Embarrassed, I froze.
“I know you’re awake Amy.”
Swear my heart thudded so loudly against my chest people from the UK could hear it.
“Ames…” Ax’s lips found my ear. I gasped when he licked and then kissed a trail down my neck. “Mmm… you taste good.”
I tried to pull away from his arms.
Yeah, tried and failed, he was too strong and I was too weak. I wanted to be exactly where I was. Safe. Unafraid.
“Where are we again?” I asked, trying to look around the dimly lit room without moving.
“My house.” He said softly, still kissing my neck. “My room.”
“It’s… big.”
“Abandonatos don’t do small… in any way.”
“Oh.” I breathed.
His hands moved down my waist, slowly lifting my shirt. “I want you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Ames… I can do this all day long. I just want you to know, I want you now. I’ll want you later. I’ll dream about you tonight, and I’m not going to stop until you’re mine. You can fight it all you want. Try running away. I’ll spend my life finding you. Try your damndest to shut me out — I’ll just push until you can’t take it anymore. I don’t know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours. I don’t know why you’d say goodbye when this is just the beginning of our lives together. I let you go once, I’ll be damned if I’m going to do it again.”
What could I say? What could I possibly say to all of that? To the words I’d longed to hear for over five years? Thanks but no thanks? I was officially stuck. Because I knew, he was serious.
Dead serious.
If I ran, it would just put him in more jeopardy.
If I stayed… well… I had no choice but to stay, and face the jury, the judge, and the executioner.
My body tensed.
“I love you,” Ax whispered in my ear. “I will always love you.”
“Shouldn’t that mean you should put my needs above your own?” I asked in a small voice. “What if I want to go?”
“You don’t know what the hell you want, Amy,” he fired back. “And even if you did, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to give it to you, at least not when you’re in the dark, without knowing the facts. You’re afraid of the unknown, stop trying to figure everything out and just trust me.”
“Trust?” I repeated. “The mafia?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re insane.”
“Or just brilliant.”
“I choose insane.”
“Choose whatever makes you sleep better at night — but know this. You’re mine and it’s going to take a lot more than you being afraid of things that go bump in the night, for me to let you go.”
“Did you even sleep last night?” I countered, turning on my side to face him. “Or did you just plot my kidnapping.”
“Of course I slept.” He rolled his eyes. “And plotted. I’m a multi-tasker.”
I fought extremely hard not to smile at his ridiculously smug look.
“Smile.” He kissed my mouth roughly. “You know you want to.”
“How do you know what I want?”
Wrong thing to ask.
His eyes darkened as he pulled me flush against his body, his lips found my neck, tasting my pulse. “That right there, tells me, you want this so bad you can barely think straight.”
“Cheater.”
“When I want something…” He pulled back. “Absolutely. Now as much as I’d like to sit in bed with you all day, it’s time to meet the guys.”
“Guys,” I repeated, my stomach doing somersaults. “What guys?”
“The guys… the men…” He sighed. “The bosses.”
Air whooshed out of my lungs. “Are they going to have guns?”
“Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “For protection, not because they’re going to be trained on you.”
“But I’m a De Lange.”
“So is Phoenix.” He scowled. “And now he’s the freaking owner a few multi-million dollar companies, several overseas accounts, an old car collection, oh right and he has the ear of the Cappo. Your last name doesn’t mean shit anymore.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because Nixon still lets Phoenix walk around without a limp — that alone tells me all I need to know.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He sighed. “Pick out something comfortable and meet me downstairs in a half hour. I’ll have breakfast waiting.”
“And the — the guys…”