6. Caterina
CATERINA
The happiest evening of my life followed on from the worst possible afternoon. I’ve been in my landlord’s penthouse, having had my pussy licked. I’m practically drunk after coming on Brody’s tongue.
He. Licked. Me.
And it was spectacular. The best happy ending to a movie ever.
Afterwards, despite a bulge in his trousers that looked as though he was smuggling a baseball bat, he didn’t want me to touch him, and his expression remained as serious as ever. He just helped me dress, and then guided me through his penthouse.
The spare room is basically the size of my entire apartment, and luxuriously decorated in pale blue and grey and gold.
“What should I wear to bed?” I ask, a bit lost and still tingling from my orgasm.
“We’ll sort your clothes tomorrow…” he begins, then scowls.
“It’s okay,” I say quickly, giving him a big smile, even though I’m confused and the solution I’m about to suggest fills me with dread. “I’ll go down and get something from my apartment?—”
“No,” he snaps. “Wait here.” He strides out, and I instantly feel alone and a spare part, so I follow cautiously and look across the hallway into his bedroom. It’s the mirror image of mine, in navy instead of this pretty, feminine washed-out sky colour. In a wardrobe are rows of hung shirts ranging from pristine white to grey to black like a shadow creeping across a bevy of swans.
Grabbing a white shirt, he turns and starts as he sees that I have disobeyed him, then approaches more slowly. Wordlessly, he hands it to me.
I suppress the urge to put it to my nose immediately.
“Goodnight.” His gravelly voice sends a shudder of awareness down my spine.
“‘Night.” I want to reach up and kiss him. Perhaps ask if I can sleep in his bed. Beg him to take my V-card. And I nearly—so nearly—decide to.
But a lifetime of being a good girl doesn’t get wiped away with one terrifying afternoon. So I don’t. I smile hopefully, tilt my chin up and make myself available for kissing, and slump when he gently but firmly closes my bedroom door.
It’s only when I go to the bathroom that I realise why, aside from my sparkling personality, he wouldn’t have wanted to kiss me again. I look like a cross between an ogress and a mummy.
Oh god.
Brody is so kind. He kissed me and… My cheeks heat as I remember what else he did.
Agghghgg.
Probably it was all because he felt bad for the beaten-up girl. What if he just feels responsible because he’s my landlord, and I was in his building when I was… I don’t even have words for what happened to me today. I guess “nearly killed” covers it.
Charity. Ugh, the very thought of him pitying me—trying to cheer up the zombie by giving her what she asked for—makes me cringe so hard I’m almost bent double.
I’m so embarrassed. If I could teleport to wherever my parents are hiding out, I would. I’d probably accept melting into the ground.
Thoughts swirl around my mind as I carefully shower and dry myself, then slip into Brody’s shirt.
I give in and sniff the collar like an addict, and perhaps it’s just my imagination, but I catch his scent. Seawater, neroli, steel, and musk. It’s sharp and strong.
And that’s when I realise what I have to do. Brody is way too kind-hearted to deny me, even if it must make him uncomfortable.
So. New resolution.
I am not asking Brody for things. I cannot risk it being just him humouring me.
It’s probably a moot point, because I’ll figure out somewhere else to stay—maybe try to find my parents—tomorrow. But anything that happens between us from now on will have to be because he initiates it.
In the morning, my resolution doesn’t prevent my awareness of the man I’m sharing a space with. There are sounds of movement from the rest of the penthouse, and my squirrel brain thinks about Brody getting out of bed—I wonder if he sleeps naked?—having a shower, buttoning his collar over the sandpaper bump of his Adam’s apple, and covering his body with one of those beautifully-fitted suits he wears.
I’m practically drooling at the image my mind fills in from the smallest sounds, but as I dress in my shorts and strappy top, I give myself a stern talking-to.
No lusting after my kind, extremely hot, and oh-so-serious landlord. No making suggestions. No telling him my deepest, filthiest desires. No playing the sympathy card.
As I see the curve of my breasts beneath my top, I add a new one. No attempting to catch his interest with my only-just-not-a-teenager body. He’s twice my age. He wants a mature woman, probably a blonde who is as serious as he is, not a try-hard girl like me.
So despite having slept in it, and stayed up way too late with the awareness of my nipples pebbled on the fabric that usually lies against his chest, I slip his shirt on over my little top. It swamps me, but it covers me too. No risk of accidentally showing off my boobs.
When I find him, he’s sitting in what seems like a breakfast room, sunlight spilling in from the windows, a newspaper spread at one elbow and a cup of coffee in the other.
I don’t have to announce myself. He notices me immediately and sweeps his gaze over me from head to toe. Lingering on the shirt before settling on my face. I can’t read his expression.
“Great bruise, isn’t it? But you should have seen the other guy,” I joke.
I look a fright. Even worse than yesterday. The bruising and swelling has developed overnight, and I guess it’s not as bad as it could have been without Brody’s care.
“I will,” he mutters and adds more distinctly, “I had Denis make you some breakfast options. I’m not sure what’ll help your bruises though…”
“Cold revenge pizza?” I suggest with a smile, and he returns a wry look.
“That can be arranged. I have some business to attend to today, but Denis is at your service. No Italian will get past him, I guarantee. Now sit and eat.”
I do as he says, and I don’t know how I know, but that seems to please him. Not an actual smile, don’t get me wrong. But something about the tilt of his head and the way his shoulders lower fractionally suggest he’s more relaxed.
On the table is basically one of those breakfast buffets you see in adverts for expensive hotels. There are several silver domes, as well as pastries, toast, cereal, and jugs of fruit juice, tea, and coffee. Denis turns out to be a man in his sixties with a strong Russian accent and a countenance as serious as Brody’s, but focussed on what I’m eating rather than me. He pours me tea, that being my caffeine of choice at all times of day like a proper Brit, and under Brody’s observation when Denis retires to the kitchen somewhat accepting that I don’t eat much in the morning, I nibble on a strawberry.
“Thank you for this. I’ll be out of your way soon,” I offer.
Brody’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I need to…” I run out of words. Because I really don’t know what to do next. This whole, “being a mafia target” doesn’t come with a pdf user guide. Even if I was the sort of person to read manuals. “Either leave?—”
“That’s not a good idea,” he snaps. “We discussed it yesterday.”
I’m learning that Brody is abrupt and brutal in cutting people off when he thinks they’re making poor choices. But he’s right.
“Get my apartment liveable, do my final exam, and figure out everything else after that.”
“Don’t go downstairs.”
“I need to live somewhere.” Homelessness is not fun. I’ve seen posts on social media, and I’ll take my chances with my apartment rather than that. “Just until my exam, and then I’ll try to find my parents. I think that’s what they’d want.” Obviously, I can’t know what they want, except they were clear I shouldn’t phone them.
“I’ll find another apartment in this block for you,” he says easily. “It might take a few days, though.”
“Are you sure?—”
“Absolutely,” he cuts me off. “Your current residence isn’t safe, and as your landlord, it’s only right I provide you with somewhere secure. And you can stay here until it’s ready.”
“That’s really kind.” I toy with a strawberry and try not to wish that he’d offer for me to be his secretary or something. What he’s offering is more than generous.
“Not at all,” he replies, and I must imagine the twist of cynicism in his words. “Now. I have urgent work to do today?—”
“Yes.” I almost fall over myself standing up, even though I don’t know where I’d go.
“And so do you?—”
“I’ll get out of your way.” He’s clearly a busy, important person, and I’m a bedraggled kitten he’s saved. “I’m sorry for disrupting your morning.”
“Enough apologising.”
“Sorry.”
He raises one eyebrow, and I smile sheepishly and bite my lip to prevent myself from apologising for apologising. I just nod.
“I understand your exam is important, but I hope you could do me a favour before you settle into studying.”
“Of course. Anything.” Literally. If he asks, I’ll happily do anything.
“Good girl.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a credit card, which he slides across the table. “Use this, and purchase whatever you need.”
It’s matte silver, but shiny too, and gleams with wealth.
“I couldn’t?—”
“Caterina,” he says seriously. “Your comfort is important to me, and I’m not having you return to your apartment for anything. And do not be tempted to send down Denis, either.”
“That hadn’t occurred to me,” I say faintly. And truthfully. I’ve never had anyone to do things for me.
“Good.” From underneath his newspaper, he nudges a shiny tablet towards me. “Use this. I’ve set things up for you.”
“That’s too much,” I protest weakly.
“Underwear, dresses. That sort of thing.” He doesn’t seem to hear me at all.
I nod warily. I could do with some clean knickers.
“The other task I want you to do for me is care for your injuries. Ice every hour. Painkillers at four-hour intervals. Denis will be here all day and has instructions to provide anything you need.”
“Thank you.” I’m overwhelmed. Just when it seems everyone who cares about me has either overlooked or left me behind, I’m not dwelling on which, I have an unexpected saviour in the form of the man I’ve been lusting over for three years.
But this morning, he appears to have forgotten making me orgasm on his face, and me admitting to never having had a kiss. It’s all about caring for me as though he’s a hot authority figure, not the person I’d love to have babies with.
“No need to thank me.” He stands and for a second he hesitates. He twitches like he wanted to lean forward and touch me. Kiss me, maybe. But instead, he straightens his cuffs.
Probably my bruises put him off.
“We’ll discuss everything else when I return.”
I spend the day studying and trying not to think about Brody constantly. I manage to access my university account, and I refuse to dwell on what happened yesterday, my parents, or what the whole thing means for my life.
I honestly get more work done than you’d expect. I look up a couple of exam questions, and do timed practices.
Admittedly, I go on a side quest reading about the London mafias, just to see if I can find out anything about my attackers. Each part of London is run by a mafia lord, but Angel, the area I live and work in, has a shadowy kingpin. The Dark Angel is more like a black hole: his presence is known more by the absence of where the kingpin of Angel should be. That and the way problems are mysteriously sorted in his territory.
The likelihood of any of the men who invaded my apartment yesterday being the Dark Angel is vanishingly small. The mafia who are after me and my parents are Italian, after all. Probably they aren’t even a London mafia. So I spread my search wider, vaguely wondering what I would do if I discovered who was after me.
Nothing.
Currently, I haven’t got any ideas for my continued survival better than begging Brody to allow me to stay in this apartment forever. The obvious problem is financial. If I can’t do bar work, I can’t pay my rent.
The shameful thought that immediately comes to mind makes my cheeks heat.
I could earn my rent on my back. On my knees. Pretzel-like positions? Absolutely fine by me with my hot landlord.
Thankfully, by the time I hear the door click and Brody strolls in, I’m focused on studying. Mainly. I’m curled onto the sofa in his lounge, the tablet he loaned me on my knees.
For a second it’s exactly the same as when we meet in the atrium downstairs. I smile at him, and he regards me intently. The moment stretches out like honey dripping from a spoon, and as always, my tummy flutters. His grey eyes, so serious, and that jawline.
Last night I saw that expression looking up at me from between my legs. Charity or not, I’m going to treasure that memory until I am an old lady without a filter who boasts about having once had her pussy licked, and everyone rolls their eyes because they think I’ve lost my mind.
Given that for three years we’ve not exchanged a word, somehow, I’m not surprised that Brody isn’t the type for chit-chat. Silently, he walks over to me, takes out his phone and after a second of flicking, passes it to me.
“Was this one of the men from yesterday?” he asks tersely.
On the screen is a photograph of a man with dark-brown hair and tanned skin. I examine the image. It’s close-cropped, the man seems to be lying on a concrete floor, and his eyes are closed. I’m not skilled at racial identification, but I suppose he could easily be Italian. I try to envisage him in the suit, or the boilersuit.
“That’s not him.”
“Ah.” Brody nods grimly. “Pity.”
He takes the phone from me without further explanation or comment, then discards it.
My mind whirls. What was that about?
Standing to his full, intimidating height, he looks down on me, causing every thought that isn’t pure thirst to fly from my head.
“Have you been a good girl and done all your studying?”
Oof. For him, I’d be the best girl.
“Very good.” Do I sound embarrassingly over-eager? Yes, I do. “Actually, I’ve been more focused than I was yesterday. Even before… You know.” Brody’s apartment is perfectly comfortable, and whenever I wandered into the kitchen, I found Denis cooking and not happy until I took a sweet treat and hot beverage to my lair. I mean the lounge.
“And did you buy clothes, as I asked you to?”
“Yes.” Sort of. I indicate the new shorts and T-shirt I’m wearing.
He glowers. “We agreed you’d buy dresses.”
“Yes, but—” Did we? I missed that.
“I’m very displeased, Caterina.” His voice goes deeper and hard.
That’s an electric shock. Brody doesn’t like my outfit? I don’t know whether I’m indigent, or it’s hot in here. Is it weird I’m glad I’ve got a reaction from him?
“I didn’t realise there were conditions,” I reply, treading right into “brat” behaviour. He paid for the clothes, so I guess he has a right to some say in what they are.
“How many things did you buy?”
“Only a few!”
“Show me,” he snaps, and if anything, my response makes him appear even more cross than before.
I stand and for a split second he’s so close, I can breathe in the scent of him. All the memories from last night rush back, and I long to be kissing him again. Then he steps away and tails me to my bedroom where I put the packages. It’s a small pile, but I still glance nervously at him.
“You haven’t opened them?”
I squirm, a bit awkward. “Not all.”
He stares, taking in every part of me silently until I itch with embarrassment. I’m so clearly not up to scratch.
“Sorr—”
“Nyet.” He sighs heavily. “This is my fault. I should have been clearer.”
He scoops up the few packages with his big hands and I’m frankly confused as I follow him back into the lounge, where shrugs out of his suit jacket and settles onto the couch I was sitting on. I watch as he roughly tugs off his tie and undoes the top button of his shirt. Then with slow deliberation, he flicks open his cuffs and rolls them up, revealing tanned, muscled forearms covered with dark hair, and strong, square wrists. When he finally drapes his arms over the back of the sofa, I’m practically panting. He exudes casual power and masculine elegance, I’m speechless. I’ve never seen so much of him, and every part is delicious.
He crooks his finger. “Come here.”