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I especially liked dogs when they weren't mine.
But this dog somehow felt like mine within a few hours. The bond might not have been as instant as it had been for Sadie, but she was mine. My woman. My dog. My girls.
What the fuck had happened to my life?
When Rebel finally fell back asleep, I stood and made my way back to Sadie. I ignored her guarded eyes on me while she watched one of her female clients strike a bag, observing the motion and the strength so she could offer notes for improvement. It had been too long since I’d had my hands on her, too long since I felt her heat against me. I wrapped my arms around her from behind, breathing in the scent of her hair. Like orange blossoms and vanilla, it flooded my nose and instantly put me at ease. Sadie shrugged out of my grip after leaning into me briefly, turning a glare my way.
"I'll be back in a second," she said to her client, taking my hand and storming over to the corner. Her body stiffened with fury, her rage palpable, but I couldn't be bothered to care. She'd have to get used to me touching her in public, because there was nowhere she could go that I wouldn't touch what was mine. "I'm working."
"You were working last night too," I reminded her with a chuckle. "It didn't stop you from staining the mat with cum."
"Gross," she hissed like she didn't do exactly that and enjoy every moment of it. Her fight was admirable. Her resistance of the inevitable was pointless. "Stop touching me when there are people around. I will not have my customers thinking that I'm just a piece of ass. I worked my tits off to be respected here, and I won't have you turning that on its head just because you got lucky. Sex does not make me yours. It doesn't give you a claim over me," she growled, crossing her arms over her chest and daring me to contradict her.
If she thought I would be so easily dissuaded, perhaps she hadn't spent as much time with Bellandi men as I thought. She should understand the process and how it worked after watching her friends go through it.
Our relationship would go much smoother if she didn't fight it, and just let herself be lost in the feeling of my mouth between her thighs, of my whispers in her ear, and the filthy thoughts in my head etched onto her body with my tongue. "That's where you're wrong, Baby Girl. You officially became mine when you came on my cock."
"If that's the case, then I must have several owners by now," she said, glaring up at me with defiance in her stunning face. I resisted the urge to take her to her office and remind her that I was the only one who owned her.
"I dare them to touch what's mine, Carina. Any who thinks to try it may find their bones ground down to nothing. They won't ever make the same mistake again, partially because they won't have functioning hands." The deep tenor of my voice might have horrified me, the threat might have seemed too much like Ryker. But Sadie was the only thing in the world that could make me enjoy violence.
I would most definitely enjoy destroying anyone who tried to come between us.
"You're insane," she sighed with a roll of her eyes. "I don't know why I thought maybe you would be somewhat logical. Sex is sex, Enzo. It doesn't have to mean some grand promise of forever. It was fun. It's over now. Reality called, and it wants you to pull your head out of your dick and think for a second."
"Or what, Carina?" I asked, stepping closer to her space until she either needed to back away or accept my chest brushing against hers. Her shiver was slight, barely perceptible, but she made no move to retreat. Sadie wouldn't let herself be intimidated, even when she already knew she was outmatched. It must have been so disarming for her to not be the biggest badass in the room. I was the only man who could tame her and claim her, and I'd do just that, but only enough to make her stop fighting me.
"Matteo forbid you from touching me, didn't he? I wonder what he would think of our activities last night and the fact that you manipulated me with a bet you knew I couldn't win." Confidence rang in her voice, her arrogant smirk communicating just how thoroughly she'd thought she trapped me. A smarter man might have cowered in fear and backed off immediately at the thought of defying Matteo Bellandi.
I'd live.
I grinned at her. "I don't give the first shit if you tell Matteo. He and I will work it out, but we both know I didn't expect to keep this a secret, Carina. No real man hides his woman." Her smile faltered, her eyes glancing to the side as she tried to rethink her defense against me now that her plan had failed so spectacularly. Her forefinger tapped against her thumb at her side, the pace rapid and steady as her irritation mounted. "What's so special about fives, Baby Girl?" I asked, tilting my head to the side. Her eyes widened and her face flushed beet red as I glanced down at her fingers pointedly.
"That's none of your business," she growled, glancing around the room to see if anyone had noticed our fight.
"When are you going to accept that everything having to do with you is my business?" I enjoyed the sight of her coming completely unhinged, of her losing her carefully controlled shit. I knew she'd try to hide it behind something scandalous, something vicious before she ever opened her mouth. Face tipping down so that she stared up at me through thick, dark lashes with golden eyes, her lips tilted into a mischievous smile as she bit her bottom lip. Those pearly white teeth sinking into the plump flesh only served to remind me of the way it felt to have her bleed me.
Compelled with the need to feel those teeth sink into my flesh and mark me as hers, I missed the subtle move she made for my junk until it was too late. Fingers gripped me through the thick fabric of my jeans, a warning that made me still completely. Not a movement, I would swear until my dying day that I didn't so much as breathe. Not with her brutal, masterful hand tormenting me.
Leaning in and onto her toes, she dragged her lips over the stubble of my cheek until her breath tickled my ear and her delicate pink tongue touched my earlobe ever so subtly. "Your business is to watch me. If I want you to watch me fuck another man, you'll do it. Because that's your fucking job, Lorenzo." Hardened, her voice dipped lower with a sarcastic chuckle. "You'll keep me safe, while I do whatever the fuck I want."
"You're wrong," I growled, shoving her hand away while she didn't have the true leverage to grip me tight. If Sadie had wanted to hurt me, she'd have done it. It wouldn't have been a teasing stroke and grip to my cock, but a crushing blow to the nuts that left me crumpled on the floor. "Do not test me, Carina."
She smirked at me one last time, backing away and then walking away from me to go check on Rebel. With a deep exhale of the strangest mix of curiosity and exasperation, I turned to follow her. The man Sadie had sparred with the day before stepped into my path, trying to intimidate me with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. "She ain't feeling you," he grunted in my direction. "Do yourself a favor and stick to your job. She'll cut your nuts off in your sleep if you touch her in any kind of way she doesn't want."
"Mike, right?" I asked, glancing around him to be sure Sadie didn't get far. I didn't expect her to walk out of her gym or leave Rebel behind, but I had a feeling the woman was slippery as fuck when she didn't want to be cornered.
And she most definitely didn't like it when I cornered her with the possibility of confronting her demons and sharing them with me. It only made my need to push her harder more intense.
I wanted her on edge, shoved off the ledge and unstable. She was so fucking fascinating when she felt trapped.
"Well, Mike. I don't take well to men inserting themselves where they aren't wanted. If she wants you, she'll let you know. Otherwise you keep your damn hands to yourself." If the situation had been about anyone else, I'd have appreciated his mentality. I didn't tolerate brutality against women, didn't stand for rape or abuse of any kind. If someone touched my sisters that way, I'd kill them with my bare hands. But there was nothing abusive about what had happened between Sadie and me.
I chuckled, stepping around him and making sure to brush his shoulder. While I didn't get the sense he was actually interested in my woman, I wasn't the type of man to be intimidated by anyone. Not if I cared enough to fight for something I wanted, and for Sadie, I'd fight to the pits of Hell.
"She was most certainly feeling me when she fucked me last night," I said, nodding my head at the very same boxing ring where Sadie had let me inside her. I'd never look at it the same.
It somewhat helped to ease the force of the glare Sadie leveled me with when she realized what kind of conversation Mike and I were having. I shrugged. There would never come a day when I stopped defending my place in her life.
