Free DARK ANGEL: A Mafia Romance -- Book Two: His Dark Desires by Angela Jordan

Chapter One
     
    Damn it…that freaking hurt!
    I cursed silently as I smacked my elbow on the doorway of the bathroom in my hurry to get ready. No surprise, I was running late.
    Again.
    It had been three days since the last time I’d seen my dark angel, and I felt like an addict in need of a fix. Nothing was going right. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat and I certainly couldn’t work without thinking about my last encounter with him. I was not the type of woman who sat at home and got all sentimental about a man – but then again, Angelo DeSilvo wasn’t just any man.
    He was, to put it simply, my obsession.
    After my last night with him, I should have gotten him out of my system. We had argued at my friend’s gallery show, and then Angelo had taken me in his limo. No, taken wasn’t strong enough of a word for what he had done to me. He had consumed me. He had pushed past every boundary I had, and destroyed me with his touch, using me as his plaything in the back of his limousine.
    And the truth? I had loved every second of it.
    In the aftermath of our intense encounter, I’d been left shaken. Walking away had been my only recourse, not that Angelo had let me go that easily. He called constantly, and two days ago I had received two-dozen red roses from him. At first I wanted to refuse them, but they were so beautiful I couldn’t make myself throw them away. Now, they sat in my bedroom on my nightstand, a constant reminder of the passion we had shared together.
    I hadn’t answered any of his calls, as I was unsure what to say to him. No, that wasn’t true. The real reason I didn’t answer was because I knew I would give into him. Try as I might, I was powerless to resist. And right now, I needed to keep my distance until I was sure if I wanted him in my life.
    I’m a strong woman, who has always had a clear idea of what I’ve wanted. However, since meeting Angelo, I had begun to question everything I thought I had been seeking in a relationship. That is, if you could even call what was between us a relationship. So far, the two times we had come together had been a clash of wills, and as satisfying as it had been, our last encounter had left me feeling used. He took control of me so easily, and so far, I’d been letting him. I’m not exactly sure why – usually, I was the one in charge. This was new, a role reversal, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I wanted a partner, a man I could depend on in my life.  But with Angelo, it was all flash and heat, and so far very little substance. It’s like my brain shut off and all I could think of was the pleasure he gave me.
    He was dangerous to me on so many levels. There was a darkness inside him that I didn’t understand. He was a devil, tempting me with excitement when what I was really looking for was love. I didn’t really know anything about him, and that worried me. Until I got a better grasp on what the hell was going on with us, I needed to avoid him.
    If only avoiding him were as easy as it sounded.
    The last time we had sex we hadn’t used a condom. I was on the pill and thought he wasn’t a man who would put me in jeopardy like that, but I had still gone to the clinic yesterday just to be sure. As expected, all the tests came back clean. I had never let a man come inside me before, and feeling him fill me had seemed so much more intimate than any other man I had ever slept with. But still, how could he have just used me like that? Who did he think he was?
    Every time I saw his name on the screen when my phone rang, my heart began to race and I felt myself growing wet as if preparing for him. He had the potential to not only break my heart, but to literally smash it into pieces. The power he had over me was all consuming. I feared becoming a causality of the flames of our lust when all was said and done.
    And knowing that, I was terrified to see him again.
    I took one last look in the mirror and noted that my unusual violet-tinged eyes looked