Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(46)

“Your phone.”

She winces. “What? No.”

“Sorry… yes,” I repeat, wiggling my fingers. Heaving a sigh, she digs into her bag and finds the sparkly, spangly thing she calls a cellphone and drops it in my hand. I pop it open and flick out the SIM card and battery and then slide all three into the bag. Then I fish the new one out of my back pocket and hand it to her.

“What’s this?” she mutters uncertainly.

“It’s a wedding gift. One that hopefully won’t get you abducted.”

“What about my contacts?”

“You’ll figure it out,” I assure her.

“Oh. Thanks,” I think she mumbles as I go back to the front door and grab my box again. Her eyes flicker toward it, then up to my face.

“What… What’s in the box?”

I jiggle it lightly. “Whips, chains, a collection of riding crops… the usual.” Her eyelids fly open and I have to laugh. “Just kidding! Geez… Just the normal stuff, Marie. Shaving stuff, shoeshine, fourteen kinds of hair gel. Mind if I go upstairs?”

She shakes her head, not understanding.

“To my room?” I add helpfully.

“You can't stay here!”

I shrug. “Why not?”

“Because… Well, it's not — I mean you just can't!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell it to the judge, sister!”

I give her a wink and start up the stairs. The curving staircase winds around to the left and I can see a stained glass circular window at the top. Really nice architecture. This is great.

“Are you gonna show me which one is our room?”

Marie bolts up the stairs, her tiny bare feet padding lovably on the plush Chinese runner. Her hands are flung out in front of her like she's going to grab me and drag me back down.

“Alek, you can't be here! This isn’t right! Nobody told me you were gonna —”

I lay the box down on the top stair and pivot to face her. She gasps a little when my hands circle her arms, and I pull her close enough that her breath bounces off the skin of my throat.

“You're right, Princess,” I say softly, pulling her close to me. I can feel her heart beat fluttering against my chest and my body begins to hum like a plucked wire. There certainly is something about this little doll.

“I — I’m right?” she says in a tiny, suspicious voice.

“Well, I never did get to kiss my bride,” I say and lift her toward me. Her mouth opens and I want to cover it with mine, but at the last second she turns her head, pushing at my chest with the heels of her hands. Instinctively I pull her closer, but she still won’t turn to me. Yet as we stand there, locked in an impasse, I feel an unmistakable slackness in her body. She relaxed, just a little bit.

Just that small admission, that small shift from rigid to pliable does something to me, wakes something up deep inside me. Suddenly I'm hungry for her all over again just like the first time and my mouth begins to water. I want to explore her mouth, to taste every part of her.

But I don't. Instead I force myself to place her gently back on the top step. When our bodies finally separate, she's breathless and blinking, staring up at me with a look of utter astonishment.

“You see?” I say softly.

“I… I don't know,” she admits in an adorably honest voice.

“Well I guess that settles it.”

“What? Settles what?”

“I think you know,” I tell her with a wink.

We hear the front door open again far below us and heavy footsteps on the maple floors.

“Alek? Marie?”

I smile at her and push a soft strand of caramel-colored hair behind her pretty pink ear.

“Daddy's home, darling,” I inform her.

I jog back down the stairs with Marie right behind me muttering this is crazy, this is crazy over and over. We find Roman in the foyer, frowning and peering into the few rooms he can see from where he is standing. He jerks his chin at me when I come down, indicating a sort of approval.

“Nice, right?” I ask him. “Did you pick all this out, Marie?”

She stands on the bottom stair, her hands wrapped around the carved acorn top of the newel post. I can see her knuckles are white as she claws against the oak.

“You shouldn't do that, darling,” I scold her gently. “That must be an antique.”

“You… You both have to go. Please leave. Please, now…”

Roman rolls his eyes at me and sighs loudly, picking up two large boxes and beginning to shuffle up the stairs. Marie looks after him with an expression of utter alarm.

“All clear?” Roman asks me.

“Down here, yeah. I didn’t do upstairs yet.”

“You guys need to leave!” she insists.