“Good morning,” he said into my shoulder and then leaned back as I rolled over.
Yup, being in bed with the hotter than hell mafia boss was not just a dream. Only my cousin’s less-than-excited acceptance of our relationship had been in my mind. Something told me it wouldn’t be far from reality.
I didn’t have time to worry about that as I stretched out my legs and my toes found Frankie’s. A few seconds passed as I marveled at the fact I was in Frankie Zanetti’s bed.
“Morning,” I finally whispered back and grinned when his lips found mine.
“Would you like breakfast?” he asked, tucking the blankets back up around my shoulders after he finished staring at one of my naked breasts.
“Are you making it?” I asked, hopeful I’d get to watch him make pancakes again.
His face fell. “Sadly, no, but Maria will be here soon. I have to run a few errands this morning.” He emphasized the word errands and then tucked the blanket around me harder, as if trying to keep me in bed while he slowly slipped closer to the edge and escaped.
I lived in the crime business and recognized the morning-after shading when I experienced it. My bottom lip found the edge of my teeth as I stared at him, wondering what he was keeping from me. Was it next-day regret? We had more than half a dozen orgasms between us, so I didn’t think I left him unsatisfied, but my suspicion grew heavy.
“What errands?” I asked, watching him leave the bed fully naked and on display. I finally got to see it after our first time together, and I’d spent hours worshiping it later.
“Are you regretting last night?” I asked, still racking my brain for what I did.
Frankie’s eyebrows rose, and he leaned over the bed, placing another kiss on my lips. “Absolutely not.”
“If you’re worried about the condom, I told you I’m on the shot. I promise.” It wasn’t until we moved to the bedroom that we realized we’d forgotten protection on the office floor. Last night, Frankie promised it was no big deal.
So maybe that wasn’t the problem.
He settled himself back on the bed but stayed on top of the covers as he kissed me again, this one more possessive than the others. “Ti riempirei lo stomaco con I miei figli.”
Normally, listening to him talk in Italian created happy sensations, but nothing was happy about what I felt when he finished. “You know you can’t use Italian every time you don’t want to answer my questions. What errands, Frankie?”
He slipped off the bed again. If he wasn’t completely naked with me slowly suspecting the feared mob boss of the East Coast looked scared, I’d appreciate it more. “Don’t ask me that, Cara Mia.”
He made it to the bathroom attached to the master too quickly for him to be walking casually.
The problem was Frankie hadn’t learned the number one way to make me ask something multiple times was telling me I couldn’t. I stuck myself right next to him in the bathroom after throwing on a robe and accepted the toothbrush he handed me from the little holder beside his sink. I ran my thumb over the bristles, finding them stiff and new. It wasn’t the toothbrush from my bathroom. But I didn’t have time to worry about where he’d gotten a toothbrush. Those questions came later.
“Seriously, Frankie. What errands?” I asked, my words sounding more like a plea than the angry accusation they were meant to be.
His gaze met mine in the mirror, creating a distance between us, and my stomach sank. A bad feeling crawled up my spine and turned my lips heavy until they fell into a frown.
“Don’t ask me about business,” Frankie said, and then shoved his toothbrush in his mouth while handing me a tube of paste.
His words angered me more, and I twisted to the side, using the tube of toothpaste to emphasize my next sentence. “I work with Westley, so I know how this works. I’m pretty sure I can handle whatever you’re going to do today.”
As soon as the words fell for my lips, my eyes widened, and I took a small step back. I’d given too much away. Frankie eyed me from the mirror, still not willing to meet my gaze head-on, but one of his eyebrows tipped up higher as if he realized exactly why I’d stopped talking.
He ran the brush along his teeth, so I hurried to coat my own bristles and followed his motions. A naked man and a half-dressed woman standing side by side, not making eye contact while scrubbing our teeth, had to be the weirdest day-after scene ever. As I worked, moving to my top chompers, the pieces came together, forming a picture.
As more details fell into place, I paled. Frankie was a notorious mob boss on the East Coast, and my cousin blew up one of his warehouses. Even if it was empty, that wasn’t something he’d allow to happen without retaliation. We hadn’t discussed the ten million sitting in his office, but I knew that wasn’t enough to make up for the slight my cousin created with his actions. Ransoms no longer mattered.
Frankie ripped the brush out of his mouth, turned on the water, and spat before rinsing the rest of the paste.
He wheeled on me, his eyes bright before they were heavy. “Now before you freak out…” he began as I spat my toothpaste into the sink, cutting off whatever he planned to say next.
“Don’t tell me not to freak out.” I’d absolutely freak out if I wanted. I’d held my own in Pelican Bay and had seen a lot of shit the last few days. So whatever Frankie planned for his morning errands was definitely freak-out worthy.
“Shiloh,” he said, placing his hands on both my shoulders.
I jerked back out of his grasp. “Westley paid you!” What more did he want?
