Chapter 45 – Vincenzo
Amanda brushed off the panic attack from the boutique like it didn’t happen. She needed help. This was the second panic attack in the short time she’d been in Boston. Mental trauma was a serious condition, and I wasn’t trained to give her what she needed. But I would find someone.
I would help her.
And if her father wasn’t already destined for a slow, painful death, he was after this.
Amanda needed to know that she didn’t have to carry the weight of the world any longer. That she could give control away, that I had her.
My phone rang on the counter as I checked the browned chicken in the oven. It was done, so I shut the oven off, left the door cracked, and took the phone call into the weight-room.
“Well?” I asked.
“Hello to you, too,” Alexei chuckled.
I clenched my jaw. “Tell me you have good news.” Or I’ll do more than punch you for wasting my time.
“The hunt is set. The trophy buck you wanted will be here.” He gave me a date. “It’s up to you to provide the bait.”
I closed my eyes. What we needed was time.
To do this, Amanda had to be on board. She had to want to fight with us and for us.
The plan was simple: eliminate the external threat before destroying the local one.
Loring was a man living on borrowed time.
A selfish part of me kept him alive so that he could watch his empire crumble—something that was actively happening in the background.
But if I went and killed him, which was highly tempting, I didn’t trust that his international contact would stay away.
Better that both should fall and leave my wife a free woman.
“Give me a week,” I gritted.
Alexei protested, but I held firm. As much as I wanted the threat neutralized, it needed to be done carefully.
“It isn’t going to work if the bait doesn’t want to participate,” I argued.
“So, trick the bait into helping,” he reasoned.
But I wasn’t going to do that. Amanda needed to be on our side. Manipulating her wasn’t going to build the trust we desperately needed.
“Unless I can convince her, this isn’t going to work, Alexei.”
The Russian snorted. “You going soft on me, V?”
“Never.” He didn’t understand. If he was ever blessed to have someone important come into his life, he might relent. But there was no explaining this beautiful, wonderful ache in my chest to someone who wasn’t driven by love.
“One week,” Alexei conceded. “Don’t fuck this up, guido.”
“Don’t plan on it.” I cut the call.
Going to the kitchen, I grabbed plates and utensils.
The table and chairs were delivered while we were out.
It was comical how just adding this furniture changed the landscape of the loft.
When I bought this place, it was to create a fortress.
A headquarters from which to operate. I never expected it to become a home.
Once the table was set for dinner, I called for my bride.
Amanda poked her head out of the bedroom, where she’d been busy putting away her new clothes. She eyed me suspiciously, but the scent of food invited her to step out.
“The rack is full, and I haven’t even unloaded half the bags,” she commented as she went to the second chair.
“I’ll have someone build more racks.”
Amanda let out a short laugh. “It’s going to make the bedroom small.”
That was true. “I’ll knock an opening into the next apartment. It can be your closet.”
She gaped at me. “The next apartment?”
I nodded. “They’re all three empty up here. You can make it a girly suite. A vanity, whatever closet system you want. I’ll show you after dinner, and you can tell me how you want it fixed.”
“A whole apartment—Enzo! Are you insane?”
Probably. “Let’s eat.”
Rolling her eyes, she reached for the chair, but something inside me snapped. The idea of distance suddenly made my inner beasts claw to the surface. I wrapped an arm around her waist, plucked her off the floor, and despite her immediate protest, I sat.
With her on my lap.
“Enzo! What the hell?” she snapped.
Her ass rubbed against my thigh.
“We’re eating dinner. Together.” I picked up one of the forks and used the side to cut off a piece of chicken.
Amanda tried to move off my lap, but my arm around her waist became an iron bar. Stabbing a piece of chicken, I brought the fork to her lips.
“I’m not a child,” she protested.
I pressed the chicken against her lips. “You most certainly aren’t. But I enjoy feeding you. I’m just sorry that we haven’t had the chance until now.”
The feeling of her pressed against me was the sweetest torture.
She felt so right, shimmying her bony ass on my leg.
Dio! How could such a gorgeous ass, one that didn’t fit in the palm of my hand, feel so bony?
It made me want to laugh. When she was a cheerleader, with a penchant for gymnastics and tumbling, I used to say the same thing.
That muscular backside hadn’t changed.
“I have all night,” I murmured, running my nose against her throat. “But I suggest you eat while it’s hot.”
Amanda huffed. Those berry red lips parted ever so slightly.
I pushed the food between them.
The front of my pants tightened. I ignored everything, my own food, my aching cock. Nothing else mattered until this woman was fed—by my own hands.
As she chewed, my babies wove around the legs of the table and chairs. They watched silently, knowing better than to jump up while I had food out.
Amanda swallowed. “What made you get cats?”
I stabbed another bite of chicken, this one with a cube of seasoned potato.
“I found Grigio out by a dumpster. A tiny thing. I couldn’t leave him there, and when the shelter admitted he might be put down because they were at maximum capacity, I brought him home.
I requested Bianco from the same shelter; thought he would make a good brother. ”
“Poor babies!” Amanda leaned down to look.
Grigio let out a plaintive cry.
I gave him a hard look. There would be a piece of plain, unseasoned chicken on his dry food tonight, yet here he was, begging at the table. “Mama isn’t going to feed you, so knock it off.”
Amanda leaned back to study me. “Mama?”
Her ass grazed my dick. I pushed down a groan. I wanted to bury myself in her, fuck her hard until she forgot her own name. She was my wife. And so far, I hadn’t had enough opportunities to show her how good that name felt.
But mama…fuck me.
I didn’t dare let my mind picture her holding our child. That dream seemed too far away, too many obstacles to paint it into existence. But my dick didn’t understand the delay.
“Sorry,” I muttered as I lifted the fork to her lips. “That just slipped out.”
The last thing I wanted to do was scare her. When we talked about the future, when we were young and full of dreams, there had always been animals in it.
“You think of me as their mom?” Amanda asked around the bite of food.
I shrugged. “They think of you that way. They aren’t friendly with people, but they act differently around you.”
Amanda accepted the next bite. “I like them—a lot.”
“Good.” I lifted the glass of milk, bringing it to her lips.
Something profound settled over us. It wasn’t easily described. But without verbally acknowledging it, we’d just agreed to co-parent two cats.
Or at least, that was what I hoped had happened.
I fed Amanda until she protested that she couldn’t eat another bite. Satisfied, I loosened my hold on her.
“You did well,” I commented and reached for my own food.
Amanda placed a hand over mine. “Stop.”