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“Don’t look now, Soph, but you’re sounding an awful lot like Rafe. Rafey.”
“Fuck you, Cade,” she snaps in response to his taunts, then apparently storms away in resounding clacks of stiletto heels down the hallway.
Sophie returns to the room a few minutes later with an armful of pillows and tension snapping in the air around her. I lean against the far wall, watching her as she gets fresh sheets and a mattress protector out of her suitcase.
“Hold these,” she says, still a little terse from her confrontation, as she drops the bedding into my arms. Then she strips the sheets off the bed and covers the mattress with the protector, bending her body in ways that give me killer views of her heart-shaped ass.
Fuck. My dick is already throbbing, and she’s not even halfway done.
When she’s finished with the mattress protector, she takes the sheet from me and makes the bed.
I’m not quite sure why she’s remaking the bed, but at the moment, it feels like it has something to do with payback for the last two days. Surely, this is some sort of torture tactic. I don’t think she realizes what she looks like. Or how close I am to laying her across that bed and fucking her senseless for the way she jumped to my defence out there.
It’s an alien feeling. To have someone—a woman that’s unrelated to me—have my back.
Calm down. I tell my raging hard-on. She fancies herself your therapist. Of course, she’ll be sympathetic to you.
When she’s done, she picks up the discarded sheet between two fingers, opens the bedroom door, and drops it in the hallway.
She closes the door and turns to me, and then her brow furrows. “You’d be doing the same thing if you ever went through one of these rooms with a blacklight.
Ah. And I suddenly get the reason behind her actions.
Sophie continues, “Not that it matters for you. You get the floor.”
I glance at the scuffed hardwood floor, knowing there’s no chance in hell of that happening, but I don’t argue about that. Instead, I ask, “Why do you want your family to think we’re together?”
She responds with a nonchalant shrug. “The Reaper Druids are wary of outsiders. How else am I supposed to justify your cross-country trek to attend the funeral of a man you’ve never met?”
I can’t help but drawl sarcastically. “Surely, this isn’t the first time you’ve brought home a stray tiger.”
“Shit! You heard that!” She flushes, and her composure appears to slip a little.
I don’t bother with words; I just let my gaze roam over her. She really is beautiful.
“Nico, Cade is…, shall we say, well known to the police and the authorities. He’s used to crawling in the underbelly of Chicago, so he knows who’s who in the criminal underworld. That’s the only reason he knows who you are.”
“Interesting.” I expected her to be afraid when she discovered that I’m not just a member but the head of the Outfit. But no, instead, she’s worried about this guy.
“Nico, I assure you, Cade means no harm,” she pleads.
“Are you asking me for something in particular here?” I push off the wall and slowly stalk toward her, satisfied by the widening of her eyes and the way she takes a few steps back until her back hits the wall.
“What do you think?” she tries to snap but her voice comes out breathy.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I smirk, inching closer, “It’s all in your voice, your rapid speech, the pulse thrumming in your neck. Are you asking me not to kill him?”
“You weren’t meant to hear that conversation,” she admits, cornered.
I put my palms on the wall on either side of her head, caging her in. “I know.”
She continues, hastily, “And—and, Cade isn’t stupid. And he’s not a rat. I think if he had to choose he’d never side with the rebelling factions.”
Her words spark a blend of irritation and an unexpected respect for her insight into the machinations of the Outfit. “What exactly did Maria tell you about me, Sophie?”
“Very little. She only spoke about Leo. I didn’t know who you were until after you left my office. And I certainly didn’t realize you were—” she pauses, swallowing hard, “Don Vitelli.”
Gently, I trace the rapidly beating pulse at her throat before my hand cups her jaw, my thumb lightly caressing her plump lower lip. “Are you afraid?”
