Transgressions by Carolyn Faulkner (the reading list txt) 📕

he wasn't one to ignore someone trespassing on what he considered to be his, even if it was by his mentor's daughter.

"Tell me why you're here, Allegra," he whispered against her lips.

Ally tried to push away from him but wasn't getting anywhere. Even arching away didn't work. He merely raised his other hand to splay it between her shoulder blades, keeping her at the distance he preferred, which wasn't much.

When she spoke, she couldn't help but bump lips with him. "I may have…overreached a bit."

One eyebrow rose. "A bit?" he asked, tightening his arms just slightly, making her feel just that much more helpless as a result.

Ally struggled against his hold carefully. She desperately wanted out of his arms. Apparently, she hadn't done nearly as well as she'd thought in burying her attraction for him, and she quickly realized that he wasn't the only enemy here—her own body was betraying her, softening against him, wanting to melt into him, to moan and writhe against him until he kissed her and more. Much, much more.

Trying not to inflame him—not that she thought she could, necessarily, but as a precaution—and definitely not add to her own bone deep response—her movements were subtle and slow and always met with just as careful, painless defeat, until she stopped trying to extricate herself entirely.

Frustrated in more ways than she wanted to consider, she turned the same smile on him that she used to use on her father when she wanted something she knew he was likely to say "no" to. "Oh, all right. More than a bit, but not much, really, in the grand scheme of things." She snuck a peek up at him, not liking what she saw but also not backing down from his eyes. "Certainly not so much that you'd feel the pinch of it, what with the size of your outfit."

That was a miscalculation that he jumped on, as she'd known he would from the moment the words were out of her mouth.

"The size of my organization has nothing to do with it, Ally, and you know that. The lines were drawn very carefully to avoid the ravages of a street to street war, and I can't allow it to continue."

Back then, she hadn't been in the least above trading on their history together. "Oh, come on, Enzo. It's such a tiny taste and I need more income if I'm going to be able to keep the family together."

Ally wasn't ready for his response—not in any way. Those lips that had been threatening finally made good on their promise and he was kissing her deeply, his closest hand sliding slowly up her back and neck to bury strong fingers in her short curls, cupping the back of her head and not allowing her to end the kiss. He was hungry—and so was she, although she kept as tight a rein on her desires as she could, considering that she'd been waiting since she was thirteen for him to do exactly this.

And suddenly, the thought hit her. He knew that. He'd known all along that she'd had a crush on him, and this was just Enzo, playing her weakness to his advantage, which was something he'd done countless times with ruthless expertise to many of his enemies. He found, then exploited their weakness—gambling, affairs, booze, whatever, and turned his knowledge of their transgressions into his own successes.

Her only weakness was him, and here he was, kissing her like she'd fantasized he would for all those years.

He was inches away from becoming her own personal transgression. As much as she ached for him—and every bit of her wanted nothing more than to surrender herself to him completely, with absolutely no reservations—she couldn't imagine the damage she'd be doing to what she was struggling so hard to maintain—her father's legacy and the integrity of the families he'd built, both personal and business. If she yielded herself to him in any way, all would be lost.

Including much of herself. He wasn't the kind of a man who would accept halfway—he would have all of her or none of her, and if she succumbed even just the slightest bit, he would take everything she offered and demand even more of her. She knew somehow, instinctively, that she would be in real danger of losing her very soul to him if that happened.

In an unconscious self-defense move, Ally went cold in his arms, limp and unresponsive, as if a light had been turned off and a dark void was left in its absence.

Enzo couldn't figure what he'd done wrong. She'd had a puppy dog crush on him since he could remember. There weren't that many years between them—seven or so—but when he'd come into her world, she'd been on the cusp of adolescence and she'd fallen hard, staring at him with those big blue eyes as if he was a rock star or something. He was twenty and she was thirteen, and he'd walked a very thin line with her, being excruciatingly careful not to encourage her, but also not to hurt her. He wasn't sure she realized the last part.

He'd watched her mature from the fringes of her life, knowing it would be better for the both of them if he didn't allow himself to get too close to her. He had other goals to accomplish at the time, and that helped. Oh, her family had done its best to take him—the orphan—in and include him as one of their own, but it wasn't the same, and he cultivated a certain distance that he knew would make things easier on everyone, including himself.

But she wasn't a teenager anymore, and he wasn't her father's right hand man, either, always on the outside looking in. If anything, she was the outsider now, trying to hold the pieces of her father's crew together after his unexpected death, and, although he knew just how tenuous her position was, he couldn't afford to just let this thing go. It