Page 121 of Their Princess

Good. That was how it should’ve been.

Or, at least, that was what I told myself to fight off the boner from that assault of a kiss and how Adelina had held on to me as we had driven up to the bonfire. I wasn’t meant to get between her and her fiancé, but that didn’t stop the hot rage vibrating through my bones when Sas had pulled her away and strapped her to his bike.

She was in danger with the Rojas brothers.

She was not in danger with Sas.

No matter how much I tried to convince myself, though, I wanted nothing more than to mount my bike and tear out after them. I had no right to do that, because it was clear that Sas was actually trying to protect her too... in his own fucked-up way.

But the look on her face as he strapped her wrists together had me tensing every muscle in my body to stay in place. It wasn’t the same desperate need to get away from one of the stupid guys at a nightclub trying to corner her. The way she watched him with wide eyes reminded me of all the innocence I’d known in her since she was a young girl.

I didn’t have a dog in this fight. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what I would say if I were to jump in. She was only my charge.

“My niece,” I reminded myself.

“What?” asked Graff.

“Shit,” I murmured. “Nothing.”

In the commotion of the party jumping back into full swing, I had missed that Graff was still standing beside me, watching Sas take Adelina as well. That he was the one who shielded her at my side. I peered over at the tatted man, my eyes landing on the four tiny birds tattooed in front of his ear.

The man wore art like it was life. Those were almost too small to notice rather than most intrusive face tats I’d seen before. Subtle and... classy.

Weird. I rubbed the back of my neck.

But if Sas—Adelina’s actual fiancé—wasn’t taking her time, Graff was.

Didn’t matter, because thinking about her in that way should be way off limits.

I was sick to want to fuck her.

Maybe I needed therapy.

Adelina’s Nonna Petra would’ve hauled me down to the priest at her church for an exorcism if she had ever suspected my desire. Thank the lord she wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that from her grave. But if I acted on my fantasies—Adelina naked and writhing beneath me—Petra Parisi would likely return from the grave. And if haunting me didn’t work, she might just slice off my balls and feed them to her vicious little Min Pin, Bruto.

“I’m only her half uncle,” I said—to myself, but aloud.

“Huh?” Graff scrubbed his knuckles over the two-day-old stubble.

“Nothing.”

“Shit, man. You’re giving me whiplash,” said Graff.

I pinched my eyes shut. If this was a different time or place, different people... blood relations didn’t have to matter.

Graff was still watching me from the corner of his eye, the two of us standing shoulder to shoulder from where Sas had taken Adelina and driven off.

“Are you serious about the non-monogamy shit?” I asked.

He pulled up his head, rolling back his shoulders. “Yeah.”

That was it—all he said.

“How?” I asked.

He cracked a crooked smile. “How am I serious?”

“No.” I took a deep breath. “How do you do it? Three girls with one guy?”

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