One trace of perfect white teeth sinking into the plump flesh of her bottom lip was all it took for her to wrap me around her finger. To own me, totally and completely.
I hadn't understood it. I'd never been able to wrap my head around the way the other guys lost their mind over one woman until that moment.
But the mass of dark brown waves surrounding tawny skin and the bone structure magazines had to airbrush onto models knocked me back a step. It rendered me speechless.
Until the moment my eyes landed on the bloody handprint on the doorway behind her, on the size of those long fingers that had curled around the wood and left a stain on her life. The puddles of blood at her feet made my nostrils flare and my eyelids twitch, but when I dragged my eyes over her body, I found no trace of a single injury.
Nothing to show she'd been attacked.
Given the injuries of her attacker that Matteo relayed over the phone, there was no way she could have walked away unscathed. When she turned her head to look away from my face and studied Ivory with wide, incredulous eyes, her best friend grinned back at her like it was Christmas morning. The faintest hint of a thumb shaped bruise tinted the side of her throat.
A growl rumbled in my chest, but I shoved it down in the interest of not scaring her. She didn't know me.
Not yet.
"Go pack a bag," I ordered, my voice a little gruffer than I intended. Something about the woman called to the monster under my skin and filled me with the intense need to claim. To make her mine.
Her lips twisted into a disbelieving smirk, her face filling with defiance as that bone structure hardened and she pouted her lips at me. "Hard pass on that, Lorenzo," she murmured thoughtfully, her voice dropping a level when she twisted my name around and made it hers.
I hated that name. I'd despised it since I'd been a boy.
But when she said it? I wanted to fuck her until she screamed it at the top of her lungs.
"I'm cozy in my own home, thanks," she added, glancing at Matteo with a knowing grin. He glared back at her as my face split into a smile of my own. The little fucking
minx knew exactly what she was doing. “What about Duke? I suppose his dick automatically protects him from attack?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and throwing Matteo a challenging glare.
“I’ll put someone on the asshole too.” Grabbing my arm with a growl, Matteo dragged me back into the hall and left the girls in the apartment with Simon and Scar. Only Rocco followed us into the hall, minding his own business and doing his best not to listen in on a conversation he knew was well beyond his concerns with Matteo’s safety.
I stared at the door even after he'd closed it and cut off my view of my Carina.
"Be on your guard. Remember, she's the one who taught Ivory how to stab a man in the neck," he grunted, waving a finger in my face until he had my full attention.
"Might like it," I grinned back at him. "Never know until I try."
"Do not even think about it," he warned, stepping into my space like he could intimidate me with his size. He may be taller than me. He may be the Matteo Bellandi, but I'd have something he didn't.
The motivation of fighting for my woman.
"I do not need to deal with the consequences when that crashes and burns," he said, tipping his head to the ceiling.
I gave a noncommittal grunt, having absolutely no intention of doing what I was told for once. I liked to follow the rules set forth by my superior officers. Always had, and a part of me always would.
But not when someone tried to get in my way with Sadie. The woman was mine, even if she didn't know it yet. Even if I didn’t even understand it myself.
Whatever Matteo saw in my grunt and shrug seemed to appease him, and he opened the door to the apartment. Ivory and Sadie jumped up from the couch, where the latter’s arms had waved about frantically in her desire to lay down some limit with her best friend. I suspected it had something to do with getting rid of me, but she didn't realize that would never happen.
Matteo grabbed his wife, guiding her to the door where she winked at me and let him take her into the hall. Simon and Scar followed quickly, trailing after the stubborn couple who were impossible to guard effectively. "Take good care of her, Enzo!" she called as he dragged her away.
I closed the door, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning against it. Staring Sadie down, I grinned at her as she wracked her brain for a way to get rid of me. Her face was like a window to her mind, as every thought and emotion played on her features with such an obviousness that I had to wonder if everyone else saw right through her too.
The thought bothered me more than it should have. I wanted to be the only one who saw straight inside her. I wanted everything that made her to be a secret between the two of us, something nobody else got to experience and something that was mine alone.
I wanted to own her.
"Alright. This is how it’s going to go, Baby Girl. Pack a bag or I will. Your ass is getting on my bike. My house is bigger. It has better security—"
She cut me off, her voice dropping until she practically growled at me herself. "I am not your Baby Girl."