Page 40 of Deadly Little Sparrow

He doesn’t acknowledge my comment, he just takes my shirt with him, stuffing it into the hamper next to my dresser and then bending over to open the bottom drawer. It only takes him a few seconds to find what he’s looking for—a bundle of red nylon ropes, knotted exactly the way they came out of the package a year ago.

All the careful indifference in the world can’t keep my heart from speeding up as he approaches me with the rope, unraveling it with a single expert tug at one end. It feels like there’s a metaphor there. Am I the rope?

He stops in front of me, holding my gaze silently for several beats, a steady confidence in his eyes.

“Arms up,” he says, and I do as he says, my attention still on him with curiosity as he loops the rope around the middle of my chest, just below my nipples. The material is soft against my skin and the deftness of his fingers as he wraps it around, creating loops and knots to secure it into place is distracting. Enough that I manage to forget for a few minutes that Lorenzo specially requested his presence for a meeting this morning.

“Your protective instincts are hot as fuck and I know this is your world, not mine,” he says eventually, his voice just as controlled and even as his movements, twisting and tying the rope into a harness around me. “But I’m not your damsel in distress and I refuse to be the reason you get yourself killed. I got your gun off of you without you noticing, I’ve had blood on my hands, and even before I came fucking unglued, I’ve never had a problem bringing men to their knees.”

The slide of the rope against my skin and the smooth venom in his tone have my cock swelling and, surprisingly, my focus crystalizing.

“So, is this some kind of exposure therapy? Tie me up and make me horny, then send me into this meeting to be the emotionless mobster I need to be?” I ask with a twitch of amusement.

“No.” Sparrow finishes the last knot and then strides to my closet, throwing the door open and plucking out the first black button-up hanging there, still wrapped in plastic from the dry cleaners. He tears into the plastic then slides the shirt off of the hanger, carrying it over to me. I reach for it, sliding it on with a shrug of my shoulders.

“What then?” I ask as he starts on the buttons, working his way down, hiding the red rope harness behind the facade of my usual uniform.

“It’s to remind you that I’m in charge and I’m telling you to keep your head clear when you’re working. When this suit comes off at the end of the night, that’s when you’re allowed to worry about me again.” The authority in his tone sends a hot shiver down my spine, and I nod.

“Yes, Sir.”

A slow smile spreads over his lips and he presses himself up onto his tiptoes to catch my lips in a bruisingly rough kiss.

“Good boy,” he murmurs. “Finish getting dressed, I need a second cup of coffee before shit jumps off.”

He leaves me alone with the ghost of his touch still on my skin and his scent lingering in my bedroom. I don’t know if he actually wanted more coffee or if he could tell that I need a few minutes to let his words fully sink in and get my head right once and for all. The rope harness under my suit is the perfect metaphor, actually. I can have all the dangerous vulnerability that Sparrow offers, but to the rest of the world, I’m the same deadly Mafia hitman I’ve always been.

I join him in the kitchen a few minutes later, fully dressed and no longer clawing for the safety of deadened emotions. That never served me anyway. I don’t need to be numb, I just need to be controlled.

“Ready?” I ask, my gaze flickering between Sparrow and Elio, grinning like old friends over fresh cups of coffee.

“Let’s do it,” Elio says, pushing back from the table, letting the coffee in his mug slosh over the sides and splash onto the marble surface.

“Hey,” Sparrow barks before Elio can get too far. “Respect Xaviaro’s place. Come back here and clean this up.”

I flatten my lips to fight off a grin at the way Elio’s expression goes from incredulous to defiant to sheepish in seconds flat under Sparrow’s stern gaze, his arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t move a muscle until Elio’s cup is cleared, washed, and put in the dish rack by the sink, and the spilled coffee is wiped off the table.

“Thank you,” Sparrow says, picking up his own mug and carrying it to the sink to clean as well.

Amusement and affection war inside of me. My little bird wasn’t bluffing, he really can bring any man to heel with a snap of his fingers. Let’s just hope he can charm Lorenzo Moretti as thoroughly.

Chapter 15

SPARROW

After my head canon about Mafia board rooms, the last place I expect to end up is an all-male strip club.

“This where the Morettis do all their business?” I ask, craning my neck to follow the sway of a very perky bare ass framed by a black jockstrap, I’m sure there’s a man attached to it as well, but fuck if I could pick him out of a lineup.

“More or less,” Xaviaro answers, sounding rather bored by the whole thing. He straightens his already perfectly even tie and slows his steps, his attention zeroing in on a table just ahead of us where three men in suits are already seated. Elio is missing, of course, no doubt still trying to remember where he left his car during his drinking binge last night.

I assess each one of them as we approach. All three of them have dark hair and olive skin, just like I expected, and two of them are wearing the standard issue Mafia suits—high end, unwrinkled, classic. It makes the other man’s fashion choice stand out even more than it already would have if he were sitting on his own. His suit is peacock teal with a black-and-gold vest underneath. It’s bold, all signs pointing to him being the Big Boss… except, I don’t think he is. Something about him is too casual, like a man who gets plenty of sleep every night, not someone who has the weight of an entire criminal enterprise resting on his shoulders.

When we reach the table, one of the men in black stands up, his movements confident and fluid, commanding without him needing to utter a single word. Lorenzo Moretti.

He doesn’t even spare me a look, his eyes immediately on Xaviaro, his expression tight with just a hint of softness underneath that I doubt he wants anyone to notice. Like a parent reprimanding their child, they’re not mad, they’re just disappointed. Ugh, the worst.

“You realize if you were anyone else, you’d already have a bullet in your head, right?” he asks blandly. A threat? A warning? Maybe just an intimidation tactic for my benefit. Who the fuck knows. What I do know is that my blood boils instantly.

---