Page 18 of The Don

I shake my head sharply.

“We’ll have two people in the hallway. We’re watching all the exits and stairwells.”

“Good.” It’s not enough. To someone who really wants to kill me, there’ll never be enough security. I know that very well, but it will do for tonight, and that’s all I can ask. I close the door and lock it.

When I turn around, Shae is standing in the middle of the living room, looking at me with nothing but trust in her eyes. I want to be the kind of man who deserves her loyalty. I want to repay her every day for the happiness she makes me feel; like a weight lifting from my shoulders.

“Come, my love. You need to eat.”

She grabs her stomach and smiles nervously. “I forgot I was hungry.”

“I didn’t. I will make you something to eat, and then we will go to bed.”

Her face brightens. “Hold on. You can cook?”

It will take a while, I think, to get used to all the smiling and laughter. So much happiness when I’m with her.

* * *

Shae

It’s the hormones.

It’s just the hormones.

It hasgotto be the hormones.

And the smell of basil. And olive oil. And garlic.

Maybe these are aphrodisiacs for pregnant people?

“Come, bella,” Salvatore purrs over his right shoulder, piercing me in his soft gray stare. “Taste this.”

He turns back to the stove so he misses the way those few words make me shudder.

Salvatore’s making a tomato sauce he says I’ll love as if this has been just a normal night and not the first time I’m even seeing him after sunset. It’s surreal, and I can’t shake the fear that it’s fleeting because how could anything between us under these circumstances be anything else? So, while he’s been cooking, I’ve been sitting at the small wooden table in the kitchen, staring at his back with all my attention, committing every inch of him to memory. The way his muscles move as he chops and stirs. How sexy I apparently find it when he wipes his hands on a dishtowel and throws it over his left shoulder, all serious and focused. Aphrodisiac or not, my brain decides that the scents of garlic and basil will remind me of Salvatore for the rest of my life and probably get me wet.

I feel very tired and a little emotional, but Salvatore’s been muttering softly to himself while cooking, so we’ve both been in our own little worlds, but together. And I really love that.

But when Salvatore invites me to taste his sauce, I stand from the table and notice things I hadn’t before. Like the jazz playing from somewhere, how warm my skin is, how relaxed I feel, my tingling scalp and hard nipples. I stop with Salvatore just out of reach, my fingers twitching with the desire to touch him.

Thishasto be the hormones. Right?!

“Come, bella,” he calls again.

I rub my thighs together, and the friction makes me shiver, the wet lips of my sex catching on my underwear. I could, I realize, come right now, just because he said the word. And that, I know, is not just the hormones. I’m so hungry and lightheaded that I sway just a little bit as I take those last few steps to him and mold myself against his back.

“Bella?”

I can’t believe how many different ways he’s found to say that word and how each variation makes me feel something warmer, deeper, and new.

“I’m okay,” I say, snuggling my cheek against his strong shoulder. “I’m just tired and hungry, and I think my hormones are going wild.”

“Wild?” he asks, his body swaying as he stirs the sauce on the stove.

I turn my face to smile into his back, pressing my nose into the hard space between his shoulder blades, and hook my thumbs through the belt loops on either side of his waist. “I’ll tell you after you feed me.”

He chuckles lightly. “I am feeding you no matter what.” He mutters something in rapid-fire Italian. “Sit. The pasta is almost done.”

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