Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“You should leave some of your things here.”
“Yeah?” he asked with a smirk.
“Yeah.”
“I’d prefer it if you moved in with me, but I guess this’ll do.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not, but knowing him, it probably wasn’t. I headed downstairs, pulled out the casserole dish, and reheated the food in the microwave.
He came downstairs a minute later, shirtless and glorious.
“I was going to bring this to you in bed.”
“No.” He sat at the dining table again. “I’m not eating in your bed.”
“I don’t care. I do it all the time.”
“Beds are for fucking and sleeping.”
“And snacking.”
He smirked. “I don’t consider myself a stubborn man—but not gonna happen.”
I took the hot food out of the microwave and brought it to him at the table.
He immediately grabbed his fork and dug into the pasta.
I sat across from him. “How do you stay in such great shape, eating pasta and stuff all the time?”
“Because I need like four thousand calories a day,” he said. “I lift every day.”
“How do you find the time?”
“I make time because I have to. You won’t always have a gun or a knife in your possession. Your size might be all you have against an opponent, so you’d better be the stronger one.” He sat with his elbows on the table, eating like a hungry bear that had just come out of hibernation.
“You do a lot of hand-to-hand combat?”
“Some,” he said between bites. “Not a lot.”
“Leo said you killed Luigi and the others with your knife.”
“I don’t hide behind a gun if I don’t have to.”
My eyes became glued to his face, hanging on his words.
“It’s cheap, in my opinion. Shooting someone from a distance and relying on a scope to hit your mark… I prefer to fight like a man. Just two men with beating hearts and their knives tearing each other apart. It’s primal…intimate…animalistic.”
“You sound like a samurai with a sword.”
“Same idea,” he said as he continued to eat, staring at me across the table. “Know how to use a knife?”
“Probably not in the way you do.”
“Would you like me to teach you?”
“I know how to load and fire a gun.”
“Not what I asked you.” His plate was nearly clean at this point because every one of his bites was the equivalent to three of mine.
“You think I need to learn?”
“I’d prefer it if my woman was prepared for anything.”
“Alright.”
He gave a slight nod.
“Maybe we’ve just been lucky, but life has been pretty quiet for us.”
He finished his food then studied me for a while, his eyes taking in my features as if it was the first time he’d seen me in a long time. “I think those days might be over.”
We lay in bed together, my thigh hooked over his hip with his hands on my ass. He was a big man who took up most of the bed, and his muscled mass heated the sheets like there was a roaring fire underneath us. His fingers kneaded my ass as he looked at me, the two of us sharing a single pillow.
“Why were you only fifteen minutes away when I texted?”
“I was at the house.”
“What house?”
“The one I bought.”
My eyebrows rose. “The one we looked at like four days ago?”
“Yeah. I waived all the contingencies, wired the money, and finished the deal quickly.”
“Why did you move in such a rush? Was there another buyer?”
“No. I’m just tired of commuting.”
He’d stayed at my place so often, it hadn’t seemed like he’d commuted that frequently. “Did you sell your old place?”
“No, I love it. I’d never sell that place.”
“In Palermo?”
“Yes. You ever been?”
“A couple times.”
“I’d still like to show it to you,” he said. “Have you stay for a weekend.”
“Yeah, that would be nice,” I said. “So, that means you’ve moved in?”
“Some of my clothes. Purchased new stuff for everything else. I’m looking for a house manager or a butler. It’s hard to find the right person for a job like that.”
“What about the one you have in Palermo?”
He shook his head. “Her family is in Palermo, so she’s not interested in leaving. I get it.”
“If you aren’t there anymore, are you going to let her go?”
“No. The house will fall into disarray without someone there. She still cleans and maintains it. And if I ever make an impromptu visit, it’ll be ready for my arrival.”
I knew the price of the place he’d bought, slightly north of twenty million euro, and he’d bought it in cash without breaking a sweat. I wasn’t sure what my father paid his men, but I knew it wasn’t that kind of money. “Sounds like you did well with Cosa Nostra.”
“Yeah. And I worked for them for a long time.”
“I gotta imagine my father’s work is a major pay cut.”
He smirked. “A bit. But I’m not in it for the money.”