“Gimme! That’s my coffee.”
I’m tempted to pull it back until her body is pressed against me and I get a moment of bliss from feeling her breasts pressed against my skin, but I relent, handing it to her carefully. She takes it with a smile, her eyes closing, and a moan works its way free as she takes a sip.
“Not sure how I feel about being second-string to your daily dose of caffeine.”
She shrugs and winks. “Well, at least now you know how to bribe me.” She rises to her knees, wiggling her hips again. “Coffee, dick, or both.”
She takes another sip but raises a pointed brow as she notices that her little dance has certainly woken up another part of my body, smirking as she sees my cock thickening unrestrained, tenting against my pants.
“While I would love nothing more than to bury any part of me I could inside anything you’d let me have access to, I think we might have some pressing matters to attend to.”
She wrinkles her nose, setting the cup aside. “Ew, Dominick. I mean, it’s bad enough you’re hitting me up with the ‘we need to talk’ speech right after we wake up, but do you have to make it sound like a business meeting? I tell you what, why don’t you go get the chessboard? I think you promised me a game of strip chess with some dirty side-bets. We can talk while we play.”
I think she’s fucking brilliant, coming up with a distraction to get us through what is bound to be an awkward conversation, though the memory of the fight after we’d initially made that plan stings.
“Don’t move,” I order her, and go get my board from my office, carefully carrying it back. I set it on the bed and climb in across from her. She sits on top of the blankets now, wearing only my T-shirt.
“Seems like the strip part of these bets will be over rather quickly,” I say as I look her over, noting silently that I only have a pair of sweatpants on myself. “Hope you have some valuable bets to make.”
Her look is pure seduction, and she rolls her shoulders back, showing exactly what she can distract me with if she wants to.
“You know I do.”
We set up the pieces and I let her go first. We play a couple of moves each, both of us moving our pawns but making no real progress. I’m not really trying to push her, and besides, neither of us is truly focused on the game. It’s just busy work for our hands.
Allie breaks first. “So last night was fucking awful. How often is it . . . that?”
Right to the point, no beating around the bush from her, which I appreciate.
“I feel like the answer to that question might be bigger than you think,” I reply as I counter her move, placing a pawn in a position where either she takes it and I take her bishop with my rook, or she retreats. “You’re asking for complete honesty, which I will give you. This house, this room, can be a place for that. If you want it.”
She nods, as I knew she would, and pulls her bishop back. Even if she doubts her ability to accept my world, she wants all the information to make that call.
“Go ahead.”
“I run a tight ship in East Robinsville,” I reply, taking my time as I ponder my next move, “and everything dark passes through only on my approval after the transporter pays a percentage to the family. I do my best to keep the city as safe as possible. That means controlling the influx of drugs, weapons, and people.”
Allie looks at me sharply. “You said you don’t traffic people.”
“I don’t, nor do I allow it,” I clarify for her. “But by giving my disapproval, I must then enforce that ruling. Like last night. My life is not like some made-for-TV movie, full of drama and shootouts. Most days are boring, checking in with businesses, meeting with Captains and Lieutenants, and monitoring all the moving parts that make East Robinsville what it is. Having said that, there is danger, real threats to me and to you. Those who are not in power always imagine it is some glorious feeling of control, like an ultimate ego boost, and they’ll do anything to experience it, not realizing that it is more like . . .”
I pause, searching my mind for the right words, and finally land on a funny phrasing I heard recently.
“It’s like trying to herd kittens, but they’re tiger kittens, not housecats. They will scratch and bite the hand that feeds them merely to be difficult because they do not know any better.”
She laughs at my explanation and makes her next move. “That sounds oddly accurate. But if it’s so hard, such a heavy responsibility, why do it? Why not let someone else do it or let everyone do their own thing?”