“You! You need to leave my cousin alone!” She slaps the counter to punctuate each word, and Vin leans toward her menacingly.
“Me? I was just helping her out.You’rethe one who is screaming at her in her own house.” He tosses the spoon into the sink with a metallic clatter.
“I’m screaming atyou, not her!”
I step out from behind Vin’s broad frame. “Siena, I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
She’s almost shaking with anger, her whole body vibrating. I start to worry for her and the baby with all this stress. Matti moves closer, positioning himself behind her, not touching her but present. He murmurs something low in her ear that I can’t make out.
“Yes, it fuckingisa big deal,” Siena snaps at him over her shoulder. “He’s an asshole and treats women like shit.Allwomen, but especially the ones he uses as fuck toys. Sophie, you are way too nice to—”
“Siena.” My voice is firm. She’s my little cousin but she’s always taken my quiet kindness as weakness, and it grates on meevery time. “Thank you for your concern, but you have nothing to worry about.”
“Sophie, you don’t know him like I do. I’m telling you—”
“Thank you.”
Siena huffs and glares at me in the silence. Vin stands stiffly beside me, radiating anger.
Matti clears his throat then lifts his chin toward Vin. “If you need me, let me know.”
Vin gives him a short nod, and Matti drags Siena out and closes the door behind them.
When they’re gone, the apartment is suddenly smaller than ever and way too quiet.
When they’re gone, Vin turns his hard-eyed expression on me, the heat from him now ice cold. “I need to eat.”
7
Sophie
Vin wants to eat.
I bite back a smile at that one, a dozen things I’d like to feed that man cross my mind, not a single one of them technically edible.
I snatch the knife from him while he’s distracted and use it to gesture toward the couch. “Go. Sit. I’ve got this.”
Vin grabs a handful of olives and turns, leaning his hip against the counter instead. “Nah. You’re going to show me how I managed to fuck up cutting salami.”
A sigh escapes me. I shake my head, pretending irritation as I slice thesoppressatapaper-thin. “It just needs to be thinner, that’s all.”
“Why?” He snatches one of my slices and shoves it in his mouth before I can stop him.
I swat his hand away and cut a few more slices. “Watch.”
I fan and fold a dozen slices around the edges of a shot glass. When I’m done, I flip the glass, release the salami, and show him: a perfectly shapedsoppressatarose.
“Well, damn.” He pops another olive in his mouth. “Impressive. But a waste of time, princess.”
I hold the delicate rose up to him. “What? No. Presentation matters. It’s pretty!”
His gaze locks on mine as he leans down slowly, hovering his mouth over the rose cradled in my palm. Without a word, he snatches the whole thing out of my hand with his teeth.
“Vin!” I laugh, and he grins around his mouthful of salami.
“Hungry,” he manages while chewing.
“Oh my gosh!” I turn back to the cutting board, bumping him with my hip. He’s close enough that I can feel the heat emanating from him. I offer him a slice of fontina cheese, and he takes it the same way he took the salami rose: bending forward, eyes drilling into mine, capturing it between his teeth.
