The Hook Read online

  A golden blush draped the piano and extended only as far as the center of the room, leaving the chocolate fountain in semidarkness.

  So tidy, the room looked as though it hadn’t witnessed the booze, drugs, sex, and havoc of her Valentine’s Day party. But the sofa was disheveled. Throw pillows were disarranged. A blanket trailed from the cushions to the floor.

  As she selected a cherry and poked it into the white chocolate waterfall, she observed him. His fixation on the piano dared her to interfere.

  How?

  Worm her way over and cover his hands? Dab some chocolate on his bristly jaw and lick it off? Pull the band from his ponytail and tug on his hair? Would it break his concentration if she did that?

  “Hey, Tarantino,” she said to his back, loudly enough to overtake the music. “Sofa not comfy enough for you?”

  “It’s good.”

  Yet he wasn’t relaxed. Tension was in the set of his shoulders and the tightness in his clipped response.

  Was he nocturnal or insomniac?

  Sympathy flared. As a kid she’d been burdened with anxiety-related sleep problems—nightmares and bedwetting—triggered by unfamiliar environments. When she hadn’t outgrown it by age seven, her father had sent her to sleep-away summer camp with special “grownup vitamins,” which she’d eventually realized had been her mother’s valium.

  As she conquered the sleep difficulties, she’d become addicted to valium and eventually OD-ed. Such a disappointingly unreliable liar, she’d told a nurse about the vitamins. Suddenly the nurse had disappeared, though, and Izzie’s parents had decided to homeschool her. It’d taken them two years to wean her off valium and transfer her dependency to something more socially acceptable.

  She sucked the fruit clean, dropped it onto a napkin and drizzled another cherry with dark chocolate.

  “The way you stomped up those stairs and slammed the door,” he said, not hassling himself to disrupt his playing, “I didn’t think you’d be coming back down.”

  An especially fat cherry stood out among the rest. Grabbing the stem, she smothered it in a profane amount of chocolate and carried it across the room. She joined him on the bench, but with her back facing the piano. “I love chocolate more than I despise you.”

  The fringes of her vision captured the slow turn of his head, toward her then back to the piano’s keys. At least she’d made a dent in his focus.

  “Detest was the word you picked.”

  “Does it matter?” she asked, ripping off the cherry’s stem and polishing off the dessert. “It’s all the same.”

  “Except hate, right?”

  Attraction aside, she’d respected his honesty. Kind of envied it, too. It took massive balls to be honest. Of the Tarantino men, he was the most direct. Dependable. She couldn’t hate him for that.

  As he hammered out soul-startling notes, she imagined finding bruises on the keys. The piano’s howls drowned the sounds of rain and her own rushing heartbeat.

  “I’ve heard that musicians sometimes use their music to speak for them,” she said, raising her voice high. “This piece says you’re pissed the fuck off.”

  “Wouldn’t you be, if you were me?”

  “If you’re fishing for perk-me-up compliments, this pond’s all dried up,” she said. “You’re you, but I’m me. Age thirty, washed up, undeserving of Chia Pets. At rock-bottom I reached out to my family and found out they want nothing to do with me. My friends are actually frenemies. I’ve got no prospects. And I’m on a glorious vacation because my fugitive ex neglected to have the reservations canceled.”

  “So you lied earlier. About being tight with your family.”

  “It’s hard to stare a truth that sad in the face twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Maybe I should turn around on this bench and play a pissed-off anthem with you.”

  “Or give that lullaby of yours another try?” When she didn’t comment, he asked, “What’d you mean earlier, when you said your mother was born a half Armenian, half German Jew?”

  “She converted to Christianity. My grandmother used to say she’s still Jewish and that having been born her daughter, I’m Jewish, too, but…I don’t really know what I am or where I belong, really.”

  The lullaby, her grandmother, their connection—all of it was off-limits. Ignoring his suggestion that she give the piano a try, she asked, “Where you live now… Was your baby grand moved there?”

  “It’s in my father’s house.”

  The Lake Las Vegas mansion was the Tarantino family home, and where Luca’s first wife had died. From what Luca had shared during one of his sobbing grief episodes that Izzie had promised to keep secret, she gathered that Milo was the heir who’d stood to inherit his father’s real estate properties in Las Vegas, Hawaii, Milan, and Auckland—in addition to the majority of his assets. Not that his brother would’ve wanted for anything—co-ownership of a football team and shares of the eyewear manufacturer that had served as Luca’s original source of wealth weren’t anything Izzie would’ve cried about.

  Of course, Luca’s risky bets, multimillion-dollar losses and desperate deception had distorted whatever they hadn’t destroyed.

  “Are you going back for it?” she asked. “It takes a half hour to call a loading company and have a piano carted someplace. Take it back.”

  “It’s just an instrument. Not a necessity.”

  She couldn’t believe that. “It’s got a language. It’s your voice.”

  “Tonight’s the first time I’ve played in months.”

  “Are you going to add this to the list of things you’ve lost?” Instantly she regretted her words. She truly was—much to Daphne Phillips’s chagrin, she was sure—her mother’s daughter. “Sorry.”

  “List, huh? What’s on it? NFL career, dignified retirement, inheritance, operations gig in the Villains’ franchise, Dad, Tabitha.”

  “Luca was responsible for all of that but Tabitha. She walked. Maybe you never had her to begin with.”

  “I fucking loved her.”

  “Switch the two middle words and you might see that relationship from a different perspective. One that doesn’t hurt so much.” Twisting around, kneeling behind him on the bench, she had clear intentions. Rest a hand on his shoulder, watch him command the piano. But her fingers ended up freeing his hair and lightly stroking the gray strands at his temples. “You loved fucking her.”

  “Hell, yeah, I did.”

  “So she’s no great loss. Just sex, without love to fuck up everything.”

  “Sex is on the list. You know that.”

  Of course she did. The spinal cord injury had caused erectile dysfunction. Just hours ago she’d used it in a Hail Mary attempt to sting his ego and dial back her attraction to him in one shot. “Are you taking meds for ED now?”

  “No.”

  “But… Okay, earlier—when you were holding me in this room—I felt—”

  “What?”

  I’m not playing this game. I can’t. “C’mon, Milo…”

  “The words. Say the plain words. Don’t dress ’em up. What’d you feel?”

  “Your cock. It was so hard against me. I knew, even before you, what you wanted out of that kiss.” She stroked light, lazy circles on his temples. When his hands remained on the keys, she guided his head back to rest against her breasts. “The mind says one thing. The body contradicts. Can’t get them to agree, can you? How do you feel to be torn in two like that, to fight yourself?”

  “The same way you felt when I had you pinned against that pillar outside. When you said stop and don’t while your pussy was dripping wet for me. Or were you just fucking with my head?”

  She got off the bench and moved to the side of the piano. “You probably shouldn’t kiss me again.”

  Izzie waited as the music disappeared into the hot silence, her breath held, her thoughts on pause, watching him. And when Milo took the bait, his tattooed forearms tensing as he stilled his strong
fingers on the piano keys and sent her a slow, challenging smile, Izzie moved.

  She cut away the distance between them, her bare feet soundless on the marble floor as she edged between the piano and the wide, plush bench. Her legs bumped his, forcing him to release the keys and nudge the bench backward.

  In front of him, she absorbed that sexy, challenging smile with one of her own, and dropped her ass onto the keyboard. The noise resonated in her ears. “Kissing me like that? Holding me like that? Going there again would be a mistake you don’t want to make, Milo.”

  “Is it a mistake you want to make? Is that how you want to play this?”

  Caught off guard, she stammered, “This? There is no this. Don’t start thinking there is. What I mean is, you shouldn’t figure a kiss is going to make me more inclined to help you find Luca. In fact, I’m less inclined. I’m done with him, and I want to be done with you.”

  Milo reached, clasped her lock pendant. With a faint tug, he had her leaning forward until her mouth was close enough to sample. “Can you last an entire conversation without lying?”

  “Yes.” Possibly.

  “My father’s not in this house, and he’s not sitting at this piano. It’s you and it’s me.” He released her pendant, only to let his hands glide freely up her thighs and tangle in the lace of her dress. “And I don’t see you walking away.”

  Party guests, serving staff and piano music had all been buffers that no longer existed.

  It’s you and it’s me.

  You. Me.

  Izzie Phillips and Milo Tarantino… It sounded like a recipe for hell, but the graze of his rough hands on her thighs felt like heaven.

  Or maybe it was hell, too. Temptation to her biggest mistake yet. Chocolate in its rawest, most bitter form. A kiss before a slap.

  Fantasy before reality.

  The two weren’t supposed to overlap or blur. But he’d crashed her dream world, kissed her…

  And now she expected a slap—demanded it, really. A resounding, stinging touch right on her ass.

  “Walk away.” Bunching the bottom of her dress in his fists, he repeated the grating plea. Again. Once more. “End it.”

  The soft vibration of his shaking hands stroked through her. “End it? ’Cause your conscience said so?”

  “A few months ago, you wore his ring.”

  “A few hours ago, your fingers were fucking me. I let you inside. I was wet for you.”

  “A diamond deposit. He gave you a diamond deposit. A marriage license was your price. If he’d paid your cost, right now you would belong to him.”

  Deposit. Price.

  It would’ve been easier to handle harshness in his voice, not genuine concern. That seared her with shame. She’d been reduced to a commodity, had all but assigned herself a SKU number and dollar amount.

  “Because I’m such a whore, right, Milo?”

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, as long as you’re my whore. Not his. Not anybody else’s. That cunt of yours was mine the moment I tasted it last summer. Eventually I was going to claim it.”

  Chest surging, breath light, she slammed her hands down beside her on the keyboard. “I belong to me. That’s always fact. That wouldn’t have changed, even if I’d married him, taken his name, and let him fuck me.”

  “Izzie.” He spread his large hands on her thighs. “Tonight, that’s going to be different. Get him—get all those bastards—out of your head. Or walk the fuck away.”

  This wasn’t a transaction, a deal, a trade. What would she gain or lose to give herself freely for once?

  “I won’t do that, Milo.”

  Anger crackled in his dark eyes. “Okay.”

  “I won’t walk away.”

  Heat lunged from their bodies. It was electric, magnetizing. Searching her eyes, he let his hands disappear beneath her dress, snare the straps of her thong, and drag it downward. Over her hips. To her knees where it dropped to her ankles.

  “Get Tabitha out of your head.” It was her only demand. “Mute her. Ignore her. Because I can take what she can’t. I’m going to be kneeling in front of you—not her. You’re going to be in my mouth—not hers.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  She stepped out of the thong as he stood and shoved the bench back farther. Swearing, he leaned forward and kissed her. So many possibilities were in this teasing, seeking kiss.

  But no lies.

  Fear whispered that tonight wouldn’t be what she needed it to be, but merely a replay of one-night stands past. She’d offer a stellar portrayal of an eager lover, would do what was asked of her then cry afterward, then her regrets would be eased with pretty gifts and hollow promises.

  Or he’d hit it, quit it, and be done with it.

  Izzie scooted off the piano. “Sit down. On the bench.” She gave his chest a shove, then it was on to the procedure she’d perfected. Unfasten the belt, open the closure, lower the zip.

  “Whoa—oh, God—whoa, whoa,” he said as his cock sprang into her hand and she started to work his rigid flesh. “Slow it down.”

  “Your hard-ons are sometimes-y, so …” She pressed a kiss, added a lick, got a little flushed at the stretch of his cock and tightening of his sac. “Slowing it down’s a luxury we don’t have.”

  What few erections he had must be precious.

  Izzie was acquainted with ED. She’d been with an assortment of older men who distracted her with champagne or porn as they waited for their magic bullets to take effect.

  ED could rob a man of not just “normal” sexual performance, but also a sense of virility and confidence.

  A couple of short years ago, Milo had been virility and confidence personified. An NFL star in his prime. A man whose charm and sex appeal she didn’t doubt seduced women to touch themselves.

  Those women had never had him in the palms of their hands or at the tips of their tongues.

  She did—and damned if she wasn’t self-satisfied about it.

  “Do something for me,” he said. “Take off the necklace. Locks and keys don’t have shit to do with this.”

  Together, they lifted the chains over their heads and tossed the necklaces. As she unpinned her hair and shook it out to sweep across her shoulders, he stripped off his shirt.

  Amazing body.

  “Do something for me now,” she said, taking off his shoes and socks and tugging at his pants because she was so anxious to get him completely naked. “Tell me what you like. Communication’s so sexy.”

  Groaning, he clasped her head, rocking gently against her mouth as she took him deep. “Izzie…I haven’t been this hard in… Baby, look, if I can’t keep this going, if I can’t get off, then so be it.”

  She rested her forearms on his thighs, kissed his pecs. “How’s your back?”

  “Stronger. Getting all considerate on me, Phillips?”

  “On the veranda, you had me off my feet for a while. I’m no feather.”

  Her slender, somewhat sylphlike form deceived most. She had height, curves and an outdoorsy athleticism that contributed muscles to her solid sort of heaviness.

  “Definitely not a feather,” he agreed. “Durable.”

  “Very.”

  “Come here, then. Get closer.” Guiding her up, he gripped her hips as she straddled him with her knees on the bench. A sudden slap on her fanny drew a surprised yelp.

  He’d slapped her ass.

  “Still durable?” he checked.

  “Incredibly,” she said. “Again, okay?” At the request, he bared her ass and smacked her.

  Gasping against his mouth, hugging him tight, she managed each touch with a desire for more. Faster. Harder. The sounds tickled her ears, echoed through her body.

  Skin sweat-dampened, flesh smarting, ovaries boogying, she asked, “If I rifle through your pockets, will I find any condoms?”

  “I’m not packing rubber. Didn’t think I’d need any.” His hands settled on her rump. “You should’ve f
illed one of those crystal dishes full of them, set it right on the table with the chocolate fountain and aphrodisiac buffet.”

  “Not every lock-and-key connection ended in sex.”

  “Just the lucky ones, yeah?”

  “You’re saying that only because you’re getting lucky.” Light words, but if either of them were genuinely lucky, tonight would remain in clear perspective. Penetrative emotions wouldn’t intersect with sex. She would give Milo Tarantino no more of herself than she’d given any other man.

  But luck had never been much of a lady to Izzie.

  She’d already given too much and gone too far, and she was flirting on the cusp of a decision that would prove she wasn’t done yet. “My condoms are in the master suite. I’m tingly and lazy and really don’t want to make that walk. I’m on the Pill and I’m clean.”

  “Okay.”

  “You believe me? I’m a liar.” It wasn’t something she’d highlight on a résumé, but until she changed it, she might as well own it.

  “If a liar tells the truth, does that make her an honest woman? And…if an honest man tells a lie, does that make him a liar?”

  That was a heavy question, and it provoked her to wonder whether good and bad weren’t so distinct after all. “If you’re going to ask philosophical questions, at least let me have a seat so I can really, carefully think this through.” But the humor evaporated even before it had a chance to form. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I believe you.”

  She wanted to kiss him hard, except he stared at her so closely and his hands gripped her ass so possessively, she wasn’t willing to interrupt. “What about you?”

  “Clean—yes. Pill—no.”

  Izzie surrendered to a smile as she lowered onto his cock, taking his steel-hard length inside as deeply as her body could stretch to accommodate him. “Oh, damn, Tarantino, don’t be funny. I might start liking you, and then where would we be?”

  What she didn’t say was that it was already happening, and she was falling heart-first into trouble.

  Izzie rode him ruthlessly, stealing his control, so determined to take him higher and lure him deeper.

  Hold me….

  But he didn’t. As a spasm seized him, he captured her hips in a tight grip and groaned as a series of hot spurts coated her.