It took her a moment to open her eyes. When she did, what I saw shocked me. Shame.
I lifted her up, keeping her close. “When you’re ready to have sex with me, wear something red.Consumami.”Consume me.
“You want a fire in your bed.”
She said this like it was questionable. Like fire was a bad word. Like it was something to fear. Maybe to her it was. A butterfly was a fragile creature and could easily be engulfed by flames, but not if they carried it within them. She did. She carried the strength to make the change. “Yeah,” I said. “A fire. That way I know you’re ready.”
“I want to be,” she whispered.
“You will be. We’ll work on it.”
I felt her smile against my chest. She kissed me there and then underneath my neck, around my scar. I froze, but she didn’t notice.Thank fuck.She yawned and wilted against me.
“Time for bed.” I lifted her from the desk, carrying her toward the master.
“We’ll sleep in the same bed? I want to. You said during the meeting that it was my decision, once I got here.”
That was why I’d made the other room so unappealing. She needed to be next to me.
I set her down in the middle of the monstrous bed and she took the robe off, setting it on the bottom of the mattress. Crawling under the covers, she got closer to the pillow, and then she stuck one leg out. She was looking all right, her one bare leg sticking out like that. Her ass was a soft handful, too. It was the first time I was able to get a good look at it. I wanted to bite it until she cried out. Then I wanted to fuck it.
“You coming?”
I cleared the tightness from my throat. “Later. I have some work to do. If you need me, your watch is on the nightstand. Press the button on the side and say, ‘call Capo.’ It’ll connect you to me right away. You can call for Giovanni the same way.”
“Call him Capo,too?”
“No. That’s just for me. You just sayhisname and it’ll connect you to him right away.”
She made her hand seem like a gun, pointing it at me, and then she winked at the same time she made aclicknoise with her mouth, her “gun” tilting a bit. “Got it.” Then she laughed, and I realized she had been fucking with me the entire time. It had been a while—years—since I’d spent this much time with a woman. And none like this one. I was going to have to speed up to keep up.
She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, the covers falling. Her nipples were still hard. “Are you one of those people who can’t sleep?”
I shrugged. “Depends on the night.”And if you’ll be willing to fuck me all night.
“So Ireallydid come to live at the bat cave.”
Far from it, but if it meant that she felt safer here with me, I let it ride.
“Hey,” she said, stopping me before I left. “Do you have time to watch a movie before you go to work? Maybe we can make root beer floats? I’ve always wanted one. We have all of the stuff.”
This place was big. It was new. She was having trouble adjusting. Then I thought of the house on Staten Island, how comfortable it was, and that forbidden word flashed through my mind again.Jealously.Harry Boy had thought that out ahead of time. The place was comfortable for her.
Back to the point.She’d just have to get used to it.
I removed my shirt, holding it out to her. She moved up on the bed, taking it from me. Our hands brushed and that electrical storm that had been brewing inside of me all night seemed to send a shockwave up my arm. She took my offering, but her eyes raked over my bare chest as she did.
“Put that on,” I said, my voice low.
She nodded and slipped it on. It hung like an oversized dress. “So that’s a yes?”
“What’ll it be?”
“How about Freddie Scissorhands? And I’ll make the floats!”
12
Capo
