Page 18 of Claimed By the Mobster
There’s a beat of silence.
“Back to this,” he mutters. “You called me Ben last night.”
“You gave me orgasms last night,” I retort.
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair in a gesture of such frustration I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
Then I remember that he thinks I’m too young and girlish to deserve more than one night of his attention.
This tension between us is horrible.
“When did you get the house?” I ask, more to fill the silence than anything else. I expect him to say it was part of some mafia deal and he had it lying around like normal people have a scattering of coins. Might have found it down the back of his sofa. Ah! That’s where I lost the gold bullion and a four-bedroom house.
But he doesn’t. He gulps tea and says, “Yesterday morning. I searched online for hours while you… It took me a while to find what I wanted. I’d been thinking about it for a while, not actioning it because…” His mouth twists and he trails off again, so unlike him. He’s usually crisp and concise with his words. “It was imperative. I saw I’d already waited too long.”
He bought me a house while I was asleep in his bed.
“Trying to get me out of here.” I attempt a laugh but I’m just broken and trampled. I thought… I was so sure last night that he felt something for me.
Turns out that something was guilt.
“Trying to keep you safe, darling. From the Bratva. And from myself,” he adds softly.
Safe from him? I’m not a child to be dictated to. Of all the arrogant things. And to call me by a sweet endearment, teasing me with everything he’s withholding? That. That’s the worst.
“Don’t call me darling unless you mean it.”
“I mean it.” I look up and his eyes lock with mine across the table. He sets down his tea and focuses entirely on my face. “You are my one good girl. My darling. My queen. Even though we can’t be together, Anwyn, you’llalwaysbe my darling.”
The heat of my anger grows into a blaze of love and arousal, only tempered by the acknowledgement that we can’t be together. “Really?”
“Yes.”
And yet in the way he stands straight and folds his arms I recognise he’s not going to change his mind. The honour of Westminster and the legacy of his son mean more to him than being with me.
“I’ll arrange some clothes for you, and whatever else you need. Then this evening, I’ll take you to your new home.”
I nod my acceptance and tentatively, we’re friends again despite all that has happened in the last twenty-four hours.
It’s less than an hour and a whole wardrobe’s worth of clothes arrive for me. Everything I might want, all in my size. I pick out a white sun dress with buttons down the front to wear, and brush my hair so it flows over my shoulders.
As we relax into the day, me stealing books from his library and him having a series of phone conversations that amount to plans to kill the Bratva, I see how it could be. It’s just as comfortable as it’s been all along, but with the extra intimacy that has developed since last night.
I love him.
I can’t go back to seeing him only once a week.
We have lunch, and Ben fusses—if that’s the right description for dark scowls and pointed looks—over whether I’ve eaten enough. The day goes by far too fast, and anxiety puts out suckers in my tummy, twining and curling around me, trying to choke the air from my body.
The evening, he said. He’d take me to this beautiful house he bought me, and I won’t have an excuse to visit every week.
I thought I was okay with this plan.
But the edge of the cliff is approaching fast. The moment when I’ll never see Benedict Crosse again. And that is when I change my mind. I have only a few hours left with him then I’ll be out of his life forever.
There’s only one thing to do: what he did to me.
Last night he undid me with sheer pleasure. My body was no longer my own. He showed me that no one will ever make me feel as good as he does, and covered me with lines of his come. He made me his in all the ways that matter, except one.
