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“Fifteen years.”
“So your mother was willing to give up the generations-long family feud, but she wasn’t willing to give up her servants?”
“I never said she was perfect,” she spits, angry enough to growl at me for speaking ill of her dead mother.
When I cock an eyebrow at her reaction, she seems to shrink in on herself a little. I’m torn between liking the look of subservience and hating the way she shrivels up at the thought that maybe she displeased me enough for me to act like one of those Severino bastards. Honestly, I’m more annoyed than anything that I’m having any sort of reaction to her at all.
“My point is,” she says, her voice a little lower than before. “I wasn’t allowed to tell them no when they offered to do something for me. Cooking was one of the things they did. I was barely allowed in the kitchen.”
“You’re Italian,” I say as if she wasn’t aware. “Aren’t all of you really great cooks?”
Her frown deepens. “Way to stereotype an entire nationality.”
I cough to cover the laughter that brings, just one more thing that agitates the shit out of me.
“You can earn it in the kitchen or you can earn it on your back,” I tell her, needing to get control of this conversation once again.
It would be easier if she just left.
Her face transforms, her irritation with my generalization of her culture turning first into a scowl before transitioning into real fear that I may force something like that on her.
This woman has faced so many monsters in her life, that I doubt I’d even be able to take things that far with her. But I learned long ago that I should never say never because fate has a way of stepping in, making the impossible come true.
I never thought I’d run into a Severino so long as I stayed out of Chicago, but look where that led me this week.
I’ve never crossed that line with a woman, never even been tempted to. Doing what was done to Ellie has always been abhorrent to me, and I have no idea why I’m questioning my ability to control myself now.
Am I imagining her eyes dropping to my mouth?
Is the way she shifts in her seat as if needing to squeeze her thighs together a figment of my imagination?
Am I creating things in my head that make me believe she desires my threats as much as she fears them?
Is the electrical current I feel when I’m close to her something she can feel as well?
I straighten from leaning against the sink when she stands.
Wickedness washes over me as I reach for her towel, watching with little guilt as her chin quivers.
“You’ll earn everything you’re given. Do the dishes, and maybe you’ll earn the towel back.”
She’s frozen in place, her body responding to either fear or the coolness in the air. I watch, my eyes locked on her breasts as her nipples harden, forming two hard points the same color as her lips. The soft thatch of hair between her legs is a couple of shades darker than the mop of hair on her head.
I wonder for an instant how she would react if I teased any part of her body with the tips of my fingers.
Would she claw at me and tell me to leave her alone?
Would she whimper and beg me to stop?
Would she remain silent and stoic like I imagine she did when one of the Severino assholes touched her?
I know exactly which one I will get when I meet her eyes once again and she lifts that stubborn little chin of hers a fraction higher.
I’ll get number three, and I hate that she’ll treat me exactly like she did them.
I step away from the sink, taking the towel with me.
She doesn’t hesitate to step up to the counter and turn on the water.
I don’t leave the room because I can’t pull my eyes from her heart-shaped ass as she reaches for the sponge on the back of the sink.
A slew of ideas come to mind as my eyes trail down the curve of her spine, my sight getting lost in the tangle of her messy hair. I imagine pulling it, wrapping it around my fist, as she lowers her mouth to my cock. I imagine it tickling my thighs as she sucks me off.
I have to take an additional step back, but it doesn’t stop the fantasies. The minimal distance doesn’t keep my body from trying to convince my head that she’s mine for the taking, that I can have anything I want whether she offers it or not.
I head to the bedroom, having no doubt that she’ll pull her clothes from the dryer and walk right out the front door.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing at the window, my eyes locked on a clump of dirt in the neighbor’s yard, when I sense her enter the room.
