Chapter 17
Hollis
I can’t help but stare at her as she takes her seat across from me. I never would’ve expected a Mafia princess to be creative enough to pour cereal into a cup and eat it with a fork. I hate being surprised by her.
“This isn’t going to work,” I tell her with a mouth full of food, waiting for her to cringe at my lack of manners.
She scoops a forkful into her mouth, chewing as milk drips from her chin. I almost grin at her, but her ability to make me react in any way annoys the shit out of me.
“You’re going to have to earn your keep.”
She looks a little disappointed in me at the same time her eyes widen in fear. It’s as if she’s somehow not surprised but also saddened at the change of pace.
“You’ll have to cook,” I say, trying to put her mind at ease. I have no idea why her emotional state is even a consideration of mine.
Her frown deepens as she places the cup of cereal on the table. “I can’t cook. I never learned.”
I scoff. It doesn’t surprise me that she had servants all her life, but a hint of disappointment washes over me. I was really looking forward to eating something I didn’t have to make myself. It’s been a very long time since someone cooked for me.
“Figures, princess,” I spit as I stand and take my cereal bowl to the sink.
“It wasn’t like that,” she counters.
“You know how to do laundry but not cook?”
I turn to face her, wondering if she’s actually lying to me.
“Alessio didn’t hurt me in front of the staff. He had an image to keep.”
I consider her words, and they seem true, especially with what I’ve observed.
The way she held her head high in the club as if she had almost as much power as the man who rested his hand on her back.
But also the way she flinched instinctively in the truck like she fully expected me to hit her, a trained response.
“So, you had to clean the blood from your clothes?”
“Yes,” she answers before picking up her cup of cereal and taking another bite.
It wasn’t until I woke up starving that I realized neither of us ate at all yesterday. She never asked, and I was too lost in my own thoughts yesterday to eat.
“The families who had servants had them because those people were working off some sort of debt. They didn’t get paid. The people in my house were working off debts owed to my grandfather.”
“How long has your grandfather been dead?”
She narrows her eyes at me before answering and I thrive on that spark of fire in her eyes.
“Fifteen years.”
“So your mother was willing to give up the generations-long family feud, but she wasn’t willing to give up her servants?”
“I never said she was perfect,” she spits, angry enough to growl at me for speaking ill of her dead mother.
When I cock an eyebrow at her reaction, she seems to shrink in on herself a little.
I’m torn between liking the look of subservience and hating the way she shrivels up at the thought that maybe she displeased me enough for me to act like one of those Severino bastards.
Honestly, I’m more annoyed than anything that I’m having any sort of reaction to her at all.
“My point is,” she says, her voice a little lower than before. “I wasn’t allowed to tell them no when they offered to do something for me. Cooking was one of the things they did. I was barely allowed in the kitchen.”
“You’re Italian,” I say as if she wasn’t aware. “Aren’t all of you really great cooks?”
Her frown deepens. “Way to stereotype an entire nationality.”
I cough to cover the laughter that brings, just one more thing that agitates the shit out of me.
“You can earn it in the kitchen or you can earn it on your back,” I tell her, needing to get control of this conversation once again.
It would be easier if she just left.
Her face transforms, her irritation with my generalization of her culture turning first into a scowl before transitioning into real fear that I may force something like that on her.
This woman has faced so many monsters in her life, that I doubt I’d even be able to take things that far with her. But I learned long ago that I should never say never because fate has a way of stepping in, making the impossible come true.
I never thought I’d run into a Severino so long as I stayed out of Chicago, but look where that led me this week.
I’ve never crossed that line with a woman, never even been tempted to. Doing what was done to Ellie has always been abhorrent to me, and I have no idea why I’m questioning my ability to control myself now.
Am I imagining her eyes dropping to my mouth?
Is the way she shifts in her seat as if needing to squeeze her thighs together a figment of my imagination?
Am I creating things in my head that make me believe she desires my threats as much as she fears them?
Is the electrical current I feel when I’m close to her something she can feel as well?
I straighten from leaning against the sink when she stands.
Wickedness washes over me as I reach for her towel, watching with little guilt as her chin quivers.
“You’ll earn everything you’re given. Do the dishes, and maybe you’ll earn the towel back.”
She’s frozen in place, her body responding to either fear or the coolness in the air.
I watch, my eyes locked on her breasts as her nipples harden, forming two hard points the same color as her lips.
The soft thatch of hair between her legs is a couple of shades darker than the mop of hair on her head.
I wonder for an instant how she would react if I teased any part of her body with the tips of my fingers.
Would she claw at me and tell me to leave her alone?
Would she whimper and beg me to stop?
Would she remain silent and stoic like I imagine she did when one of the Severino assholes touched her?
I know exactly which one I will get when I meet her eyes once again and she lifts that stubborn little chin of hers a fraction higher.
I’ll get number three, and I hate that she’ll treat me exactly like she did them.
I step away from the sink, taking the towel with me.
She doesn’t hesitate to step up to the counter and turn on the water.
I don’t leave the room because I can’t pull my eyes from her heart-shaped ass as she reaches for the sponge on the back of the sink.
A slew of ideas come to mind as my eyes trail down the curve of her spine, my sight getting lost in the tangle of her messy hair. I imagine pulling it, wrapping it around my fist, as she lowers her mouth to my cock. I imagine it tickling my thighs as she sucks me off.
I have to take an additional step back, but it doesn’t stop the fantasies. The minimal distance doesn’t keep my body from trying to convince my head that she’s mine for the taking, that I can have anything I want whether she offers it or not.
I head to the bedroom, having no doubt that she’ll pull her clothes from the dryer and walk right out the front door.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing at the window, my eyes locked on a clump of dirt in the neighbor’s yard, when I sense her enter the room.
I glance over my shoulder, unsurprised that she’s now dressed.
I took the towel because I own it. I’ll have to think of other ways to get her naked.
My best bet is to run her off, make leaving her choice, despite being the one to make that option more appealing than what it means she’ll have to do if she stays.
I turn toward the window when she disappears into the bathroom, wondering how unethical it would be to be retroactive. She used the shower, ate cereal, and used the washer and dryer. Could I make her stay naked for an entire day to repay that debt she owes me?
She seems fine when speaking of her family allowing others to cater to them in return for paying off a debt. If it’s okay for them, it should be okay for me as well.
A sinister smile crosses my face as I imagine all the things I should be paid back for and wondering how far I can push her until she leaves.