Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
PAXTON
We’re never leaving this suite. At least if it were up to me, we wouldn’t.
Naomi doesn’t stop me when I lift her off her feet.
I want to pin her down to the couch, but I don’t want to move too fast either.
I’m shit when getting a sense for what her reactions might be when it comes to us.
I now understand how people say you can be too close to see what is right in your face.
Instead, I drop down so that she’s straddling me, my hand tangling into the back of her hair to keep her mouth pressed to mine as our tongues stroke against the other’s. I sense myself slipping and drop my hands to her hips. Her own fingers tangle in my hair as she pushes her chest into me.
“Naomi.” I groan when the spitfire rocks her cunt against my cock that has formed a painful throb. It’s a sweet ache.
“You’re hard.”
“Since that fucking door opened.” I move my mouth down the column of her neck, breathing her in, wanting her to brand me inside and out. She tilts her head for me, her fingers still playing with my hair.
“You think I’m pretty?”
I pause, sensing the vulnerability in her question though it doesn’t show.
“Pretty is far too simple of a word for what you are.” I lean back, needing to see her face. “You’re gorgeous, Naomi.” Everything about her is breathtaking. I could simply watch her for hours on end. She’s different. Interesting.
“And you don’t say this to please me?”
“I say it because it’s true, but I’ll say it on repeat if it pleases you.” How did I miss this? That she’d believe that about herself? The only reason men wouldn’t approach her would be her last name or her demeanor. Neither ever kept me at bay. This woman is a prize, one I will win.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea. That you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. I fear I might have the Marino curse.”
“Curse?” Is this what she wanted to talk about?
“That’s what some call it.” She brings her fingers up, tracing my lips, fascination written across her features. “I could kill you.” Is she trying to convince herself of this because that was not a question?
“Would I get a dying wish?” That brings a small smirk to her lips.
“What would it be?” I’d wager she’d never ask anyone else that question.
“To have one night with you where you trusted me.” She tilts her head to the side. For her to stop getting so wrapped up in trying to solve everything around her, I slide my hand up to rest on the column of her neck, my thumb feeling her pulse.
“Why not ask for me to follow your commands for a night?” Naomi shifts, her cunt pressing down on my cock harder. This thought turns her on.
Oh, I’d be more than willing to command her in bed, but that’s not what she’s truly asking. It could be a place she fully lets go, but that circles back to trust.
“I don’t want to control you, Sunshine.”
“Why do you call me that?”
“You like it.” I know she does.
“I do. I don’t think I am sunshine, but I do rather like that you have a name just for me.” Her fingers grip my hair possessively.
“I don’t call anyone else a pet name, not that you are a pet.” I add the last part, wanting to make it very clear that is not what she is to me nor will be.
“You often know what I’m going to say before I say it.” I can’t tell how she feels about that, but I don’t believe she knows herself.
She’s put herself in a box of her own making. I’m not sure why, but I plan on opening it so she can see who she truly is. Little by little, I remind myself that I need to be patient.
“I can guess. It’s a skill set I’m rather good at. Not as much with you, but your pauses help.” Naomi thinks before she speaks, weighing her words and not caring that a silence hangs in the air. If anything, it only adds to the weight of each of her words.
“Sunshine.” Naomi’s not one to let you get off topic. Not when it’s one she desires the answers for. She wants to know why I picked that name for her.
“You think the word means bubbly, happy, and warm.”
“In the way that lovers use it.” Her hands travel down to play with one of the buttons on my shirt.
“The sun isn’t warm. It burns hot, incinerating what dares get in its path, lighting up everything around it. There is nowhere to hide, no secrets left. She’ll find you.” The sun can burn you alive, but you also need it to survive.
“I do not understand why you’d want that. You’re always right in my path.” I’m not trying to get burned, but I’ll take my licks to get closer to her.
“Or am I fueling the flames?” Her brows pull together. “Why would I do that?” I know that’s what she is wondering, trying to see if she can find the answer before she asks the question. “You’re a sight to behold.”
“There is more. Tell me,” she orders, getting better at reading me. “Give me the truth, and I’ll marry you.” It’s an offer I can’t refuse, but I’m not sure it’s a real one.
“How do I know you’ll follow through?”
“I am a man of my word.”
“You are not a man. I am, and I’m not a man of my word.”
She smirks. “So you say as you admit the truth.”
“I’ll lie if I have to. To get what I want. Even if I have to trick you.” I don’t want to do those things, but I will if my hand is forced.
“I understand this. I would do the same.”
“As you should.” People and their silly self-righteousness living by a code that isn’t theirs. It’s one they have adapted to. “There is no playing fair. If you’re not willing to play dirty—”
“Then you don’t want it bad enough,” she finishes for me. I know what it’s like to be at the mercy of a person you are not a match for. You do what you must to survive.
Naomi has lived that before, right in front of my eyes. Not that she knows that. We’ll get there, but I keep going, knowing I need to put more of my cards on the table. Let’s get shit out there so then she might relax and see what we could be together. No more cat and mouse games.
“I have always been fascinated by power and how people come to have it or believe that they do.” People that should not have had it to begin with. How did they get there? Why was it allowed and no one doing anything about it?
“And marrying me would make you more powerful. I will take over for my father.” Would I take more power? Who wouldn’t, especially when you have things to protect? But personally, I don’t need it. I’m more fascinated by it and how the whole world responds to it.
“And you believe your father is powerful.” That might be the issue right there. The belief in that.
“He is.”
“How powerful?” I challenge.
“The most feared in the city. Maybe the entire East Coast.” I give a slight shake of my head. “Explain, and it is not me.”
“No, it’s not you. Not yet.”
“Then who?” Naomi leans in closer; I have all of her attention.
“You know, Naomi. Who has the most power at their fingertips?” I take her hand, turning it over, and brush my fingers against the tips of hers before balling her hand into a fist. “Who would you kill for?” I lean in even closer, my hand still wrapped around her fist, easily engulfing it but never overpowering it.
There is no need to. “Who would you kill your father for?”
“My mother,” she says without hesitation. I watch as she pieces this all together.
“Having power doesn’t mean being the strongest, fastest, smartest, or richest. It’s about who those people covet above all else,” I tell her.
“Men throughout history have raged wars over women to their own demise. Why not choose the women who could be the war? I don’t have to burn down the world for you; I’d do it with you. ”
And I know she wants that. To be seen as equal.
“If Mac were here, she’d say that gives a whole new spin on power couple,” she jokes, but I can see she’s weighing my words.
“Bonte was right. The humor is in there,” I tease, wanting to lighten the mood. “Speaking of, since they’re here, should we marry now or—” Naomi is shaking her head no. “It wasn’t a deal?”
“It was. I should warn you, but it might be too late.” Yes, what she’s wanted to talk about.
“The curse. Is that what’s too late?”
“Possibly. I enjoy listening to you speak. I get easily sidetracked with you.”
“That’s good for my ego,” I tease her.
“I don’t think you have a problem with your ego.” A small smile forms.
“You think I’m cocky.”
“No, I believe you are confident, but that doesn’t mean you are cocky.”
“You can be confident if you think before you step. We have that in common.”
“Your flattery isn’t helping,” Naomi huffs out. “I’m growing possessive of you. My jealousy is not reasonable. Things could get out of hand. I don’t know how to handle it so well.”
“Like knocking out men to bring them into a hospital.”
“So you understand.”
“Do you?” I ask.
“No, but it’s safer if you know this. That way you act accordingly. Don’t linger around other women.”
I chuckle, which she does not find amusing. “I don’t share either,” I warn her right back. “You have nothing to worry about with me. You’ve had me from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
It might not have been purely sexual back then, but I’d been captivated from the start. In a way that only she could do to me. She’s the only woman who has ever piqued my interest.
“Because you think I’m beautiful.” Her head tilts slightly down, that vulnerability showing again.
“That and so much more.”
“Okay,” she agrees. “We should go. I don’t care to be late to things.” Naomi tries to wiggle off my lap, but I stand, picking her up with me and then putting her on her feet. “You make me feel girly and delicate when you do those things.”
“You are not a man.” Which is a very good thing every way you slice it.
“I am not,” she agrees. “Before we go, there is one more thing.”
“What can I do for you, Sunshine?”
“Don’t make me kill you.”
“If I do, then I had it coming.”
I can tell this pleases her because she slips her hand into mine, and I tangle our fingers together just like I plan to tangle every part of her up with me.
If anything, I should have warned her about me, but as I said, I play dirty.