Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
God, it was bad enough that I even found myself freezing mid-stride when I came out of the bedroom at night to find him sleeping on the couch wearing nothing but his thin, low-slung sleep pants.
We weren’t even going to talk about the way need clawed at me when, on one of those trips, I came out to find him having similarly happy dreams, his hard length pressing against the material of his pajama pants.
Or how the only way I’d been able to tolerate it had been to go back into the bedroom, slide my hand between my thighs, and try to sate the hunger with an orgasm.
It did no good, though.
It wasn’t just about the sex, just the pleasure.
It was about Dav.
And that, well, was dangerous.
Hence why I needed to get my ass back home.
But week three ticked by, and I still found myself crashing at his place, walking around like it belonged to me too. Doing laundry. Making coffee. Stealing his extra razor. Ordering things delivered to his address.
We were playing house.
And a part of me was terrified that it would come to a point where I wouldn’t just want to play anymore.
“Spill something?” Dav asked, coming out as he slid in cufflinks, finding me staring at the couch.
“No. I’m taking the couch tonight,” I told him.
I didn’t feel guilty sleeping in his bed when I was a walking bruise. But it was time to let the man get a decent night of rest in his own bed. And I figured it was a step toward going back to my place.
Even if the idea of that filled me with dread in a way that both confused and terrified me.
Confused because, well, I never spent any time there anyway, save for sleeping and showering.
Terrified because the fear was starting to take root and grow. Like the time I’d drawn a gun on Dav when he’d been coming home, a knee-jerk reaction. Because I was afraid of being attacked again.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d never welcomed being attacked. But I’d always accepted that it was a part of my work, that it was the life I chose. And I’d never been fearful of it.
It was not good that this attack was having this lasting of an impact.
I needed to force myself back out there on the streets, into the thick of things. Get my confidence back.
“Absolutely not,” Dav said as he made his way into the kitchen.
I wasn’t going to argue with the man. I was just going to do it. Clearly, he was on his way out. By the time he got back, I would be on the couch.
“Where are you heading?” I asked, glancing at the clock, then having an immediate stab of irrational jealousy at noting how late it was. Was he going on a date?
“Renzo’s,” he explained.
The boss of the Lombardi family had a pretty open door policy at his place. All his capos came to hang out, to eat, drink, play pool, catch up with one another, and maybe talk a little business.
We didn’t gather there as much as we used to since Renzo married Lore, but everyone was still invited over on a regular basis.
And, normally, I would be there.
At least just to show my face.
Were people going to talk when I wasn’t there?
I could probably fake it now. Get some of that makeup that hides tattoos, slather it on my face to cover the bruises, and just move more carefully, so no one saw that I was favoring my ribs.
“I’ll mention that I ran into you,” Dav said as if reading my mind. “That you were in the middle of something. They don’t need to know it’s sitting on your lovely ass and recovering.”
“I can’t ask you to lie to Renzo for me.”
“It’s not a lie. It’s an omission.”
“Which is still a lie,” I reasoned.
“Okay. You want me to tell him you’ve been crashing in my bed for a few weeks, covered in bruises, and barely able to move?” he asked, watching me shift my feet. “Exactly. So an omission it is.”
The intercom buzzed, making my whole body jolt, the adrenaline snapping through my veins.
“I’ll be eating at Renzo’s, so I ordered you dinner,” he explained, reaching in his wallet for a tip.
“I’ve been managing to feed myself for many years now, you know,” I told him, even as that gooey sensation in my chest started again.
“And now I get the pleasure of doing it,” he said as he went to the door, then disappeared into the hallway for a moment. “Eat. Get some sleep. I’ll try to be quiet when I get home,” he said as he placed the bags and a tray of drinks on the island.
With that, he was gone, leaving me to check out the bags, finding that he not only got me a coffee from the place I liked, but the lemon-lime soda I preferred, a big serving of fettuccini Alfredo with chicken and broccoli, and a slice of cheesecake.