Shielded Wrongs (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 4)

Each tap of my fingers hardened my resolve once more. Made me feel a little more like the Sadie I knew well and less like the woman he turned into mush with a single touch. When I made my way back into the main gym space, Enzo had donned his boxer briefs and stood waiting by the bathroom door with my clothes tucked under his arm. "I'm on the pill," I announced. "And I'm clean. I was tested after Patrick."

His face tightened as his nostrils flared at the mention of Patrick’s name, but he trudged on regardless. "Right. Should have had that conversation before," he said, running a hand up the back of his neck. "I wouldn't put you at risk, Baby Girl. I'm clean." I nodded, even if I intended to get tested, anyway.

I didn't trust anyone else with something like that.

"I'll go grab my things," I said, hurrying off to my office so I could put more clothes on. More clothes around Enzo could never be a bad decision.

I'd wear a burlap sack from then on if it meant he kept his distance.

12

Enzo

I dropped my keys in the bowl on the table next to the door to the garage as Sadie hurried to the stairs. “Where are you going?” I asked, trying not to notice the dejected look in her eyes.

She turned back to me, smiling sheepishly in a way that felt so unlike her. I didn’t know if it was the sex in general or lack of protection that sent her into a spiral where she withdrew into her shell. All I knew was that it was so unlike Sadie, the need to pull her back to her normal, vibrant self pulsed through me. I should have been reveling in the excitement of my victory, but instead I worried I’d pushed too hard. Taken her too fast before she was ready.

But if there was anyone who could roll with the punches, it was Sadie.

“I need to shower,” she said, taking that first step up the stairs. “I always do when I get home from the gym,” she added. Her face twisted as she thought over the words, showing me they were true even though she didn’t want to offer them to me. The little brat wanted me to think she was in a hurry to wash me from her skin.

“Okay. Dinner will be here soon,” I reminded her. I’d ordered food when she retreated to the bathroom at the gym, anticipating her ravenous hunger. She’d pushed hard at the gym, needing the release after I called her out on her shit at the estate.

The weight of the gun at my back reminded me to put it somewhere safe until I decided what to do with it, and I stashed it in the safe hidden in my bedroom closet while I waited. The shower in the upstairs bathroom ran, the sound traveling down the stairs even though I knew she’d have closed and locked the door behind her to keep me out.

I wanted nothing more than to climb into the shower with her, to remind her that she could never remove me from her body. Even if she tried, I’d just cover her in my scent all over again. Only the knowledge that she needed to work through what had happened kept me away.

She’d rebuild her walls. Dismiss what happened between us as just sex. Eventually she’d be forced to admit that it was more than that. But that wouldn’t happen tonight. Dinner came before she emerged from upstairs, but she followed soon enough.

Even on her most spiteful of days, nobody could resist the kind of hunger she probably felt, and staying upstairs would mean hiding from me.

Sadie hid from no one.

She came down the stairs in sweatpants and a baggy shirt, hiding her body from me so obviously that I couldn’t resist the urge to chuckle. But I pressed forward without comment, letting her have her small rebellion. I’d won the first battle.

She didn’t yet realize I’d win the war, because I was playing for keeps.

“I ordered from the thai place down the street. I hope that’s okay,” I said.

“Sounds perfect,” she said, grabbing the plates and silverware from where I’d stacked them on the counter and bringing them to the kitchen island. She took her time, laying it all out just so. Her fixation on them seemed unnatural, and I thought for a moment it was her desperate attempt to ignore me. But the way she set the forks on the napkins, perfectly centered and perpendicular to the edge of the counter spoke of it being a well practiced activity for her.

Flawless ninety degree angles.

I turned away to grab glasses before she could notice me watching her, setting them down just to the left of the plates she’d laid out. Without even glancing up, she shifted them to the right. Chuckling, I moved mine back to the left. “I’m left-handed,” I admitted to her, watching as her teeth sank into her bottom lip briefly and her eyes darted down to the glass once more.

“Okay,” she whispered, pulling herself onto a stool as I moved the containers of food closer to her. She grabbed the thai basil fried rice, scooping a healthy portion onto her plate and digging in while I filled the glasses with water from the fridge.

“There’s pad thai too,” I said, opening up the second container. She thanked me, but ignored it as I sat and took portions of each for myself. It wasn’t until she finished her rice that she scooped pad thai onto her plate and ate that. “Do we need to talk about what happened?” I asked after I’d given her enough time to fill her empty stomach.

“Nope,” she said, taking a sip of water. “We had sex. Moving on.”

“It was more than just sex, Baby Girl. That’s why you’re being so weird right now. Because you know it as well as I do.” Every time she set her fork down, she placed it on her napkin so that it lined up perfectly. She blanched when she realized I noticed it, moving past it by plastering a fake smile on her face.

“Don’t be clingy. You were fun, Enzo. That’s all it can be.”

“Why's that?” I asked. Sadie guarded herself more fiercely than women I knew who’d suffered a serious heartbreak, but she gave nothing away as she finished eating and stood to rinse her plate and load it into the dishwasher.

“Because I don’t want anything else.”