Cover Reveal: The Sinners Duet by Elizabeth Miller

Luca Mancini is an assassin with a dark past and a darker scar crushing more than his good looks.

He said goodbye to his soul. I said hello to an unfamiliar stirring deep inside.

Some people call him monster. I have to call him mine.

The capo de capi, the greatest king of all time, forces Luca to marry me—his defiant daughter.

Watch her, he commands of Luca. Control her and make her obey the family motto: loyalty above all else.

But I have other plans.

They involve retribution for my mother’s death and freedom from this God forsaken underworld.

Luca has a choice. Fight by my side, or crumble with the rest of the kingdom.

I want revenge. Luca wants me.

A mafia war brought us together.

Will his vow to my father tear us apart?

Love is power, sinning inevitable.

And for the king to fall a woman must rise to reign—or die trying.

I’m about to take my shot at the throne.

“Vivi,” I warned in a tone unfamiliar even to me. She tempted—seduced me with full lips, a light plum color unique to her. She licked them. Inching closer to my thighs, she gripped the fine cotton of my pants, and I grew instantly hard. Her gaze blinked to my dick, the obscene outline pressing against the zipper. Jesus Christ, that mouth and how it parted.

I grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes to mine.

“Please, Luca. I must get out of here. I’m suffocating under all this tension, my family and what they want from me. We’ll be gone for just a few hours. Three, four max. Please.”

Disregarding her request, I gave her a different answer and watched her squirm around the words. “I like you in this position. I like your mouth more and how I could squeeze my cock into it. What I don’t want, Vivienne, is your plea. The only time you’ll beg is when I’m inside you, when my fingers are deep in your ass, and I lick your cunt until you scream a demand. You may beg to come, but you may not grovel like this for me or anyone in this household. Don’t look surprised, little bird.” I pinched harder, then rolled the tiny dimple indented in the middle of her cleft under my thumb—a soft gesture in a moment that threatened my sanity. “You’re a beautiful woman falling to her knees like a sinner in a confessional. I’m not your God. I won’t provide absolution when I want to ruin you in a way your innocent mind could never contemplate. I’m a man, Vivienne. A man tempted by the ripe lushness of your offering. I can only abstain for so long before I’ll take what I want, when I want it. Wasn’t that proven in the garden?”

Her lips moved, but her answer was whispered so low I missed the words. “Again,” I prompted, bending to her as she rose higher. The sweetness of her breath hit my cheek, and then I ran my nose along hers—the bone that was more prominent now than it had been a month ago. She smelled fresh, like vanilla and the wind rolling off Simone’s garden, an intoxicating combination that was deeper behind her ear. The impulse to taste trembled through my limbs and I had to draw away only to be captured by her eyes.

“It was Eve. She gave to Adam and he ate. Would you take from me, Luca?”

I’d meant Simone’s garden the night of her funeral, but her answer warmed my blood just as it did when I tasted hers. She belonged to me then, even when I tried to deny the bond. I was tired of denying myself Vivienne. But the consequences of having her were a cruel sentence. The truth was, I couldn’t have her and do my job. I couldn’t. They were a contradiction. My first promise, one I made before I met the princess, was to the king himself. As much as I cursed the declaration, it was said, and I was a man of my word. I would give my life for hers, but my soul belonged to the devil. Nothing could change that now. Not even the angel who enticed me daily.

“Would you take from me?” she asked again, this time with an addition that ignited my skin on fire. “If I offered myself, or if I didn’t.”

Barely controlled rage shook my fingers as they coiled into her hair, pulling until she was captive in my hold. Her eyes were sharp, cunning, burning with the secrets I wanted and she wouldn’t give. With her frosted glass irises, high cheekbones and a mouth that tempted me as much as her body, she was no one and everyone all at once. She was everything. Everything I couldn’t have.

“Listen carefully.” I dragged in a sharp inhale, squeezing her tighter. “When I want your pussy, you’ll spread your legs with eager desperation. I won’t have to ask. You’ll know and you’ll offer your cunt and your lips and your heart because they belong to me. But I will never take, and if anyone ever so much as touches you without permission, they’ll cease to exist. Do you understand?”

“You would kill for me?”

“I would do anything for you, Vivienne.”

The darkness in the confession was underscored by something desolate and wild. Bad things happened when I lost control. I’d never sink into insanity with her, but I would for her. We breathed through the moment with the sun beaming in the windows and lust heating her eyes. I crossed the line.

Vivi must’ve seen the change in my expression or felt the loosening of my hold. Her fingers wrapped through mine, reestablishing the fierce grip as I again tried to relax the tension.

“Murder is a sin. Your soul—”

“Is already lost and nothing for you to worry about.” As I pulled away, she scrambled to follow, and I tugged her to her feet.

“I do and I will. I heard what you said. I belong to you and if that’s true, I have every right to fight for you through eternity.”

“I was making a point,” I said, barely exasperated. I’d give her credit for listening, but in hindsight I should’ve kept that fact to myself. “And it’s a good thing then that we already live with the devil and I don’t have to worry about disobedience or God’s punishment. Go get dressed.” I couldn’t look at the scrap of fabric barely meeting her thighs. She called them biker shorts. I called them immoral.

“Luca?”

A tempting blush stained her cheeks pink, and I knew I swung the pendulum on her emotions. I was all over the place with her. One minute cold, the next simmering with fury and need, but I always ended with regret. Sighing, I turned so I wouldn’t see pain flash in her eyes.

“My job is your safety. Get ready and I’ll make a plan to ensure I can keep that promise while you confess your sins and eat with a friend. We’re no different now than we were yesterday, Vivienne.”

I felt her presence for minutes. I even sensed the words she hurled at me in silence. Bastardo. Idiota. I was all those things, but the last one said out loud was the truest of them all.

“Bugiardo.”

Liar