Page 30 of The Vow

“Oh, I’d be more than happy to,” he returned. “You can… have a play with your new gift, too. Tonight. At dinner.”

That pretty pink flush returned to her cheek. “Oh, I’m excited to give it a whirl, but at dinner, I don’t think I’ll be working up much of a sweat to need to track my, er…”

“I think a family dinner is the perfect occasion for tracking your… vitals. There is an app for my phone, I mean, for your phone, too, so-”

Her eyes darkened as her pupils enlarged, her bottom lip parted from her top.

“It would mean so much to me…” he echoed her sentiment from earlier, and trailed off.

She blushed and looked away.

“Right, great, everyone’s happy,” Colt clapped his hands together and stood. “So when is this tasting dinner? I’m fucking starving.”

“The tasting for the meal that is never going to happen?” Lena asked mock innocently, batting her luscious black eyelashes. “7:30pm, don’t be late.”

Colt had already turned around and was leaving the lobby. He raised his hand over his shoulder. April was more polite of course, grasping the vast bunch of flowers and smiling as she backed away, too.

Carmelo half smiled and half winced as he awkwardly side-stepped away from the seating area, too. He wondered if he should bow or something. The whole Zakarian family watched him with their deep dark eyes. He smiled politely until he was far enough away to turn around and pretend to find his hotel room. As he rounded the corner he grabbed the leather clad arm of one of the retreating MC boys.

It was a prospect. One of the Latino guys, the former members of the Demonios Mexican cartel. Phantom had spared his life and Colt had offered him the opportunity to prospect at the MC. The kid had flourished. Obedient and loyal.

Carmelo cleared his throat. “Prospect, I need a favor.”

For a second, Carmelo worried the prospect wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t acknowledge him, let alone do what he was about to ask.

But after a long second, the young Latino guy smiled easily. “What’s up, pig?”

Carmelo let the name calling slide. “I need you to go and buy me a shirt that uses cufflinks, you know, like a dress shirt. I got a shirt but it’s not for cufflinks… white, preferably, I’ll message you my size… oh and some actual cufflinks. Any old silver cufflinks, shiny, small.”

Prospect shrugged and nodded. “A shirt for cufflinks and… cufflinks? Sure.”

“Before 7:00pm, so I can wear it all later.”

Prospect shrugged again. “Sure. I’ll get on that now, there’s a mall not far from here.”

Carmelo breathed a sigh of relief. That’s what he liked about the MC Colt ran. It was a fucking tight ship. With a can-do attitude. And nobody asked any fucking judgy questions.

Carmelo

Carmelo should have gone back to his room and spent the few hours before this circus of a tasting dinner relaxing and mentally preparing by himself. He was on a different floor entirely and at the other end of the hotel to where he was walking right now, but his feet were taking him that way compulsively.

He looked around, behind him and ahead as far as he could in the corridor. He mustn’t be seen here, he didn’t want to run into that bulldog Kavan, or his surly younger brother Ardian. Or Jovan, or any of them for that matter. He’d be skinned alive if he was caught doing what he was about to do, but fuck it. He was drawn like a moth to the flame.

He stopped in front of a room and knocked on the door, three sharp raps.

He heard an exasperated groan from behind the door.

“Ugh, who is it?” Lena’s annoyed voice sounded from behind the door, and he heard her stomping over to it.

Carmelo cleared his throat. “Delivery.”

She yanked the door open. “I haven’t ordered room service! Delivery of what?” she said, as the door wrenched open with a whoosh of air. And there she stood.

“Your dick, Princess,” he answered back with a smirk. “Delivery of your favorite-”

She was barely dressed. Stood only in black underwear. Her hair loose, her face make-up free and slightly flushed.

“Holy…” What Carmelo was going to say vanished on his lips. She was Holy. Holiness itself and Carmelo would bow down and worship at her altar.

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