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We parked in the same garage as he had the other night. After we got out and met behind the vehicle, he pulled me against his side and tipped up my face to his. My heart rocketed in my chest from his nearness, but this move wasn’t meant to seduce. It was to remind me he was calling the shots.
“As far as the men in the club are concerned, you’re mine now. They won’t touch you, unless they want to tangle with me. And they don’t.”
“Then what do I have to worry about?” I tried to sound flippant, but there was a boulder sitting on my windpipe, making it hard to take a full breath.
He didn’t answer my question. “I will be watching you.” He brushed his mouth over my ear. “Everything you do.”
“Isn’t that a Police song?” I eased back because every impulse demanded I nestle into the safety of his arms.
I hated that I coveted his protection so much. Why couldn’t I be strong and defiant and badass like Mia?
Or better yet, why hadn’t I just stayed home, and left this life to the people who were meant for it? I was just a culinary student and salad preparer. I wasn’t ready to deal with mob types, if that was even what they were.
But Giovanni was. He was part of their crew despite his obvious reservations, and I needed to understand why. Needed to understand him. Afraid of what I might learn or not, I couldn’t turn off my curiosity in his direction.
Couldn’t turn off anything in his direction.
“You’re going to need to act like you like me, though.” He continued as if I hadn’t spoken, his typical M.O. “No one will buy that you’re mine if you cringe anytime I move toward you. Or if I do this.” His finger trailed over my lower lip, and on cue, it quivered. He stared at it fixedly for a moment, then lifted his gaze to mine. Those intense blue-black eyes melted me like butter caramel. “Just inside those walls, tesoro. When we’re outside them, you’re free to find me as distasteful as you seemed to during dinner. Encouraged to even.”
“Why would you encourage me to find you distasteful?” I held up a hand. “Never mind. I know the spiel. It’s for my own good to steer clear of you. Yes, Christian Grey.”
For once, his lips quirked. “There’s a comparison I don’t get too often.”
We walked up the crowded street hand-in-hand, and when we entered the club, he guided me to the dressing room with his big hands cupping my shoulders. Part of me wanted to shake him off, the other part wanted to burrow. Then I stepped into the room and shrugged off my coat without thinking and had the absolute joy of watching his eyes glaze and his mouth go slack.
“Christ,” he muttered.
“He had nothing to do with this.” Deliberately bending to look in the mirror, I whipped out my gloss and touched up my lips.
“I’ve seen you.” This time, anger undercut his rich, melodic voice like steel under silk. “I didn’t realize it was you. You wear wigs.”
“I do.” Demonstrating, I tugged a long, white-blond layered style off a mannequin’s head and fixed it into place. “I still need to pin it down but—”
“This isn’t a game.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me against his chest, speaking close to my mouth so the few other girls scattered at dressing tables around the room couldn’t hear us. “If you want to strip for some godforsaken reason, do it somewhere else. Not here. Not in this club, with these men.”
My breath tripped and puffed out against his lips. “B-but I thought I’d be safer with you. You said—”
“So you expect to keep doing this to me,” he said flatly. “Night after night, you expect me to watch you bare yourself for other men.”
“It’s your own fault I’m not baring myself for you,” I tossed back, then wished I could snatch away the words when his eyes narrowed. “Or it was,” I added. “New information that has come to light has changed my…interest.”
“Has it now?”
I nodded, while all the while my conscience mumbled, yeah, not so much.
Attempted murder meant he hadn’t finished the job. Though I didn’t think there was a glass half-full kind of situation when it came to homicide.
“Good,” he said finally. “I’m glad.”
I yanked my wrist free and turned back to the mirror. “Me too. Overjoyed. Now do you mind? I have to finish getting ready, and men aren’t allowed in this dressing room.”
“I’ll be waiting outside.”
“Fine.”
Before I could return to my makeup, he pulled me against him again and slid his hand up the back of my thigh. Then he blatantly cupped my ass under my dress. “Fucking thong,” he growled. “I’m buying you a ten-pack of granny panties.”
“They don’t go with this outfit.”
