“Avrei potuto usare quelle dolci labbra tra le mie cosce prima, (I could have used those sweet lips between my thighs before.),” she whispered back, getting closer to my lips.
“La notte è giovane. (The night is young.).” I kissed her shoulder. “Lavora prima, poi gioca. (Work First, Then Play.).”
“Fine.” She focused on the topic at hand. “This jail bird…you use her.”
“All of them still think I’m this weak little boy trying to live up my parents’ legacy. Why not let them keep thinking that? They’ll think I’m so desperate to get married that I rushed and picked her out of the gutter. I’ll tell her about how I fell in love with her. Can a nine-year-old fall in love?”
“You can be a special case. Poor girl will have serious trust issues though. You’re going to have to make her truly believe you’re love with her.”
I grumbled at that.
“What does that look like for normal people?”
She giggled and gestured around the room. “This…everything you are doing with me now.
”
“I doubt she’ll let me tie her up.”
“No, you ass…what happened before you started to—”
“Toy with you?” I grinned.
She moved to break my hug and sit on her own, but I held on to her. “The sweetness. You washing my hair, you putting your forehead on mine…that shit is what normal people see as love.”
“Should I be annoyed you’re reducing me to ‘normal’ or more annoyed you no longer seem jealous?”
I could see the fat smile on her face. “I’m no longer jealous because she’s going to drive you up the fucking wall. She going to be like a doe-eyed fawn stuck to your side. Cute at first but utterly unless and annoying. The moment she makes you look bad I’m going to be the one reminding you that you can’t kill her yet.”
I cracked my jaw at her cockiness. “She could be ruthlessly waiting for her chance to bust out of prison and get vengeance. She could surprise us both.”
“Fine. If I’m wrong, I won’t complain once and support you blindly.”
Impossible, but okay. “And if you’re right?”
“I get to kill her any way and time I need.”
“Deal.” I held my hand out in front of her body and she shook it. It really didn’t matter to me either way.
“What’s her name?”
I thought for a second. “I believe it’s Ivy.”
She laughed again. “Like the batman villain? What’s her nickname going to be? Poison Ivy?”
“Will she live long enough to get a nickname?” I didn’t see how. My goal was to use her.
“Well, you first you have to keep goading the Finnegan brothers. You can’t just bring her out now and kill them. They aren’t a big enough threat to make Wyatt react. So she’ll be next to you—”
“For as short a fucking time as possible. She’ll sit her doe-eyed self in prison until I’m ready to take out the brothers. Wyatt still has a few more months before he’s done interning. We’ll do it around my 28th birthday. I’ll look more desperate then. Hopefully I can wrap it up in month or two.” The last thing I needed was another Klarissa on my goddamn arm.
She looked somewhat shocked, which was odd; nothing I did really shocked her. “You want to pluck a woman out of prison, parade her around as your fiancée, and then kill her and her family in Boston while your sister kills your right-hand man in Chicago and then reveal you have another woman and child…in one or two months? Who the fuck is going to believe that shit?”
“Does it matter if they believe, if it’s already done?” I asked, and she reached behind her head and fisted my hair. Tilting her head back she said, “You are insane.”
“Join me in insanity, then.”
A smile crept onto her face and she twisted back, kissing me. The other reason for this crazy plan was one I didn’t need to say…I wanted her by my side already.