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

overly bright this evening. The dress I had picked for tonight was a simple, black, strapless sheath that went perfectly with my jet-black hair. I had left my hair down, not bothering to style it in my haste to get ready. Damn my dark angel…just thinking about him had my eyes practically glowing with lust and my panties dampening to the point I considered changing them.
    A loud knock on my front door had me scrambling into the living room of my apartment. I opened the door and smiled at my friend Jonathan, gesturing him in.
    “I’m almost ready,” I said hurriedly as I slammed the door shut behind him then rushed back into my bedroom. I glanced down at my phone – it was 6:52 already. Shit.
    He smirked. “How did I guess you wouldn’t be ready yet? Anyway, don’t worry about it. I knew Amanda would have both our asses if we didn’t show up on time tonight, so I lied and told you the party was at seven, when really…” He paused for dramatic effect, watching my eyebrows raise. “…it starts at seven-thirty.”
    Waves of relief flooded through me, even as I glared at him.
    He sent me a wink. “And by the way, Karen, you look smokin’ hot.”
    Giving up my pretend anger, I shot him a grin as I finished getting ready. Jonathan and I had gone to college together, and we had been best friends ever since. He was a good-looking man, to be sure, with dark-blond hair and blue eyes the color of a perfect summer day, but I wasn’t interested in being anything more than friends, and thankfully, neither was he. I certainly wasn’t his type – in fact, no woman was. I had been the first one he had come out to back when we were in school. I had also been the one to go home with him when he had decided to tell his parents that he was gay, and watched as they had accepted him for who he was with tears of joy in my eyes.
    It wasn’t easy for a man like Jonathan to announce to the world that he was gay. Jonathan was a trust-fund baby who came from a wealthy Boston family. People from his social strata seemed to be extremely judgmental and went out of their way to gossip about anything and everything they could. Luckily, Jonathan was a force of nature when it came to navigating the social arena. To his friends, he was as loyal as they came, but he could be cutting and vicious if he needed to be.
    “You know Amanda will probably an hour late herself, even if it is her own engagement party,” Jonathan said as he made himself at home on my bed as I put on a pair of dark red stiletto heels that matched the light jacket I pulled out of my closet.
    I laughed. “You’re probably right.”
    Our friend Amanda was a very talented fashion designer, and was perpetually late for everything. She was my old college roommate and I loved her to pieces. As I wasn’t close to my own parents, I understood her better than most. From a small town in Indiana, her parents had pretty much disowned her when she had decided to move to New York. The three of us –Amanda, Jonathan and me – had become our own little family over the years, and no matter how chaotic my life was right now, I wouldn’t miss her big party tonight for anything.
    She had met her fiancé, Tony Luciano, when we had gone out dancing at his new nightclub a few months back. We knew their chemistry had been off the charts from the moment they’d laid eyes on each other. They had fallen madly in love and he had surprised her with a proposal just a few weeks ago.
    “I know I’m right, honey. Speaking of which, where the hell have you been lately? Please tell me you got rid of Craig and you’ve been whisked away to Paris or something, where you’ve been having a mad love affair with some rich Frenchman named Jean-Claude.”
    I chuckled as I stroked some gloss over my lush lips and shoved the tube into my clutch purse. I could feel the heat of the blush that stained my cheeks red as I thought about Angelo again. “Not…exactly,” I began. “No international flights