Page 32 of Princess of the Mafia

My breath hitched, and I woke up with a gasp. Unfamiliarity hugged me from the dark. It was cold, and it was sharp, and it shot straight into my heart. I shook my head to rid myself of it.

I was hot, and my bladder called for a release. For the second time in a row, I woke up disoriented in a room that wasn’t mine, with a heavy weight on top of me. Green and red dots flickered in the room. A clock? A light switch? Time evaded me like a childhood memory as my bladder made me fight through the haze that bridged a bad dream and sleep. I pushed the weight on my body off and tried to crawl out of bed, only to be jerked back by something soft but firm.

“Minchia!” A hiss escaped me as I groped around in the near darkness. Warm skin, dusting of hair, rough scruff…

“Minchia!” Did he just suck on my finger? It burned like a heatwave, and a feeling I didn’t know rushed through my veins.

“Where do you think you’re off to?” A rasping voice cut through the dark.

“Where am I?”

“New York.”

That’s wasn’t what I had meant. But I needed to pee, and it was the middle of the night. I tugged my arm again, but it stayed fixed to what? I traced my arm to my wrist and found something smooth and silky wrapped around it. “Argghh.” I tugged harder.

“You planning to dislocate your arm?”

“Something’s around my wrist!” Panic caught on my throat. Rattlesnakes in our garden painted a chilling picture around my wrist, and I tugged harder.

“Woo…it’s just my tie, Principessa.”

Tie? “What’s your tie doing around my wrist?” My thoughts collided together, trying to catch up like a block of dominos. “Did you just… tie me… to a… bed… with your tie?”

“Yes.”

My eyes squinted and adjusted to the dark slowly. Outlines. Especially of him, lying on his back.

“Is this like a Martello thing?” A kink? Did his father tie his mother up?

“It’s a you sleep in my bed, kind of thing.”

He didn’t make sense. I had fallen asleep on my bed…

“Can you untie me now? I need to use the toilet.” I blushed. Thank God it was too dark for him to see. But it was weird to tell a stranger I needed to pee.

“If you promise to come back.” His lazy drawl wrapped around me.

“Yeah, yeah.” I was an excellent liar. As long as I didn’t have to look them in the eye.

A dim orange glow filtered into the room. I blinked. He looked more naked than the last time. Darkness, in combination with a naked man, was a first. The subtle light illuminated him and me and wrapped like an ozone layer around us.

“Tell me that again?”

Nerves crawled into the room on all fours and smacked me on my face. His eyes soft, warm, and hazel, were focused on mine. He almost looked soft. Kind even. I couldn’t keep up with this man’s moods, even if I wanted to. Good thing I didn’t.

“Please.” I yanked my arm and jiggled on my knees. “I really need to pee.”

His hand wrapped around my wrist, warm and light like the comfort of heat on a blistering night. “So, promise me.”

Medda! It was like the man wanted me to pee on his bed. The thought alone had me shifting on my knees again.

“I promise,” I muttered right before he untied me, and I dashed to his toilet to empty my bladder.

I washed my hands in his sink. Glossy marble, of course, with veins that matched perfectly and with taps that sparkled more than the glitz on a disco ball. It was all clean and organized. Small, neat white towels rolled up. Even the luxury soap was centered in the middle of the soap dish. If I took a ruler, I would find them to be the exact same number of inches on either side, I was sure of it. It was like he lived in a hotel rather than a home. So, of course, I left the soap on the sink and dropped the used towel on the floor, even though the bin underneath the vanity called out for it.

Disorientation loomed over me when I stepped out. The light next to his bed was still on, and he lay on his bed with his hands behind his head and one leg folded. His eyes touched my naked toes, trailed up to my shorts, halted at my chest, and sparked up to my face. I shuffled on my feet. I didn’t like the way he looked at me. He made me uncomfortable. Like I might have peed my pants or something. I looked longingly at the door leading to the hallway, but the gaze burning a hole in my face told me that was going to be a bad idea. So I reluctantly padded up to bed, got under the duvet, and lay down curled up into a ball and away from him.

The light flicked off. I gathered my courage in the dark.“Can’t we have one of those marriages where we have separate bedrooms?” I muttered.

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