T-shirt he’s wearing is stuck to his body like a second skin isn’t helping matters.
“Feeling better?” he asks. “Or do you want another bottle of water?”
“I’m fine. I’ll take a bottle to go, though.”
I move to sit up and feel his thumb brush along my neck before he lets me go and takes a step back. I don’t miss the way he quickly adjusts himself, and this time it’s my turn to gloat a bit, because he’s hard, and it’s not just some unconscious response because my body is grinding against his while trying to get out of a hold. The only thing he’s touched is the back of my head, and before that, we had several feet between us. He has no excuse for this hard-on except for the fact that he wants me.
He raises a brow at me in challenge, daring me to say something about his current predicament. Neither of us is surprised when I don’t ignore what’s happened and instead ask, “Everything okay, Dario?”
“It’s fine.” He turns his back on me and walks away, leaving me in his large home gym.
I laugh and stand up. Before I leave, I stop at the fridge in the corner. He always keeps it stocked full of water, but he knows Gatorade, especially the purple kind, is my favorite, so he always makes sure to have several bottles cold and ready for me to drink whenever I need them. After I take a drink, I grab one of the folded-up towels so I can wipe off some of this sweat and then go in search of him.
I find him in the living room, sitting back in one of the leather chairs, taking up all the space and looking sexy as hell as he does it. A whiskey is in one hand, bottom of the glass resting against the arm of the chair while his intense dark eyes follow me when I step in and drop into the chair opposite him. I’m a mess, and I know how much it must be bothering him to have me marring his pretty furniture.
He doesn’t say anything, so I open the Gatorade and take a long drink. He mimics me with a much smaller drink of whiskey, but his dark eyes never leave mine. The stare is intense, and when I move just enough for me to feel my new piercing shift, the quick wave of pleasure has me freezing in place and biting down on my bottom lip.
Watching me in silence for several seconds, he takes one more drink and says, “You say you’re in pain, but you don’t act like it.”
“Oh yeah? What do I act like?”
He takes another drink of whiskey while he weighs his words, and I force my lower body to remain perfectly still.
“You look like you’re about to have another accidental orgasm.” He raises a brow at me over the rim of his glass. “Want me to take you for a quick ride around the block to help you out with that?”
I scoff at him. “I don’t need your help to come.” Taking another drink, I try really hard to talk myself out of what I’m about to do, but the heated look in Dario’s dark eyes is too much for me. I really need to learn how to back down from a challenge.
I set the bottle by my feet and sit back up. The way his jaw tenses when I slowly rock my hips is more than enough to spur me on. I’m addicted to the way this man looks at me, and even though I’m technically breaking the thirty-day rule, I’m not using my hands, and that has to count for something. Pressing my thighs tightly together, I move so they rub and create friction where I need it most. My eyes widen slightly when I’m instantly rewarded with a soft wave of pleasure.
“What are you doing,streghetta?”
I grin, partly from how good the piercing feels sliding along my clit and partly because I love driving him crazy. “That’s so sad that you don’t already know,” I tell him. “Never seen a woman orgasm before?” I laugh and squirm in his nice leather chair.
His lips slightly part, and I catch a quick glimpse of his tongue as he slowly runs his eyes over me. “I’ve never seen one come just from grinding her thighs together, no,” he admits.
Instead of trying to stop me, he takes another drink of whiskey and settles back into his chair while his eyes stay glued to me. The desire in his dark eyes beckons me to keep going, so I do. I rub my thighs together, every slight movement creating a delicious friction that brings me closer to the breaking point. My pierced nipples swell and press against my sports bra, adding another layer to everything I’m already feeling. Gripping the sides of the chair, I dig my fingers in, refusing to touch myself.
My breathing picks up as my climax draws near. I’ve gottenoff thinking about Dario hundreds of times, but never like this, never with him mere feet away from me with his body tense like he’s seconds away from pouncing. His dark eyes are calculating, just like when we spar, and I know he’s running through all the ways he could lunge and get me on the ground beneath him with no way of escape.
It’s that look that sends me over the edge. My throaty cry fills the room, and I see his nostrils flare before I tip my head back, my chest arching and every inch of my body humming with pleasure. The orgasm is just as powerful as the one I’d had on the back of his bike, and I’m beginning to think that they’re all going to be like that from now on thanks to the piercing between my legs. Still riding my high, I squirm a bit more, letting out a moan when aftershocks leave me trembling and my breaths shaky.
Feeling a whole lot better than I did a few minutes ago, I grin and lift my head, but what I see stops me dead in my tracks. Dario’s jaw is clenched tight, one hand fisting the glass of whiskey like he’s about to shatter it, and the other is resting on the thick, hard length I see straining against his joggers. His thumb runs along his shaft, lightly stroking himself while he watches me.
“Well, I should probably get going now,” I say, not so much because I want to but because if I stay here any longer, I’m going to get naked and straddle his lap, and I’m not allowed to do that for another two weeks.
“That’s probably for the best,streghetta mia.” His voice is strained, but his Italian sounds seductive and wonderfully sinful. Themiahe’s saying isn’t my name. He’s no longer calling melittle witch, he’s sayingmy little witch.It’s the first time he’s ever called me that, and a big part of me hopes he’ll never stop.
When I hesitate, eyes still glued to the way he’s softly stroking himself through his joggers, he says, “Mia, get your wicked little ass out of my house before I decide I’d much rather pin you to the ground and fuck that smirk right off your beautiful face.”
Stunned, I open my mouth and then shut it again. I’ve never been so torn between anything in my life. I want him. I want exactly whathe’s just threatened, but it wouldn’t be gentle, we both know that, and I can’t tear my pussy up like that, not with a piercing that’s still trying to fully heal. I also know I’m not about to tell him what I’ve gone and done to myself. That’ll be a surprise for another day.
