There was remorse in his eyes, like he regretted his question. “Forget I asked.”
I swallowed. “I hope that he comes around at some point. I find it hard to believe he can just cut me out of his life like that. I don’t care about the vineyard and the business—he can keep it. But I do want to be a family again…someday.”
“I personally think it’s pretty fucked up he took it away from you. He granted you the title because he trusted your intelligence and your judgment, but the second you did something controversial, he suddenly didn’t trust your judgment. He didn’t view you as an adult who can make her own decisions. You immediately turned into property, into a puppet that was supposed to do only what he asked, and the second you didn’t, he revoked your privileges. I don’t respect that.”
I agreed with everything he said, but that wasn’t what bothered me about the situation. “It’s okay. I’m fine with it.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “He fired you and took away your home. How could he look you in the face and say that to you?”
“I think because he expected it to scare me. But it didn’t.”
He continued to stare at me.
“I told him he could take back everything because I didn’t need it. Not when I have a man who can take care of me just fine.”
Wolfe didn’t have a reaction to that right away. His stare remained exactly the same as he let the words settle across his skin and absorb into his flesh. I saw a small explosion behind his eyes, but not of rage—rather, something else entirely. The boil turned into a simmer, and smoke from the fire dissipated on thewind. A little smile moved on to his face, his eyes softening as he stared at me like I was all he could see. “Damn fucking right.”
Once we stepped into his bedroom, he was all over me. Grabbed me hard and kissed me while he tugged at the dress he liked so much. Found the zipper and pulled it down before he pushed the material off me, kissing my neck and squeezing my ass along the way. He even issued a growl when he took off his shirt because that interruption was too much. He dropped his bottoms and then threw me on the bed.
He moved over me and folded me like a pretzel with my head on the pillow as he wedged between my legs. He snaked his hand into my hair and grasped gently as he sank inside me, filling me with every inch of his dick just to remind me how big he was, as if I could ever forget.
At first, he fucked me like he wanted to make me his all over again. In the bed where he must have screwed an endless line of hookups and booty calls. I should be jealous or insecure about who’d been there before, but I knew I was the only woman who’d ever mattered to him.
He pounded into me hard until he filled me, not waiting for me to go first like he would normally. But when he finished, he kept his hand tangled in the back of my hair, his dick still rock hard inside me. Then he started to rock inside me gently, giving me the ideal length that made him pleasurable rather than painful, and he kissed me.
He was the only man who could fuck me one moment and then make love to me the next, who could switch from one highto another, who had the endurance and passion to make that possible.
He released me from my folded position in the midst of our lovemaking then hooked my legs around his waist. He started to rock with me, his eyes on me as he held himself up effortlessly, pinning me against the mattress and the pillow, covering me like shelter from a storm, doing all the work and maintaining an intimacy he could create with just a stare. He didn’t say the words he’d only said to me once, but he showed the endearment in his expression, in the way he looked straight into my soul.
18
FRANCESCA
The next day, we went down to a beach club and spent the day in one of the cabanas they had on the beach. It had two loungers with a solid cover to provide shade, along with a server who brought us drinks and food we ordered off the menu.
“This is nice,” I said as I lay on the lounger next to his with a cocktail in my hand. “Why the fuck would I want to run a winery when I can do this every day?”
He released a quiet chuckle. “Amen to that, baby.”
We’d stopped by the bookstore along the way so I had something to read, but I spent most of my time staring at the drop-dead gorgeous, inked, hunky man beside me. Whenever he got up to put his feet in the water, I stared—and so did everyone else. It annoyed the hell out of me, but I knew I’d have to learn how to accept it. Otherwise, it would drive me nuts. He was always going to be insanely hot. Even when he was in his sixties, he would probably be insanely hot. It was the cross I had to bear.
“Did you have any friends outside of Cosa Nostra?”
“A few. We usually go out to the bars and pick up women together.”
“Then you must not spend a lot of time together.”
It took him a second to catch on to my compliment, and a grin moved across his face. His eyes were shielded by the sunglasses that sat on the bridge of his nose, so I couldn’t see if there was a smile in that stare. “We would watch the games, sometimes throw a ball around at the beach, and kinda just swap intel.”
“Swap intel.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of organized crime here, so everyone knows something. Waitstaff, business owners, carpenters, everyone. So it’s important to keep up relationships with everyone because you never know when it might pay off.”
“So Cosa Nostra aren’t the only ones here?”
“No, there are a few others. Smaller groups that stay out of their way.”
“Such a beautiful city… I wouldn’t have suspected a thing.”
