CIAOOOO BABIESS!!!
So sorry for the delay, I've been so busy with college and I was sick with a headcold (thankfully not Covid)!!!!
BUT MAMA IS HEREEEEEE.
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Lucius stood by the coat rack beside our table, glaring down at me as I remained seated in the booth. "Let's go, Korinna. I have things to do today."
"I'm not going anywhere with you." The words came out shakier and more fragile than I intended, and I inwardly cursed at myself for letting any indication that I was afraid of Lucius La Notte out into the open. "My driver is taking me home."
"Sure about that?" Lucius stalked away from me and shoved his way out the exit for the diner. I watched him in disbelief through the diner window as he approached my driver's parked vehicle and banged on the driver's window with his gloved fist.
"That motherfu––" I picked up my things and rushed outside.
"What are you doing?" I demanded of Lucius, as my driver backed up out of his spot. I waved my hand at my driver for him to stop, but he didn't even look in my direction through the windshield and left the parking lot. "Did you just fire my driver?"
"You need all new personnel for you anyway."
I was still so pissed about what he did to Gianni, but this was too far. And it was frightening how much power Lucius had over my father that he could just fire employees like this.
I dug around in my purse. "I'm calling an Uber."
"No, you're not." Lucius snatched my phone right out of my hand and slipped it into his pocket. "Your punishment for acting out in the diner is having to deal with me on the car ride home."
"Give me my phone back!" When I tried to take the phone away, Lucius pulled it out of my grasp, taking advantage of our height difference. He friended me off and snatched my hand, hauling me toward his Bugatti.
"This is kidnapping," I said as he practically dragged me through the parking lot.
"Is it? You don't seem like you're in distress."
"I'm always in distress when I'm around you."
He laughed, then stopped us both in front of the trunk of his car, aggressively pulling me towards him. "That's called arousal. An effect I tend to have on women."
"Maybe you should get an English dictionary and carry it around with your massive ego, because that's not what distress means."
"What happened to you being cooperative?" Lucius asked.
"I can be cooperative with the engagement and still give you hell when it's just you and me. In fact, expect it, stronza. I'm not the type of girl to keep my opinions in and I've got a lot about you."
Lucius grazed the chest of my sweater with his hazel eyes, his expression filling with dark to mischief. "Give me all the hell you want..."
"Ugh," I said and shoved him back. "Being around you is in agonizing torture I would not wish upon my worst enemy!"
"Believe me, you don't know torture." He leaned against the trunk of his Bugatti. "I could show you torture." Another slow perusal of his eyes over my body. "I'd just rather do it with my tongue with you."
"What a corny line. Use that one on your two girlfriends?"
He smirked, his hand reaching out to brush the edge of my coat. "I kind of like when you act jealous. It's hot."
I glanced down at my phone in his hand and leaned into him, spreading my hands trust. I ignored the way my body tingled the moment I felt strong muscle beneath my palms. "Oh, really?" I asked, making my voice a little throaty. "Does it get you hard?"
Lucius arched a black brow at my unexpected words.
Taking a vantage of him being caught off guard, I snatched my phone out of his pocket and jumped back with a small, victorious cackle. "Seek help."
Just as I began to turn away, I heard a click and look down at Lucius' hand underneath his jacket, realizing he was pointing his gun at me. "Get in the car, dearest," he said with the wink.
"Like you've ever shoot me in a public parking lot."
He bit down on his lip a little. "Wanna bet?"
I actually growled. "Whatever."
I stormed my way to the passenger seat and slid inside, slamming the door behind me. The leather seat of his car we're already warming, and I felt the urge to snuggle deep within the luxurious softness of the cushions. Why did everything about this man have to be alluring?
Lucius slid into the vehicle; his gloved hands wrung out the steering wheel. "Korinna," he hissed, "don't slam my door like that."
"I'll close your door whichever way I please. I can't believe you pulled a gun on me." I cross my arms of my chest, glaring out the window as I muttered, "That's my thing."
"Actually, I didn't." Lucius grabbed the back of my seat to reverse. "I just held my fingers like a gun beneath my jacket."
"You're the devil incarnate."
***
Apparently, part of my punishment was enduring his need for speed on the road, as Lucius gunned it down the highway and treated any back road like a practice track.
"Can you go the speed limit? Is that too much to ask?"
"Why, am I driving too fast?" Lucius asked innocently.
"No, it's normal for everything to be a complete blur out of the passenger window," I seethed.
"You need to let loose a little," Lucius said. "You are so rigid and afraid all of the time. Life is too short to live in so much fear."
"Thank you for your incredibly wise words of not living in fear, while I am trapped in a vehicle moving at the speed of light!"
"Which side of the bed to sleep on?" Lucius asked casually as he illegally moved around the car ahead of us into the left lane, making me shriek and moan in distress.
"I sleep on the left," Lucius continued as I try to catch my breath. "I call the left side now, it's mine."
"I don't even know what you're saying," I gasped out. "What are we going next three-hundred right now?"
"You'll be moving in with me at some point after the engagement, so it's best to figure out the small things now. Which is why I'm calling the left side of the bed."
I snapped my head decide declared him. "Like hell I'm moving in with you!"
"You expect us to be engaged and live separately? My father and his associates need to be convinced we're together and romantically involved."
He had a point there. Okay, this was getting a little more real feeling. "If we move in together, you'll be sleeping on the couch. No, on the floor. Better yet, outside with the raccoons and squirrels."
Lucius made a turn and floored it, his Bugatti purring beneath me and away that made my insides pulse.
"Lucius!" I screamed. "Slow down!"
"Say please, Korinna bambina."
I looked over at him and sly grin, feeling like everything was a game with this arrogant stronza. "If I die in this stupid overpriced sports car," I raged in Italian, "my father will put your head on the mantle of our fireplace!"
"Look out!" Lucius stuttered on the break, making me lurch forward with a tiny scream, and I gave his bicep a punch as he burst into laughter. "You stupid stronzo!"
"Did you not like the adrenaline rush?"
"Pull over. Pull over right now, or I'm grabbing the steering wheel!"
"Relax, we're almost there–"
I leaned over the center console and gripped the steering wheel.
"Alright, alright!" Lucius pulled the car to the side of the road just as it started to drizzle on the windshield. "Happy?"
I whacked him on his hard bicep.
"Ow," he said. "Is there a fly in here?"
"Are you out of your mind driving like that?" I shouted out him. "You could have killed us both!"
"I would've slowed down anyway." He indicated to the windshield, where the rain was picking up. "I don't drive fast when it's raining."
"Oh, I'm glad you have weather standards for when you drive like a complete idiota," I continued to chastise him. Too enraged to keep looking at his entertained expression and the way that one side of his mouth tilted up, I grab the door handle to get out, but it was locked.
Press the passenger unlock button, but he locked the car again before I could try to handle.
I slowly turn toward him, the wrath of my glare somehow not burning through his bright hazel eyes. He had his gloved hand on the button to lock the car and that smile tilting of the side of his mouth left a little higher.
I unlocked the car with the passenger button.
He locked it with a rapid flick of his finger.
"Unlock the car," I grated out, on the verge of snapping at him like a wolf with my teeth. "I'm walking the rest of the way."
"Korinna," Lucius sighed. "I was only teasing––"
"Lucius, I have so many things going on in my life right now, and last thing I need is being trapped in a car with a stubborn adrenaline junkie. I swear to God, if you don't open the door and let me out, I'm going to lose my fucking mind!" I had never screamed at him like that, and I didn't know what came over me, but I didn't want to find out where it ended because my whole body was shaking.
We stared at each other for a tense moment. He unlocked the vehicle, and I almost threw myself out and talk to my purse underneath my jacket to shield from the rain. It seemed to come down harder the faster as I stormed away from his car.
Lucius slowly drove in line with me, rolling down the window of the passenger door. He leaned over the center console. "You slammed my door again."
"Screw your door." I started walking faster, wishing I could light his car on fire.
"Korrina, come on," Lucius said, still driving beside me. "It's freezing and raining. You're going to get sick."
"Oh, you care about my well-being now?" I scoffed, tucking my hands under my armpits to keep them warm. "You didn't seem to care when you were driving over 100 mph five seconds ago!"
"Don't make me get out of the car." The sudden threat to his voice sent an unexpected chill through me.
I flipped him off. "Sit on it and spin, stronzo."
"I'll give you something to sit on and spin, principessa."
Feeling like a madwoman, I walked over to his car and leaned on the window with a smirk. "Non hai il coraggio." You don't have the balls.
As I pushed off and kept walking, Lucius stopped following me in his car, and I fought the urge to look back. Suddenly, I could hear his driver door slam closed, and I knew he'd stopped to get out of the car. I looked back just in time to see him raging toward me like the storm above us, rain quickly saturating his dark hair and his dress shirt. Everything in me told me to keep running away, but I was stuck in place like prey already caught, and he just kept coming forward.
"Stay away from me, Lucius—"
He grabbed me and kissed me hard on the mouth, an unexpected and volatile burst of passion that made my head spin and my body ignite into flames. I arched into him, his hands cradling my back. His tongue met mine in slow strokes that took me back to that heavy kiss in his car, and I could feel his heart thrashing through his chest.
His hand suddenly drifted down and squeezed my ass cheek through my jeans, his long fingers brushing between my thighs from behind in a way that made me gasp against his mouth. Sharp arousal spiked hard between my legs, and I shoved him back by his chest, catching him completely off guard.
We looked at each other for an intense moment, before I quickly stumbled away from him. A dark thought came up that the more I kissed him the more he took a piece of my soul. I threw open the passenger door and sat inside, not bothering to wipe the rain from my face.
Lucius got into the vehicle and matched my silence. I could feel him look over at me, but I made a point to turn out the window. The drive was torturous to my house, I just kept replaying that kiss repeatedly. How I'd turned to absolute clay in his hands and his touch had molded into me. This was wrong. It was wrong how good he made me feel and how stupid I was to keep exploring the temptation.
Lucius parked his car in front of my house. "Next week my family is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner," he said, the first thing either of us had said in ten minutes. "I spoke with your father already, and I understand you're celebrating with your Nonna on the actual day. We planned ours for the day after. It will just be my parents, my siblings, and my niece."
The fact that he planned this and expected me to come without any choice irked me. Meeting his family on a holiday was a lot of pressure.
"Fine," I answered, starting to leave. But I turned toward him at the last second, keeping his passenger door ajar. "We need to establish some boundaries. You want to do this fake fiancé shit right? Then let me plan everything. In private, you don't get to kiss me. Ever."
Lucius' mouth curved in a small, vindictive smirk as I spoke. Whatever he'd planned to say to me he didn't. Instead, he leaned back into his seat. "Whatever makes you feel more comfortable, Korinna."
I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being serious or not by his tone. "I'm glad we're on the same page..."
"We will talk about the arrangement more," Lucius said. "Our boundaries, what we expect out of this. What we can and cannot do..."
"Shouldn't we do that before I meet your parents?"
"Probably." He put his car into drive, his hazel eyes gleaming with devilry. "I'm more concerned about your acting skills. When you ultimately declare your undying love for me in front of my family, you must squeeze a tear out. The first I love you is very important."
I rolled my eyes. "You're actually so annoying..."
I exited the car as Lucius snickered to himself.
"Rock, paper, scissors who says it first?" he called out in Italian.
I fought back a smile as I went up the steps to my front door, deciding not to turn back around as I walked into my house.
***
THIS BOOK IS GONNA BE A ROLLERCOASTERRRRRRRR
SCREAM "MORE ZADDI LA NOTTE PLZ" IF YOU WANT MORE ASAP!!!!
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Love,
Kat
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