6. Cami #3
“Two reasons why you will.” He set his phone aside and sat up, the muscles in his stomach flexing with the movement.
I did not look. I absolutely did not look.
“First, the performance. My men need to see you here, in my rooms, to sell that you belong to me. If you sleep in a guest room, people will talk. They’ll wonder.
They’ll question whether you’re really under my protection or just some stray I picked up. ”
“And the second reason?”
“This suite is the one room in this house that no man enters without my word.” His voice dropped lower.
Softer. Almost gentle, which was somehow more unnerving than if he’d shouted.
“Behind that door, you’re safe in a way you’re nowhere else.
I slept elsewhere last night when you arrived because you needed rest. I can’t do that every night.
It raises questions I don’t want to answer. ”
“So I’m supposed to just... share a bed with you?”
“The bed is large enough for four people. You’ll barely know I’m here.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried to find words that would explain why this was insane, why I couldn’t just climb into bed with a man I’d met less than twenty-four hours ago, why every alarm in my head was screaming that this was a terrible idea.
Nothing came out.
Salvatore watched me struggle for a moment. Then he stood, and I got a full view of what I’d been trying not to look at.
Planes of muscle. Golden skin. Scars scattered across his torso, a map of old violence. A trail of dark hair leading down from his navel and disappearing beneath the waistband of those low-slung sweatpants.
I looked away. Heat crept up my neck and into my cheeks.
“I’ll take the floor,” I managed.
“No.”
“I don’t mind. I’ve slept on worse.”
“You will not sleep on my floor.” His voice had gone hard. Final. He was used to being obeyed, and he plainly didn’t understand why this was a discussion at all. “You’re not a dog. You’re not a prisoner. You’re a guest in my home and you will sleep in a proper bed.”
“Then give me a different bed.”
“No.”
He walked past me, close enough that I caught his scent. Cedar and something spicier. Sandalwood, maybe. The heat of his body radiated toward me, furnace hot.
Then he disappeared into the bathroom and I heard the shower turn on.
I stood there, frozen and stupid, staring at the bed.
This was insane. This whole situation was insane. Twenty-four hours ago I was walking down the aisle toward the man I thought I was going to spend my life with. Now I was standing in a mafia boss’s bedroom, arguing about sleeping arrangements, while he showered ten feet away.
How was this my life?
The shower ran for ten minutes. I used the time to find something to sleep in, a t-shirt and shorts that had been left in one of the dresser drawers, clearly meant for me.
I changed quickly, hyperaware of the water running in the next room, of the intimacy of the situation, of how completely out of my depth I was.
The bathroom door opened.
Steam billowed out. Salvatore emerged, hair damp, water droplets still clinging to his shoulders. The sweatpants were back, riding even lower than before.
He didn’t look at me.
Just walked to the bed, pulled back the covers on the right side, and got in.
I stood there for another long moment. Weighing my options. Considering the floor anyway, just to prove a point.
But I was tired. So fucking tired. Tired in a way that went beyond physical exhaustion, down into my bones, into my soul. And the bed was huge, and he was all the way on the other side, and I didn’t have the energy to fight about this anymore.
I walked to the left side of the bed. As far from him as physically possible. And I got in.
The mattress was enormous. A canyon of space stretched between us. I could have fit three more people in the gap and still not touched him.
“Goodnight, Camellia.”
His voice was soft. Neutral. Like this was completely normal. Like we were an old married couple settling in for another night together instead of two strangers who’d met under the most insane circumstances imaginable.
“Goodnight.”
I closed my eyes. Tried to sleep. Tried not to think about the man lying six feet away from me, or the deal I’d made with him, or the complete and utter disaster my life had become.
Sleep came eventually. Fitful. Full of dreams I couldn’t quite remember. Fragments of white dresses and screaming and running down endless hallways that led nowhere.
Sometime deep in the night, I woke.
The room was dark. Silent except for the soft sound of breathing. Mine. His.
My head turned on the pillow.
He was asleep. Truly asleep, the hard lines of his face softened into something almost peaceful. The tension that lived in his jaw and shoulders during the day was gone, replaced by something younger. Something vulnerable.
His body was angled toward me. Like he’d shifted in the night, turned in his sleep, some unconscious part of him reaching out across that canyon of mattress.
His hand rested inches from mine. Palm open. Fingers relaxed. Like he’d been reaching for something in his dreams and stopped just short of finding it.
I stared at that hand for a long time. At the calluses on his palm. At the scars across his knuckles. At the way his fingers curved slightly, like they were waiting for something to hold.
My own hand lay flat on the sheet between us. Close. So close.
I could have moved away. Could have rolled over, put my back to him, retreated to my edge of the bed.
I didn’t.
My eyes drifted shut, and I went back to sleep.
And I didn’t move my hand away.