Page 50 of The Don

“But it didn’t.”

He shakes his head, slow and sad. “Every step only gave me more responsibilities. Every day I woke up with more people looking to me for orders and answers and protection.”

“And more enemies?”

He takes another sip of coffee with a smile. “I’ve never minded the enemies, actually. That was the easy part.”

“Easy?” My voice breaks, and I can feel the pressure of tears like a familiar companion.

Have I ever cried this much in my entire adult life? No.

Salvatore reaches for me, and I close my eyes at the feeling of his hands on me again. The constant pleasure of just having him touch me is intoxicating. My body starts to turn to jelly, and soon enough, my panties will be clinging to my wet lips again, just from his strong hand caressing the back of my neck.

“If you weren’t here, this would be easier. Survival has always been much less interesting to me than power.”

Those words remind me of Salvatore’s father and his lessons, but, try as I might, I can’t see the danger in Salvatore’s eyes. I know heisdangerous, but I also know that he’d never hurt me. And it might be foolish and naïve, but in this moment, I realize that this is all that matters. Not hurting me and our children is all I’ll ever ask of him.

“I want to go to the beach,” I tell him.

“Whatever you want.” His smile is feral and elegant; so eager.

I scoot my chair back from the table and lower myself to my knees. “But not right now,” I tell him, crawling between his legs and reaching for the button of his pants.

“Whatever you want, bella,” he replies in a heated whisper, brushing his fingers across the tops of my cheeks.

And then groaning loudly as I take him into my mouth.

21SALVATORE

“I didn’t think this through,”Shae says, frowning adorably at the sea. The weather is mild, but the blue water is darker than normal, not at all like the beautiful, light, clear blue in some of the posters we saw while on our short walk from the apartment.

“It is the off-season,” I concede. “But it is still beautiful.” I try to offer her some hope.

She looks skeptically around us at the mostly empty beach with a frown on her face. “Is it?” she asks in a wispy, disbelieving voice.

“Si, bella.” I let go of her hand and wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into my side. I love the way she melts against me each time as if it’s new.

“Are you sure this is okay?” she whispers. “Are you sure we’re safe?” Her breath tickles the edges of my beard.

“You’re always safe with me. Do you want to take our shoes off and walk in the sand?”

“No. I hate sand, actually.”

I stop walking and turn toward her in confusion. “Then why did you want to come to the beach?”

She shrugs in my arms. “I don’t know. You seemed like you wanted to do something besides stay in the apartment and fuck. This was all I could come up with.”

“I…didn’t want that. I thought you would want that.”

Now the disbelief is in her face as well as her voice. “What the fuck would make you think that? I like food. I like art. I like sleep. And to be honest, with all that’s been going on in my life, we can swap art out for sex. Food, sex, sleep sounds like the best day.”

“Bella, why didn’t you say anything?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.

“Why didn’t you ask me?” She smiles impishly up at me, wrapping both arms around my waist. “I guess we’ll have to learn how to communicate better?”

“I’ve never—”

“Yeah, me neither,” she says, brushing her mouth over mine.

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