Author: Cora Reilly
Genre: Romance
Year: 2017
Series: Bound in Blood Mafia Chronicles
SUMMARY
Growl
He’d never had something to himself, never even dared to dream about owning something so precious. He was the unwanted bastard son who’d always had to content himself with the leftovers of others. And now they’d given him what only a few weeks ago had been out of his reach, someone he wasn’t even allowed to admire from afar, one of their most prized possessions. Thrown at his feet because he was who he was, because they were certain he would break her. He was her punishment, a fate worse than death, a way to deliver the ultimate punishment to her father who had displeased them so greatly.
Cara
She had always been the good girl. It didn’t protect her.
She didn’t know his real name. People called him Growl to his face, and the Bastard behind his back. Both were names he couldn’t possibly have chosen for himself. His eyes were empty, a mirror to throw back her own fear at her. He was a brutal hand of the Las Vegas Camorra.
And now she was at his mercy.
PROLOGUE
Growl
Wide eyes. Parted lips. Flushed cheeks. Pale skin. She looked like a porcelain doll: big blue eyes, chocolate hair and creamy white skin; breakable beautiful, something that I wasn’t meant to touch with my scarred, brutal hands. My fingers found her wrist; her heartbeat was fluttering like a birds. She’d tried to fight, tried to be brave, tried to hurt me, maybe even kill me. Had she truly hoped she could succeed?
Hope; it made people foolish, made them believe in something beyond reality. I’d got out of the habit of hoping a long time ago. I knew what I was capable of. She had hoped she could kill me. I knew I could kill her, no doubt about it.
My hand traced the soft skin of her throat, then my fingers wrapped lightly around it. Her pupils dilated but I put no pressure into my touch. Her pulse hammered against my rough palm. I was a hunter, and she was my prey. I’d come to claim my prize. That’s why Falcone had given her to me.
I liked things that hurt. I liked hurting others. Maybe even loved it; if I were capable of that kind of emotion. I leaned down until my nose was inches from the skin below her ear and breathed in. She smelled flowery with a hint of sweat. Fear. I could smell that too. I couldn’t resist and I didn’t have to, not anymore, not ever again with her. Mine. She was mine.
I lowered my lips to her hot skin. Her pulse hammered under my mouth where I kissed her throat. Panic and terror beat a frantic rhythm under her skin. And it made me fucking hard.
Her eyes sought out mine, hoping—still hoping, the foolish woman—and pleading me for mercy. She didn’t know me, didn’t know that the part of me that hadn’t been born a monster had died a long time ago. Mercy was the furthest thing from my mind as my eyes claimed her body.