Page 36 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

Sofia snuggled closer against me, and I had to suppress the moan that threatened to escape when her ass ground into my cock. I scooted back a hair, and she followed.

“Sofia,” I muttered, leaning over her, so I could whisperinto her ear without the other men eavesdropping, “please sit still.”

Her sharp intake of breath was all I got before she shifted, moving away from Dante’s leg and leaning back into me, so her back was smashed into my torso. Nick laughed, then dropped a stack of cushions behind me so I could lean on them and support her weight.

“I’m still angry with all three of you,” she said as I wrapped my arms back around her waist, careful not to hurt her. She stretched out her long legs. “For taking away my choices.”

We’d forced her to go public with a polyamorous relationship, intending to use her as bait to catch Sergio. It’d worked so well, Sergio kidnapped her.

“I still owe you a punishment for taking off like that,” Dante said.

“Fuck you, Oscuro,” she snapped.

“You will,” he shot back.

“Ignore him. We’ll spend the rest of our lives groveling,” I whispered in her ear, grateful to be holding her in my arms, a whisper of hope for a future with her winding through my chest as she settled back against me.

She looked up at me. “I don’t need you to grovel, Lorenzo. I just needyou.”

Sofia dozedin my arms as the fire died down. Dante looked down at us, a glass of whiskey in his hand, and sighed deeply.

“I’d like to carry her upstairs to her room,” he said. Despite my suspicious glare, he continued, “You can stay with her, but?—”

He needed to hold her as much as I did. This brutal, cruel man bent down to scoop up the love of my life in his arms and kissed her forehead with more tenderness than I’d ever seen out of him.

Dante whispered soft words of comfort as she murmured in her sleep, then clutched her tightly against him. When we got to her room, he held her beside the bed, as if reluctant to let her go.

When she was finally settled under the covers, he turned on his heel. “Stay with her,” he ordered me before striding out the door.

Nick raised a blond eyebrow, then wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pressed his forehead to mine.

“She trusts you,” he said, his green eyes downturned. “More than she does us.”

I eyed the armchair, then the empty space beside her in the bed, indecisive. Then she whimpered. Fuck it. She’d slept in my arms the night before.

I kicked off my shoes, then slid in beside her, gathering her into my arms, careful of her wounds and noting a frailty not readily apparent when this strong, resilient woman was awake and animated by her inner fire.

“Easy, sunshine,” I murmured. “I’ve got you.”

Nick’s eyes warmed as he watched the two of us. “Sweet dreams.”

I met his gaze, and he looked away, as if embarrassed by the conflict in my own.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I said, my voice made hoarse by my agony. I wanted her so badly, loved her so fucking much, and I hated that I wasn’t enough—that I was poor, that I was an enforcer, that I’d grown up on her family’s charity, that I wasn’t a goddamned kinkster like Nick and Dante.

When she was in my arms, all of the noise faded away, and nothing else mattered. But when she wasn’t? I wasn’t ready. And maybe I never would be.

Nick didn’t say anything. Just sighed softly and closed the door on us, leaving me to my longing for the woman already in my arms.

16

DANTE

Jealousy burnedthrough me when Lorenzo emerged from Sofia’s room the next morning, still dressed in the previous day’s clothing, his face sleepily content.

His eyes flicked to mine while he worked the outrageously expensive coffee machine I’d purchased because American coffee was shit, not so I could see Sofia smile with satisfaction when she sipped her sugary disaster of a coffee as her breakfast each morning.

“She has nightmares,” Lorenzo said softly.

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