Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Ignoring the guilty voice inside whispering this wasn’t part of the plan, I pull myself in for another kiss.
When dinner is almost ready, Dom smirks at me. “Wait here. I want this to be special.”
He leaves the room. Tingles dance over me when I replay the look in his eyes, his excited tone. This is a special night. Chemistry is a tricky thing, hard to define, something that goes beyond words and shared pain and even physical intimacy.
It’s the small moments, like watching him cook, the expressions he aims at me: conflicted, but making an effort… for me. It’s the fire in his voice when he says he wants to be nothing like his father.
He returns, wrapping his arms around me from behind, gently kissing my cheek… but with a clear undercurrent that he wants to go further.
“Meet me on the upstairs balcony,” he says. “I’ll bring our meals up.”
When I stand, his hand strokes over my body, down my hip, and over my ass. Lust mixes with romance and infuses me with that love-drunk sensation.
I gasp when I walk onto the balcony. He has lit candles everywhere; the table sitting in the middle, the clear sky blazing with jewel-like stars. Meatball leaps onto the nearest cat tree, purring contentedly. A bottle and two glasses are also on the table.
I sit at the table, looking up at the stars and letting myself simply exist in this moment. The stars are like precious pieces of metal on a sheet of black. The only thing in my life that usually makes it possible to forget about everything else is my craft, but here, now, I don’t think about what’s happened or what’s going to happen.
Meatball purrs at me, and I’m sure he’s smiling, because he knows how significant this is.
Soon, my man, my kidnapper, brings our meals onto the balcony. He sets them down and takes the bottle. “Champagne?” he asks.
“I’ll have a small glass.”
“Just a small glass for me too,” he replies.
“You don’t drink much?”
The cork pops and liquid gold gushes from the opening. As he pours, he says, “I rarely drink. It’s too tempting to use it to silence my demons, but my demons don’t deserve to be silenced.”
“Demons… from your time in the SEALs?”
He pours my glass, then raises his. “We don’t need to ruin the night by talking about that.”
I raise my glass, clink glasses with him. “Who said it would ruin it?”
He laughs ruefully. I take a sip; the bubbles warming me up, then place my glass down and cut into my steak.
“You seem different tonight,” I say.
“Different?”
“Something has changed. Was it what happened with The Vultures?”
“Sort of. It was being with the mob. I never wanted to return to them, to give my father what he wanted.”
I gasp. “What do you mean, ‘father’?”
He shrugs. “I suppose you can know. My father is the don of the Family.”
I stare, rapt, my food suddenly forgotten.
“He tried to groom me to be next in line. He wanted me to be like him. Cold, ruthless, heartless. Maybe there was a time where I might’ve been what he wanted me to be, but the more I saw of that life, the more sickened I was by it… and now I’ve had to go to them for help again.”
“Because of me,” I mutter.
He reaches across and takes my hand, staring at me with those intense dark eyes, like two stars have fallen from the sky. “Don’t say that,” he says, and he’s suddenly my Warden; this is an order. “Don’t even think like that. I’m doing this because it’s the right thing.”
We hold hands for a few moments, then I pull mine away, and cut into my steak. I stuff a juicy, delicious piece in my mouth, so I don’t have to respond to what he just said.
“What?” he asks, probably reading my expression.
“Thanks for telling me about who you are.”
“No, Keepsake.”
“No?”
“That isn’t what you were going to say,” he tells me fiercely.
I shake my head. He’s right, dammit. He can read me like I could read shards of twisted metal in the old workshop and discover the beautiful pieces they could become.
“You’re lying to yourself if you think this–us–is down to you wanting to do the right thing. I see the animal in you, Dom. It scared me at first.”
“But not anymore?” he says huskily.
My breath picks up, but I control myself. As best as I can, anyway. “I don’t know. I want the truth, but you know that. There’s only so many times and so many ways I can say it.”
He looks at me for a few moments, saying nothing. Smoldering, burning up, like the man who would be Don, king of the mafia, is trying to simmer through his CEO persona.
“You’re right,” he finally says. “Damn, Keepsake. Yeah–you’re right. I can’t lie. I can’t run. I followed you because I wanted you. I took you because I needed you. You’re here because you’re mine.”