She couldn’t stop seeing Rachel’s face.
Looking at Vincenzo, she saw the love he had for her shining in his eyes. He’d never shown her that before. He’d always been guarded when he looked at her, but now, he was wide open and she saw everything he hid from her.
“I love you, babe. I wish I could take away what happened last night, but I can’t. I need to be able to make this right. Tell me what to do.”
“There’s nothing you can do. This wasn’t your fault.” As much as she wanted to blame him, she knew without a doubt that the Vitales had hit first. They’d caused last night’s destruction, and in doing so it woke her up.
The mafia had a place in the world and they were horrible, but there were families that tried to keep the streets clean. When Vincenzo and Daniel entered the diner that first night, there had been whispers but nothing to the extent there were about the Vitale men. Her boss had been scared. She’d seen the fear in his eyes, and Rachel had kept her distance from them. Everyone but herself had been afraid.
The Vitale men were the worse of two evils.
Picking up her fork, she forced herself to eat something. She couldn’t starve herself. The first bite wasn’t so bad, and she finished the entire breakfast.
Vincenzo had also made her a cup of coffee, which she sipped through.
His cell phone started to ring, and she watched him answer. Excusing herself, she walked back upstairs to his room.
She’d not been back here in a long time. Everything was the same as when she left, not a thing out of place.
Going to his drawers, she opened one and found his boxer briefs. When she’d been there before, she hadn’t even given a thought to sneaking through his things to see what he had.
So, one by one she opened up his drawers, seeing his ordered boxer briefs and socks. Several drawers were empty, nothing inside them.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“You’ve got drawers empty. Why?”
“I don’t need to fill them. I have enough of everything that I need.”
Stepping away from his drawers, she stood in his closet. Again, order; suits lined up, everything neat and in place. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“You’re a neat freak.”
“I like to be able to find everything.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him.
He surrounded her, and she loved his hands on her. The way he comforted her. He worked for monsters and was one himself, and yet she wasn’t terrified of him.
His lips brushed against her neck. “Tell me what you’re thinking?”
“That there’s nowhere else I’d like to be than right here with you. I know that you’ll protect me. Keep me safe.”
“I’ll protect you with my very life.”
One of his hands moved to her hips. Her body heated at his touch, feeling the hard length of his cock press against her ass. Even after everything that happened last night, she wanted him.
Reaching behind her, she cupped his dick, and smiled as he hissed. “You’re playing with fire there.”
“You’re turned on. You’re hard right now.”
“I can’t help it. Seeing you in my clothes, having you in my life, being around you, Arika, it weakens me because right now, all I can see is you.”
She covered his hand with her own and then pushed his hands between her thighs, closing her eyes as pleasure struck her. She wanted him. “Then take me, Vincenzo. I’m yours to be taken.”
Chapter Fourteen
Vincenzo held Arika’s hand as he drove onto Galiza’s estate. All morning he’d made her come a total of five times as he drove his cock in deep. He’d needed to hear her scream and beg for him not to stop. The last thing he ever wanted to do was to hurt her, and seeing her breaking apart, shattering at his feet with Rachel’s body, had cut him deep.
She squeezed his hand, and he caught sight of Daniel waiting.
Arika didn’t tense up this time.
He parked the car, climbed out, and Arika waited for him to open the door. He knew it would be a struggle for her to walk as he hadn’t gone easy on her. He’d wanted her to remember him, to feel every single inch of his cock as he drove inside her, taking her pussy, claiming her once again as his own.
“You’re late.”
“I had business to attend to.”
“Galiza’s waiting inside. I see you didn’t keep her a secret for long.”
“I didn’t want to,” he said. She wasn’t a secret he was ashamed of. He’d only wanted to keep everything quiet to give her a chance at a normal life. Of course, the moment he decided to be a selfish bastard, he should have told Galiza then.
As he took hold of Arika’s hand, they made their way up the stairs into his boss’s house.