“My father’s cook. Lucia was old, thick, soft when I was a kid, and she hasn’t changed. She still runs the kitchen on the Demonio estate with an iron fist. She’s rough around the edges but soft if she likes you. She looked out for me and Tommy, yelling at anyone else who came into her kitchen but letting us spend hours there.”
“She sounds nice,” Sophie says quietly.
I nod. “She kept a little table in the kitchen for me and Tommy. We’d do homework there. When we weren’t doing that or eating, Tommy would read and I would sleep. She barely spoke to us, but she wouldn’t let anyone fuck with us either.”
“You would sleep? In the kitchen?”
She blinks like the words don’t compute, and I chuckle. “Yeah, arms folded on the table, head down. It was the only place I felt safe enough to rest. It was always warm. It smelled good. My father never came in there, never. He said it was for women. It took him years to figure out that’s where we spent a lot of our time. That was when he started putting us to work for him.”
Sophie is quiet, assessing me with those warm eyes of hers. Not judging, but I get the feeling she’s making room for me to open up. That alone shuts me down.
“I have happy memories in the kitchen, too,” she says. “My nonna lived with us, and I started spending more time in the kitchen after Siena and Emily—when I couldn’t hang out with them anymore. I got close to my nonna, and she taught me so much.”
“Makes sense.” I glance at her. “Can’t believe you missed Siena though. You guys are so different. She’s a fucking nightmare.”
Sophie’s eyes sparkle. “Does that make me a dream?”
“Compared to her, everyone is a dream, princess. She’s annoying as fuck.”
Sophie laughs, light and genuine. It’s hard not to smile. “Only to the people she doesn’t like. She thinks you use women, and that’s never going to be okay with her.”
“I only use the ones that want to be used.”
I brace myself, expecting the sparkle to fade when I say that. Most nice girls know my reputation well enough to stay far away from me. I make no secret of my aversion to relationships of any kind, and I love the rep I have for mowing through women. It makes it easier to weed out the ones who’ll become clingy, problematic.
But if anything, her glow brightens and her smile curves into a smirk.
What the fuck?
“What’s that look mean, princess? You like the idea of being used?”
Her response is confusing. Her breathing changes, becoming shallow and quick. Her cheeks flush pink. She just stares at me for a long minute, pupils dilating.
Instead of answering my question, she pushes the blanket off her, piling it in my lap, and stands. “I’m going to make some tea. Do you want some or do you want some more coffee?”
“Coffee. Always coffee,” I say, watching her phenomenal ass as she walks away. “And if you have more of that Napolitano stuff, I’ll take as much as you’ve got.”
She glances back over her shoulder, catching me staring, and smiles.
Fuck. This is bad for business.
But I can’t seem to look away.
9
Vin
Hours blur together. Multiple coffee refills. Easy conversation. Stories about her cooking fails, my complaints about Tommy’s weird obsessions as a kid, her laugh at every crude joke I throw out.
The time evaporates. Then she falls asleep on my shoulder. I let it happen. Honestly, I don’t hate it.
She smells like cardamom and something flowery. Her body is soft everywhere mine is hard, curves pressing against my side, and that thin shirt she’s wearing leaves nothing to the imagination. I can see her nipples through the fabric, the rise and fall of her chest with each breath.
Fuck. I’m getting hard just watching her sleep. I drag the back of knuckles lightly just below her collarbone. She was flirting with me earlier in the kitchen. The challenge in her eyes when I grabbed her wrist. The way she held my gaze when I fed her. I could wake her up right now the way my cock wants to,slide my hand up those ridiculous little shorts, find out if she’s as wet as I think she is.
Before I can decide if that’s catastrophically stupid or the best idea I’ve had all day, she shifts in her sleep and buries her face in my chest, draping her arm around me like I’m her fucking pillow.
Oh hell no. Cuddling is not my shit. At all. Never has been, never will be.
