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He turns back to his cooking. When the sauce begins to boil in the saucepan, he tastes it and makes a humming sound.
"Thought you said you prefer not to cook?"
"Doesn’t mean I can’t cook." He smirks over his shoulder. "Just don’t expect me to do it often. And while you’re at it, why don’t you pour us some wine?"
All said and done, dinner is a relaxed affair… Well, except for the constant hum of sexual tension between us, which never goes away. If anything, the fact that he knows my body so intimately only turns the act of his eating and drinking the wine into one long anticipation of what’s going to come next. We do the dishes together, him cleaning the dishes, me drying them. Then we retire to the living room. He pokes at the fire, and when it’s roaring to his satisfaction, he picks up the book he had been reading while I choose a different one from the shelf.
"Do all you Sovranos like to read; is that why there’s such an extensive collection?" I nod toward the shelves of books that occupy an entire wall.
"Another thing we all have in common," he admits. "A love for the written word. We get that from our mother. She insisted on reading us a bedtime story each night, and sometimes a different one for each of us."
"Tell me about her." I fold my legs up under me.
"She was delicate and tiny." He glances into the fire. "And she was relatively young when she had us. Looking at her, you’d find it difficult to imagine that me and my brothers had come from her."
"You loved her?"
"We all did. And our father? Well, he never did take good care of her. When he wasn’t physically abusing us, he took out his frustrations on her. If only I had been old enough to do something about it. If only I could have protected her from him."
"But you guys were so young. You must have been only a child when she died."
"Old enough to know that I should have done more to help her. I was too busy trying to protect Xander from our father’s emotional and physical abuse. A part of me knew, even then, that our mother was bearing the brunt of it, but I didn’t do anything to help her.
"Your brothers are older than you. Surely, it fell to them to help her?"
"We all had equal responsibility toward it, and I would never pass off my burden onto them."
"Of course, you wouldn’t." I lean forward. "You are strong, brave, and have an ego that would never allow anyone else to bear your burdens."
"You say that like it’s a crime." He chuckles.
"Not a crime, but sometimes, it’s healthy to share what’s on your mind so others can try to help you."
"You mean, you want me to do the emo shit and spill my guts to you?"
"That would be a start, yes."
"You do realize that I’ve told you more about myself than anyone else?"
"Is that good or bad?" I hold his gaze.
"It’s ... different," he concedes, "and dangerous."
"For whom?"
"For you." His lips twist. "You don’t want me falling for you, Flower."
"Oh?" I swallow. "And why is that?"
"Because once I set my sights on you, I won’t stop until I own you, possess you, ravish you... Until I make you mine."
Mine. Mine. Mine.
His voice echoes in my ears. After that very hot, very possessive statement, Christian rose to his feet, donned his coat and boots, and said he was going to get more wood for the fire. He ambled outside, leaving me completely shaken.
God knows why. It’s not like I don’t know about his caveman tendencies. Hell, since the day I met him, it was clear to me that Christian is an alpha male, and not just an ordinary alpha male. He is an ultra-controlling, ultra-protective sadist with a touch of pervert thrown into the mix. The way he enjoyed my pain and was turned on by it, then made sure he turned me on with the pleasure that followed the pain, the way he held me close after he fucked me and made me orgasm, then tucked me into his side and lulled me to sleep…
All of it is confusing, and I admit, very appealing. Wonder what that says about me, hmm? I rise to my feet and walk to the window. Outside, the world is completely white. The moonlight shimmers off of the snow, and everything appears eerily bright. It’s also stopped snowing.
