by Sam Mariano
"I don't need gifts. If I want something, I take it."
"Yes, I've noticed," I reply wryly.
"Besides, I'll enjoy your gift as much as you will."
"I can't even offer sex stuff for a birthday treat; I already let you do whatever you want to me. God, you're spoiled."
He grins, tugging me close and brushing a kiss across my lips. "It's my birthday every day."
"It can be my birthday every day if it means vacations. I've never been anywhere."
"Well, you've never been in a relationship with me. I like to travel, just not alone."
"I had no idea you came with vacations. This package just keeps getting better and better."
Smiling faintly, he says, "See, there are perks for putting up with me."
"All perks, all the time," I say, hugging him protectively.
His hand skims my side, moving over my ass and squeezing. “Now, I’d like to get back to this assertion that you can keep up with my sex drive all on your own. That’s a mighty claim to make. I’m going to need to see hard evidence to back it up.”
I grin, leaning in to kiss him as I run my hands over his chest. “I’m very interested in providing this evidence, but I want to talk more about Italy. Francesca gave me beach fever.”
“How about I book a couple plane tickets and you can find out all you want to know?”
“Really?” I ask, unable to mask my excitement. “We can book a trip, just like that?”
“I’ve banked my vacation days,” he says wryly.
“It’s good to be the boss, isn’t it?”
He smirks, tugging me close and burying his face in my neck, sending shivers everywhere with his mouth.
“Do you speak Italian?” I ask him, running my fingers through his hair.
I tilt my neck to give him better access, and he keeps kissing my neck as he answers, “Some. My French is better.”
“Because you always went there with Beth?”
I don’t know if it’s the mention of Beth, or just my endless curiosity, but the kisses stop and he pulls back to look at me. “Actually, no. I’ve been fluent since around 12. Adrian and I used to talk to each other exclusively in French when my father was around, just to piss him off. He was monolingual, and we didn’t like him to know what we were talking about.”
“Man, I could’ve used you last year. French is the worst. If I take a French course in college, you can help me with my homework.”
His eyebrows rise, his hand slipping between my legs. “Maybe if you dress up like a naughty school girl.”
I can’t quite stifle a smirk of my own. “I basically am a naughty school girl. Want me to dig out my notes and find some prop glasses? You can watch me study in my panties while I chew on my pen and fantasize about your cock.”
He grabs my hips, tugging me against his erection. Lust shoots through me and I reach for his cock, closing my fingers around him and tugging.
“You are every single one of my fantasies wrapped up in a single person,” he informs me, pushing me onto my back and climbing on top of me.
His words make my heart contract. Every kind of pleasure courses through me as he pushes inside me. “Trust me, the feeling is mutual.”
Chapter Twelve
Meg
I’m up early for breakfast on Saturday. I’m not much of an early riser, generally speaking, but I’ve been getting more than my fair share of sleep the past few nights.
Especially since Mateo has spent each one of them with Mia.
I tell myself this is fine. Normal, probably. She’s a new toy, and he wants to play with her. That’s totally fine. He still comes to our room to read bedtime stories and deliver goodnight kisses to his girls—but after I get mine, he leaves.
Mia, each time I’ve seen her since the first awkward encounter, has been in a blissful little sex bubble, so it’s not hard to figure that one out. They’re not playing Scrabble in there, that’s for damn sure.
Which, again, is totally fine. But he’s supposed to be splitting his time. We didn’t have to do every other night, but come on. Three nights in a row is a bit much.
It’s also super weird to come down for breakfast today and see them both already at the table. Mia is in her seat beside him, so I grab myself some eggs and take my seat on his other side. Before I do, I stop to give Mateo a kiss, casually smiling at Mia to see how she takes it.
It doesn’t seem to bother her much. That’s good.
“Good morning, love birds,” I say lightly.
That makes Mia flush. I shouldn’t take pleasure in it, but three nights. She needs to go back to kindergarten and learn about sharing.
Mateo merely takes a sip of his coffee and raises an eyebrow at me, unimpressed that I’m purposely embarrassing Mia.
I wrinkle up my nose at him in displeasure.
A moment passes. I eat my eggs, but I’m starting to get annoyed. I signed up to be part of this thing, not watching from the bleachers. He’s mine. I’m the one who agreed to share.
Mateo brings me out of the snit I’m just about to work myself up in when he says, “We should go out tonight.”
Mia and I both look at him, but he’s looking at me. This calms me down, considerably.
“We should,” I agree, smiling at him.
Then he glances over at Mia, seeing traces of disappointment on her face. She probably thought he meant her. A logical assumption since he has been fucking her pretty much nonstop for three goddamn days.
But hey, who’s counting?
“We’ll go tomorrow,” he tells her. Then he pauses, realizing tomorrow is Sunday. “Make that Monday. We’ll go out Monday night.”
I latch onto this, not intentionally, but because I have killer instincts and her jugular’s right there. “Ooh, yeah. Tomorrow’s our first family dinner since the shake-up. That’s gonna be fun. How’d Vince take it?”
I feel a little mean when she turns scarlet, and the dread that’s been absent from her shoulders for a couple of days makes a sudden reappearance.
Glancing at Mateo instead of me, she says, “I should probably go talk to him tonight.”
Mateo nods. “Adrian’ll be with us, but I’ll call Colin and see if he’s free.”
“I don’t think I need a bodyguard just to talk to Vince,” she says, uneasily.
“He has a temper. This could escalate things. Better safe than sorry.”
“He’s not going to hurt me,” she insists.
“Well, if you’re wrong this time, I’ll fucking kill him,” he states calmly.
My stomach drops. Now I sort of feel like I have something to worry about. I guess that’s unfair—of course he cares about Mia. Of course he wants to keep her safe. Of course he’d kill his own cousin for hurting her.
Well, maybe the last one didn’t warrant an “of course.”
This is harder than I convinced myself it would be. I need us to go out tonight. I need a night of Mateo to myself. I didn’t want to do something as crass as creating a Mateo schedule, but if she’s going to hog him—and he’s going to let her—we might have to reconsider.
Her wide eyes remain on Mateo for a moment, then she nods, submitting to his demands. “All right. If it makes you feel better, send Colin. But he needs to wait outside. This is obviously personal and I don’t want an audience.”
“He can’t protect you from outside, Mia.”
“Mateo… this isn’t going to be easy. He’s going to be really hurt by this. I’m not going to further humiliate him by bringing Colin with me. That’s too mean. I can’t do that to him.”
“And I’m not going to let you put yourself in a dangerous position for the sake of Vince’s ego. Keep arguing with me and I’ll accompany you myself.”
That makes her panic. Obviously that would not go over well. She gives in, her gaze sliding to her plate of food. “Fine.”
Since I kicked this shit up, I try to distract her from it. “You’re at the bakery this morning, right?”
Mia
But that would be mean.
I smile instead and say nothing.
She doesn’t look relieved. I realize my smile may have come off differently than I intended. I wasn’t trying to be threatening. It’s just, well, I’m feeling a teeny bit threatened.
---
I’m so glad he took me dancing.
Well, dinner and dancing. He orders a ridiculous amount of food when we go out to eat. Not because he can eat that much, but because he’s always worried about someone tampering with it. I guess he figures if we order enough food for six people, they won’t know what he’s actually eating. Unless they get their poison from Costco, they’re bound to run out.
He’s a weirdo, but he’s my weirdo.
“What?” he asks, seeing me smiling as we dance.
“Just thinking about you,” I tell him, smiling up at him.
My heart fills up as he smiles at me. “I’m glad you’re having a nice time.”
“I am,” I agree, nodding. “Thank you. You know I love to go dancing.”
“I do know that.”
“Pretty much anything that involves you holding me is something I enjoy,” I add.
“And they say you’re a hard woman to please,” he teases.
I roll my eyes playfully. “No stealing my lines, Morelli.”
“Hey, half your shit’s mine now,” he tells me, stealing yet another of my lines. “That goes both ways, doesn’t it?”
“You have way more shit than I have. You’re just being greedy if you want half of mine, too.”
“I’m a greedy man,” he states. He’s teasing, but he’s also not, because he is a greedy damn man. A greedy man I love, but a greedy man all the same.
“Well, I’m not as greedy as you are, but I’m not without needs, either. I think you should spend the night with me tonight.”
“I was planning to.” He misses a beat, then he asks, “Does it bother you that I’ve been with Mia for a couple nights?”
I want to correct him. A couple is two. He has been gone from our bed for three nights. But that would be like admitting that it has, and I’m still confident this is just an adjustment period and things will level out.
So I keep my cool and say, “No. You have a new toy; I understand. Just don’t forget which bed’s yours,” I add, lightly.
Mateo grins to himself, looking over my head instead of at me.
“What?” I ask, cautiously.
“You’re jealous.”
My eyes widen like he just insulted me. “I am not jealous.”
“You are. You swore to me I couldn’t make you jealous.”
I will not allow him this victory. “I am not jealous. A jealous woman would’ve never agreed to this in the first place. I was totally on board, but she isn’t sharing.”
“She has a new toy,” he teases.
I roll my eyes at him. “An old toy. She’s played with the damn thing before; she should let someone else have a turn.”
The bastard is delighted by my jealousy. He holds me closer, amusement dancing in his brown eyes. “You’ll get all the turns you want. There’s enough of me to go around.”
I let it drop for a minute, swaying in his arms, enjoying the feeling. Then I ask, “Is it weird, being back with her? Is it like it was before me, or is it different now?”
“It’s a lot different,” he says. “She wasn’t in love with me before.”
Of course I knew she loved him. I guess I even knew he knew she loved him. But since they’ve spent three days in a sex cave together, it makes me feel a little wonky to hear him say it. “Did she tell you she loves you?” I ask, before I can think better of it.
He eyes me warily. “Should we talk about that?”
“Openness is probably best,” I say, even though I’m not sure.
“If it doesn’t piss you off, I agree, but it seems like it might.”
“This is the baby’s fault,” I state, mildly aggravated. “My stupid pregnancy hormones. I’m not jealous. I just don’t want to be left out, that’s all. I can do this if I know I’m in the loop, but I don’t want to start feeling like a third wheel. Or like there’s some secret between us. I didn’t agree to an affair, I agreed to a relationship, and maybe this won’t be as easy as we all thought it would be.”
“This can be as easy or as hard as we make it,” he tells me, seriously. “If you’re going to get jealous, it will be hard. If you remember that Mia is your friend and not your competition, it will be fine.”
“I don’t like when it feels like you’re defending her against me,” I tell him.
“Then don’t make me defend her,” he says, easily. “I’d defend you if she was the one getting catty, too.”
I wrinkle my nose up, annoyed. “I am not catty.”
He gently catches my chin and tilts my head up so I’m looking at him. Then he drops a gentle kiss on my lips. “Play nice,” he says, lightly. “I like when my girls play nice.”
“I will,” I assure him. “Maybe we should have a sleepover in our room. Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow after dinner. We can all snuggle up again and sleep together.”
“We could probably do that,” he says.
“Have you asked her about the threesome yet?”
He smiles, like this amuses him. “I don’t ask Mia for things.”
I was joking, but he clearly isn’t. If he wants Mia to have a threesome, she’ll show up, whether she’s comfortable with it or not. “She’s a lot softer than me, isn’t she?”
Nodding, he says, “In a lot of ways, yeah.”
“Do you like that better?”
“I like it with her,” he says, clearly. “I like you just the way you are.”
“Good,” I say, satisfied.
“I told you this wasn’t about you,” he says, watching me. “Didn’t you believe me?”
“How could anyone not believe you?” I tease.
Mateo rolls his eyes, but he can’t really say much to that.
“I just wanted to make sure,” I tell him. “I know we like to joke about you being hard to handle, but I have a tendency to wear on people, too. Rodney used to come home at night instead of gambling,” I say, lightly.
This sobers him. A protective flash that excites me moves through those gorgeous brown eyes of his and he catches my chin again, leaning down for a deeper kiss. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, sending my blood rushing through me, and I forget for a minute we’re in public.
After a minute, he pulls back, but he’s dead serious when he tells me, “That is not what this is. You are not wearing on me. Rodney was a dumbass; I’m not. I know a good thing when I’ve got it.”
“Good,” I say, relieved.
“Now I just have two good things,” he adds, lightly.
I roll my eyes, but it doesn’t incite jealousy. I rest my head on his shoulder. “We just got your karma straightened out; you shouldn’t fuck it up again with all this arrogance and greed.”
“That’s true,” he says, wryly. “It didn’t go so well last time.”
“Mia can take the next bullet for you,” I offer. “It’s only fair.”
“How generous,” he murmurs, holding me a little tighter.
“I’m a team player.”
“Heart of gold,” he agrees.
Chapter Twelve
Mia
While Meg and Mateo go out on the town, I get to spend the night in Hell.
Literally, it’s Hell. I’m sort of relieved it’s Colin with me. He doesn’t actually work for Mateo, so he doesn’t have any vested loyalty to him. But I also kinda wish I had Adrian. I feel more comfortable with him than this merciless stranger. In the event Vince blows up and mentions the dumb-ass thing he tried to do, Adrian already knows about it. If Colin overhears that, I don’t know if he will sell me out to Mateo. Considering he’s a mercenary, I’m thinking yes.
I’m still committed to not knowing, if push comes to shove.
But I’m really dreading this talk with Vince tonight.
I’ve spent the last three nights in Heaven, falling asleep in Mateo’s arms, sated and happy, happier than I’ve ever been. And now I have to break up with Vince. Tomorrow I will have to sit at the dinner table next to Mateo with Vince there beside me. It’s going to be a living nightmare. Memories of what that was like before spring back up, memories of me in the lovely white dress I threw in the garbage after that night, of Mateo making me serve him, Vince vibrating with rage and then taking me back.
I wanted to be taken back then, but nothing is the same now. I’m terrified of Vince going up against Mateo. I’m afraid of making Vince lose his temper, which he’s bound to, because he’s going to be hurt.
I’m just scared. Just all-around scared. Everything about tonight is going to suck.
Colin is driving me over, per Mateo’s orders. I don’t mind this part. I couldn’t really focus on anything else right now anyway. When we leave, I fully expect to be crying and unable to drive. My stomach is a mess of knots and anxiety. I’ve been ulcer-free since Mateo told me he was mine to share, but now it’s all catching up to me. He may have had Meg’s blessing, but I sure didn’t have Vince’s.
And like a coward, I haven’t come back home since.
Vince has texted me a few times, wanting to know when I would be home. But I’ve spent enough nights with Meg at this point when we’ve fought that it didn’t seem like such a big deal.
I have given him no indication I was with Mateo through any of that. I wanted to, just so he knew what was coming, but I didn’t because I had no clue how he’d react.
We’re almost there, so I decide I should start telling Colin what I want. “I know Mateo said you have to go inside with me, but I really need privacy for this conversation. Vince tends to have an explosive temper, and this… this is going to be really bad. I don’t want to make it worse by making it look like Mateo sent me with a guard.”
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