Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Elian

I didn’t remember the last time I had a woman in my space.

And, actually, I wasn’t sure I’d ever had one in this condo.

So I was kind of running on autopilot as I made my way out of my room the morning after I brought Elizabeth home with me, wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung sleep pants.

If I’d remembered I’d had company, I would have put on a shirt.

And if Elizabeth had realized she might, quite literally, run into me in the hall, she likely would have been wearing more than a towel.

“Oh,” she exhaled at the impact. My hands went up automatically to steady her. Only to find my hands meeting her completely bare back. “Don’t,” she squeaked, hands grabbing my waist and keeping me from stepping back. “We, ah, we seem to have a problem here,” she admitted.

It was right then that I felt it.

The brush of her bare skin against me, hot still from the shower.

There was nothing between us.

The collision had undone the tuck of her towel.

That I now felt on top of my feet, damp and warm from her body.

She shifted slightly, and I felt the brush of her breast on my chest. She felt it too, judging by the way she sucked in her breath, her posture going rigid.

Desire sucker-punched my system as I stood there, trying to recite fucking state capitals, so my cock didn’t start to get ideas about backing her up against the wall and sealing my lips over hers as my hands started to drift, to explore…

Fuck.

No.

Her fingers still situated on my waist damn sure weren’t helping the matter either because I couldn’t help but think about them shifting down a bit and over, of rubbing over my cock that was getting hard despite my efforts to keep my mind on other things.

“How about I close my eyes?” I asked, watching as she angled her head up to look at me.

And, damn, if it wasn’t desire I saw reflected back at me.

That… complicated things.

Especially since she was going to be living in my place for the time being.

“Okay,” she agreed, voice huskier with her desire, and I really, really could have gone without knowing how she sounded when she was turned on. Because now all I could imagine was her calling out my name in that same thick voice.

I forced my eyes closed even if that was the last thing I wanted right then.

The problem was, Elizabeth didn’t take a step back before bending down, and her shoulder ran down my body as she lowered to the floor to retrieve her towel.

Her sharp intake of breath was all the proof I needed that she’d been very aware of her arm brushing over my hard cock as she leaned down.

She said nothing, though, as she stepped back to wrap herself up again. And I didn’t know if that was better or worse.

“Okay,” she said when she was done, but she was already walking away, closing herself behind the door of her room.

“Fuck,” I sighed, leaning back against the wall in the hallway for a second before deciding that coffee was going to have to wait as I turned back into my bedroom, then walked into the en suite bathroom, closing the door, stripping down, and stepping into the shower.

I wanted to shock the desire out of my system with the splash of cold water, knowing it would only be worse if I fed into it. But I couldn’t seem to stop my hand from sliding down, from grabbing my cock and starting to stroke to thoughts of her.

What can I say?

It had probably been too long since I’d gotten laid.

There was no denying that much repressed desire.

It probably didn’t even have anything to do with Elizabeth personally.

Though, even as I tried to convince myself of that, it was absolutely her face I was seeing in my mind, lowering down to her knees, her pretty blue eyes focused on me as her hand wrapped around my cock, then dipping her head to suck me into her mouth.

I came hard to the idea of her working me with her mouth, but somehow felt just as frustrated as before I’d gone into the shower as when I made my way out, getting myself dressed before I went out to the kitchen to find she’d already made me a coffee.

“You seemed to like it the last time,” she said with a shy little smile that told me she absolutely hadn’t missed my reaction to our little run-in before.

“I did, thanks. My boss’s wife got me into frozen coffees a while back. But I think this might be even better,” I told her. “Are you hungry?” I asked as I took a sip, knowing it was way too sweet of a drink first thing in the morning, but enjoying the fuck out of it regardless.

“I don’t have time to order anything,” she said, checking her phone that she had sitting on the island.

“I was going to make something,” I said.

“You cook?” she asked, brows shooting up.

“You don’t?”

“Well, I can… no,” she admitted with a head shake. “My mom absolutely hated cooking. I think the only time we had actual home-cooked meals growing up was on holidays when someone else was actually cooking,” she told me. “My mom was the queen of the microwave and frozen dinners. I guess I just… never really learned.

“Then in college, it was all about what was cheap. I think I existed wholly on—and developed very strong feelings about—ramen, bananas, and peanut butter sandwiches for four years.

“And ever since then, I just haven’t had the time to learn. I will sometimes have like yogurt or instant oatmeal in the morning. But every other meal is usually ordered in. Did your mom cook?”

“My mom, my aunts, even some of my uncles. My family is big on food,” I explained. “My ma said it was a life skill, and boys need to learn that shit just as much as the girls do. So I learned young. Can I make you something?”

“I mean, if you’re offering, I’m not going to turn you down,” she said with an eager smile.

Knowing she was short on time, I got to work on simple omelets with cheese, some spinach, and bacon. I felt the almost overwhelming urge to make an entire fucking spread, to impress her, but I tamped that down, knowing it was only going to feed into the growing interest I clearly had in a woman who was only going to be a transient part of my life.

The moan she made as she had her first bite, though, had me wanting to say Fuck it to my convictions not to let things get physical.

“Good?” I asked, watching her cut off another bite and shove it in her mouth.

“I know you have a job and everything, but I think you missed your calling as a chef,” she told me.

“You like this, you’re gonna love an actual full meal,” I said, starting to eat my own food even if my appetite was for something else entirely. “If you give me a roundabout time you might be home, I can make dinner.”

“You don’t have—“ she started.

“I want to,” I cut her off.

“I’ve been trying not to stay too late anymore,” she admitted. “I leave when the interns and staff head out. Maybe… eight?” she said.

“I can do eight. You’ll take a ride share back and forth, right?” I asked, wishing I could offer to drive her. But the only thing worse than her being on her own was her being seen with me again, letting the Bratva think we had some sort of plant inside the senator’s world.

If we wanted a full-scale war, that would be a good way to go about getting it.

It might come to that regardless. But I was sure Renzo wanted us to pick off their new allies and cut down their numbers before we actually had to face off with the fucks.

The longer I could keep Elizabeth’s presence in my life a secret, the better.

“Yeah. Is that okay?” she asked, plowing through her omelet like she’d been starved for weeks.

“Yeah. I am just going to suggest that you have him drive you around a little bit first, just to make sure you’re not being followed here.”

“Oh,” she said, face falling. When the light hit her just right, I could still see the shadow of her bruise. But I was pretty sure that if someone didn’t know it was there, they wouldn’t be able to tell. “You think they’ll follow me?”

“I’m hoping not.”

“What if I do see someone following me?”

“Call me,” I told her.

“But…”

“Let’s not create worries that might never come to pass, okay? I’ll follow the enforcers today. They’re the ones who shot at you, and who likely broke into your place. If they aren’t anywhere near your work, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Okay,” she agreed, nodding.

“I will text you if they are there, so you know not to come out, or to come out in a crowd, and then I will give you instructions from there.”

“You’re good at this,” she said, exhaling hard and rolling the tension out of her shoulders.

“Part of the job, I guess,” I told her. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe,” I assured her. “Hopefully, you can get your boss to confide in you tonight, though. In which case, you can just quit going there and can just hang here where we know you’re safe.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, nodding, but looking a little sad.

“Hey,” I said, waiting until those blue eyes of hers lifted to look at me. “I’m not trying to rush you along. Even if you get the recording and give it to the police or the press, you are free to stay here as long as it takes for you to figure out your next move.”

“You don’t think the police are going to take down the Bratva, do you?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. “I’m not trying to be a pessimist here, it’s just the reality. Big organized criminal empires don’t fold overnight because of one scandal. The man your boss is trying to get off his charges was a high-ranking member of this family. They’re getting on just fine without him.

“Not even when the law got all high-and-mighty in the eighties, using RICO to bring down the mob, did the whole thing just crash. It went through growing pains for a while, sure, but it never went anywhere. The same can be said of the Bratva.”

“So I will never be safe in Brooklyn again,” she said, eyes sad.

“Hey, I’m never going to say never here. Who knows what could happen?” I asked, thinking of gunning all the fucks down myself just so she could walk free without fear again. But that was some crazy shit, so I shoved those thoughts right down.

“Yeah,” she agreed, finishing her food, and reaching for her coffee. “It’s probably best to just focus on the next step right now. Which is getting Michael to confide in me. And on that note,” she said, checking her phone, “I really need to order my ride and get going.”

She did that, feeding and loving on Kevin— the lucky fuck —before rushing out to meet her driver.

I went out with her, fighting the urge to follow her to work, knowing that anything that connected the two of us was going to mean trouble.

“El,” a voice called, making me turn to see Renzo walking toward me, brows raised, keen eyes saying he’d just seen Elizabeth take off. “You got something you want to talk to me about?”

Shit.