Page 92 of The Mafia King's Reign
And last night, in the dark, with Valentina falling apart in my arms, I said it anyway.
Not strategically. Not as a tool. Not because it served any purpose.
Because it was true, and my mouth said it before my mind could intervene.
I trace the curve of her waist with two fingers, barely touching. She shifts in her sleep, turning into the contact without realizing she's done it, without meaning to give me whatI want. I've noticed this about her. She fights me consciously and surrenders to me instinctively, and the instinct is winning ground every week.
I wonder if she knows.
I wonder if she heard me and is going to pretend she didn't, which would be the smart play, the self-protective play. The play I would make in her position. Or if she heard me and is going to bring it up when I least expect it, in that direct way she has, the way that strips the Don right off me and leaves the man underneath standing in the open with nowhere to hide.
Her eyelids flutter.
Those green eyes open, hazy, soft, focusing slowly on my face with the particular vulnerability of someone who has just woken up and hasn't yet built the walls back up.
There's the woman nobody else gets to see.
"Hey, gorgeous," I murmur.
Her smile is slow. Unguarded. I am going to need more than one morning to get used to this.
"Hey... handsome."
The flush crawls up her neck. My fierce, sharp-tongued Valentina, who faced me across a desk and didn't flinch, who sent me a middle finger by text message on her second day here, who told me in front of my family that I couldn't buy her with jewelry, shy. Shy in my bed, in the morning, because something real happened last night and she doesn't know what to do with it either.
Good. I prefer us equal in this particular confusion.
"I still can't believe this is my life," she whispers, burying her face in my chest.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her in. "I can't believe it either."
She lifts her head. Her eyes search mine, and I let her look. No performance. No control. Just whatever she finds there, which is probably more than I've let anyone see in a very long time.
The question is sitting right there in her expression. Did you mean it? Last night, did you mean what you said?
She doesn't ask.
I don't answer.
But I hold her gaze for one extra beat, long enough that she knows I remember. Long enough that she knows I meant it. Long enough to make the promise without making her carry it before she's ready.
Then the knock comes.
"Mr. Vitale." Nico’s voice is clipped through the door. "We have a situation on the compound."
Of course we do.
Valentina tenses in my arms, reality crashing back into our stolen morning. I press a kiss to her forehead, letting my lips linger for just a moment.
"Duty calls.”
I climb out of bed, acutely aware of her eyes on me as I move to the closet. I dress quickly in an all-black suit, the uniform of a man who deals in shadows. When I turn back, she's sitting up in bed, holding the sheet up to cover her breast. I stop for a moment to look at my gorgeous woman. “Drop the sheets,” I command. Her cheeks flush while she drops the sheets, revealing her perfect, round breasts.
"You don’t have to hide from me, Valentina. I’ll see you soon." I cross to the bed, tilting her chin up for a brief, hard kiss.
I'm out the door before I can talk myself into crawling back into that bed and telling the rest of the world to go to hell.
Elio and Nico are waiting in the hallway, their faces grim.
