Page 61 of Princess of the Mafia

“What?” She crossed her arms. “You think I can’t do it?”

“Oh, I think you’ll be great at it.” If she touched any damn furniture like she’d touched my battered desk, any man would pay a million bucks for it. Any man.

“So, what’s the problem?”

The problem was I didn’t trust the men around her. I didn’t trust their dirty thoughts, filthy eyes, and muddy paws that’d itch to touch her sweet fucking skin.

She’d be among strangers. Men who weren’t fucking family. Who weren’t me.

A sudden rush of iciness chilled my bones. Just like I am with women every day. Was this how she felt then?

Fuck! I didn’t like it one bit. Frustration crawled underneath my skin like a filthy snake swirling venom in its wake.

I wanted to cage her in and lock her up. But fair game was all she had asked, and like a fucking moron, I was going to give it to her.

“Let’s go then.” I got up and kicked away the stool.

“Go where?”

“To get you enrolled,” I muttered. I couldn’t even believe the shit coming out of my mouth. It looked like she didn’t either. Suspicion sparked in her eyes like I was tricking her with a free pass. Nah. She would never leave me, but I’d drag her into a college and get her to study if she wanted that. I’d even sit next to her and help her with all the fucking work she’d have to do. But damn if I’d allow her to step foot into another man’s house without my hand wrapped around her waist. “Well, are you going to move or what?”

“You’re really going to allow it?”

“Didn’t I just fucking say so?” I said moodily.

Her mood shifted like fireworks going off. “You do know we can’t just walk in somewhere and get enrolled, right? Besides I need, to figure out which university.”

If I didn’t do this now, I would never allow her out. Ripping off that bandage and everything. “I can and I will. We’ll visit every damn university if you want, till you figure it out, but we are doing it now.”

She hesitated for a second before she nodded gleefully, like I’d told her she could get a dog or something. “I’ll get dressed.”

She turned to rush off, but I grabbed her and yanked her back to me. She collided against my chest as her breath left her in a gush. “You can design whatever home you want, but you never walk into another home without me or my men with you. Capisti?” I muttered darkly.

She laughed. She actually laughed at my pain. My moodiness itched up like I was a spoiled child.

“Promise me.” I tightened my hold on her, and her laughter died.

She looked me straight in the eye. “I promise.”

Trust. Suddenly, I was all too aware of how she felt when I walked out the door every day. Unease tingled underneath my veins. I was about to get a taste of my own fucking medicine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

DARIA

Indecision rattled the hollow in my chest. My heart thumped and beat in the pulse of my neck. I stood frozen in the kitchen while, in my mind, I’d walked the route between the kitchen and the bedroom a thousand times.

A strange thing had happened. Something I would have never believed had someone told me a year or even a day before. The Don of New York had strolled from one college to another with me in tow. I hadn’t believed a word he’d promised. Until we pulled up at that first college. Even then, there was a chance, a very big one, that he was taunting me. He could have changed his mind. Told me it was too dangerous as his wife. He could have told any of the normal shit they tell the women in the Cosa Nostra to keep us locked and inside. But there was none of it. The moment my feet touched the soil of that first college, it all became a reality, as tangible as the breath heaving out of my lungs.

I had thought I would sneak in with my bodyguards in my backpack. But all those ideas vanished, like the smoke from my husband’s cigarettes, into thin air. How could I hide when we’d sat with deans who personally explained the programs to me, like I was some Hollywood star? How could I hide when I’d be the exception to the rule, the student joining mid-semester with a cluster of men clad in black on my back?

I wasn’t sure how my husband had achieved this. The only thing I knew was he hadn’t walked the moral line to do it, and I didn’t care enough to be bothered by it. In fact, tingles of pleasure rode my skin because he’d cleared the path for me to do something I never thought I could. In two weeks, I was going to walk into a college. Me! Daria! Just a girl in the Cosa Nostra. So what if I had some black suits draping my skin, following me closer than my own shadow?

Shivers of pleasure stroked the edges of my chest at the memory of the dominant way he had taken care of everything. Everyone I knew had heard me say I would never fall for the arrogance of a made man. Couldn’t understand the charm of it. But damn if it didn’t leave me breathless, panting for more with a lick of wetness in between my legs. When we had signed the paperwork, my eyes had caught on his, and I could have jumped him right there in the dean’s office. He’d wiped his lips with the back of his hand and a dark glint in his eyes like he’d read my mind. Yet he had done nothing. Except to go all boring on me. Almost shockingly gentlemanly. He had held my hands while I had wanted more. He hadn’t kissed me nor slicked his fingers into me like I yearned for. His hand had lain between us in the back seat of the car in a tightly clenched fist but nowhere near me.

Yes, I wanted to feel him. Ever since I felt his thickness rubbing against my back this morning, my imagination had been running wild. Pictures of possibilities clicked into place like a slideshow. I wanted to know. Craved it. To know what it would be like to have him inside me. The last time had been brief and painful, and it wasn’t him. I wanted him like I wanted my next breath. Or even more. If his fingers felt so mind-blowingly good, wouldn’t his thickness feel even better?

Or was it gratitude that made me want to go to him and offer myself to his pleasure, and hopefully mine? I wanted to beg him to put me out of my misery. It was only sex. It wasn’t like I was giving him my heart or something. He would never get that from me, even if he had broken so many unwritten rules in the Cosa Nostra by allowing me to study. It was just that I was delusional from the high I had reached. Now that I knew what it felt like, I wanted it again. Needed it, really.

---