Last Man Standing. Wendy Rosnau

fought to breathe.

      “The lesson here, sweet Elena, is that I could take you with or without your consent. I could take…everything. All of it, as you say. I could hurt you. Scar you. Even kill you. Never play a game you can’t win, Elena. And there are damn few you will ever win if you play with me.”

      His gaze dropped to the swell of her breasts, and Elena knew his interest centered on her puckered dark nipples. He stared at her for a few seconds longer, then he began to work the buttons back into the holes.

      He was on the second button from the top when he let out a strangled groan—a sound of pure agony that stiffened his body like a knife had been driven into the middle of his back.

      Elena watched as he wrenched hard to the right and rolled off her. A second later he was sprawled beside her on his back, his expression fighting an invisible pain.

      Lucky recognized the rush of pain and knew what it meant. Flattened out on the bed, he gritted his teeth against the burning sensation racing the length of his spine, and the knowledge of what the outcome would be in a matter of seconds.

      Not now, he thought, not the hell now. Not here and not in front of her.

      He continued to lie there while the hot pain worked its way into his thighs, then began to melt away, taking with it the feeling in his limbs.

      “What is it?”

      Sweat beading his forehead, Lucky glanced at Elena. She was sitting up and staring down at him. He would have liked to have been sitting up, too. But without looking like a snake dragging a fifty-pound ball and chain, he wasn’t going to be able to haul his body up.

      “What’s happening?” She slid off the bed. “It’s your back, isn’t it? Something happened to your back.”

      “What do you know about my back?”

      She stepped between his open legs where they hung limp off the bed. “I heard Joey talking to Frank about some kind of surgery you’re supposed to have.”

      “You just happened to hear?”

      “All right, I was eavesdropping. And why shouldn’t I? In a matter of weeks I learned that my father who isn’t really my father is living a double life. Has two grown sons. And that they all work for the mafia.”

      “We don’t work for the mafia, Elena.”

      “Sorry. You are the mafia.”

      Not liking that definition any better, Lucky checked his watch. The paralysis he’d been experiencing for the past three weeks was erratic. He could be up and moving within ten minutes or down and out for an hour.

      “I take it this has happened before. You don’t look too surprised.”

      No, he wasn’t surprised. His doctor had warned him that the scar tissue from his old wound had begun to strangle his spinal cord. Internal adhesions—those were the words used—were constricting the blood flow. He’d had a few problems with the scar over the years. But it had gotten a helluva lot worse since Milo’s boys had worked him over a few months ago and he’d wound up in the hospital losing a kidney.

      “Should I call someone?”

      “No.”

      She reached out and pulled his shirt from his jeans. When she began to unbutton it, he grabbed one of her wrists. “What do you think you’re doing?”

      “I’m going to check out the problem to see what I can do to help.”

      He shoved her hand away. “What you can do to help is go back home.”

      “You can’t feel your legs, can you?”

      He looked down to see that she’d curled her hands around his legs just above his knees and that she was squeezing. He knew that because he could see it, not because he could feel it. “Of course I can feel my legs.”

      Her hand moved to his front pocket.

      “What the hell are you doing now?”

      “I’m getting your knife so I can stab you in the leg. I wager a thousand that you won’t feel it go in or out.”

      Lucky grabbed her wrist again. “Go sit over there.”

      She tucked a black strand of hair behind her ear. “And if I don’t, what will you do? Get up and make me?”

      He let go of her wrist and drilled her with a look that normally sent his men running for cover, but it didn’t move her back even an inch.

      “That’s what I thought.” She shook her head, reached out and resumed unbuttoning his shirt.

      This time, as her fingers brushed his bare chest, Lucky closed his eyes and allowed himself the pleasure of actually feeling her hands on him. A minute later he felt cool air on his chest and knew she’d finished the task.

      Angry all of a sudden that he’d succumbed to her so easily, he said, “Anxious to get rid of your little problem, are you?”

      “My problem?”

      “Your virginal status,” he clarified.

      “Years ago it would have been considered a gift. But I suppose these days the real gift to the modern man is variety and experience.” She glanced at his legs. “It looks like I’m stuck with my problem, and you’re stuck with yours. I wonder which is worse—inexperience or inadequacy.”

      Lucky reached out and grabbed her arms, then jerked her forward onto his body. “My legs are useless at the moment, but everything else is working fine. Am I right?”

      Her sweet mouth parted, and she sucked in a breath of air. “Sì, ho capito. Now let me up. You’ve proved you’re still…capable,” she managed.

      “If you’re willing to do a little of the work, I could show you just how capable, Elena. We could start working on that experience you lack.”

      She squirmed, tried to roll off him, the friction only adding more fuel to his capability. He closed his eyes, hoping that would help take his mind off what her body was doing to him, but her sexy scent filled his nostrils, and the result was another inch.

      “Lucky…”

      Her voice told him she was aware of what had just occurred. He let go of her, knowing he was making himself suffer needlessly. He had no intention of sleeping with Vito Tandi’s daughter. He might want to, but he wouldn’t. Temptation was a fool’s game, and everybody in Chicago knew Lucky Masado was no fool.