Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
NAOMI
Ibolt up like there was a punch to my solar plexus, my hand sliding under my pillow, but there is nothing there.
“I put it on the nightstand, but I’ll remember to put it under your pillow next time.” I stare at Paxton and then quickly shift my attention to the other side of the bed, where he is not.
“You got out of bed.” It comes out like an accusation, but maybe it is.
“I wanted to have food ready for you when you woke up.” This may be a good enough reason for me to forgive him. He leans up against the doorframe, watching me. At one point he must have changed as well because he’s now in sweatpants and a plain white shirt.
“You got up,” I repeat more to myself, shaking my head. “This is bad.” I throw my legs over the side of the bed and quickly realize that I’m naked. I can see traces of Paxton on the inside of my thighs.
It thrusts forward all the sensations and feelings I experienced last night in a wave of heat, making my whole body warm.
“Talk to me.” Paxton appears relaxed without a care in the world.
“We can’t do this.” I stand, seeing Paxton’s shirt from last night on the floor. I grab it and put it on. My fingers fumble with the buttons.
“Let me.” Then he’s right there, buttoning them for me as my mind keeps racing. “Look at me.” Paxton doesn’t give me much of a choice as his hand cups my face and gently tilts my head backward.
Yes, that’s part of the problem right there. Paxton did it without me having a choice. Not because I couldn’t get away from him, but to do so I’d have to hurt him, and I don’t want to do such a thing.
“Tell me what that mind of yours is thinking.”
“I’m a light sleeper,” I tell him. How the fuck did he get out of that bed without me waking up? I’m broken. This is all his fault. He broke me, and I don’t know how to feel about it.
“Maybe I wore you out.” That can’t be. I could run a marathon and still sleep lightly enough to wake at any sound or movement. But I cannot deny this happened, so he could be right. Paxton kisses the tip of my nose.
“Don’t do that,” I snip at him, feeling guilty as I do, but he only smiles at me. The heat of my words doesn’t have him stepping away like it does everyone else. In fact, he doesn’t move at all, his hands still cupping my cheeks. “My brothers and I play a game,” I tell him, making his brows rise.
“Not where I thought this conversation was going.” He lets out a low, annoying chuckle that might also be hot as hell.
“Or maybe not a game but a challenge. Who could get a sticker onto my nose without waking me.” They loved the hell out of that game, but it was more than a game, and they knew that too when I started playing it back with them.
It is something you must train your body to be able to do.
To protect itself at all times no matter what.
“You Marinos really don’t fuck around.” He drops his hands from my face. “I sleep light too, Sunshine. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“That’s not the point!”
“Well, I think it is.” He shrugs, stepping back.
“Don’t shrug at me.” A silent laugh leaves him. I narrow my eyes on myself.
“Maybe your subconscious trusts me.” That gives me pause. Could that be it?
“We barely know each other,” I point out, not ready to give in to his idea yet.
“All right then, what about your possessiveness? Wouldn’t that be too fast too?”
“It’s different.”
“Is it?” he challenges. “You think it’s different because you can sense that one.”
“I don’t know.” I rub my eyes. “I should walk away from you, but I’m not sure that I can.” The thought of leaving him has me clenching my fists.
A chime followed by a loud knocking interrupts my thoughts. It’s my cousins, I’m sure. I turn to head toward the door, but Paxton wraps an arm around me, pulling my back to his chest.
“Pants, babe.”
“It’s just—”
“For me.” On things to give on, this is an easy one, so I comply. It doesn’t help that when he calls me those little names, all my insides melt. It leads to an urge to be closer to him.
“Okay.”
“Thank you.” He pushes my curls off my shoulder and kisses my neck before dropping his hold around my waist. When I get back, he’s already opened the door to Eros, Mac, and Bonte.
“Be right back.” Paxton drops a kiss onto the top of my head; my attention is on the phone in his hand. He goes to move past me toward the bedroom, and my hand reaches out, grabbing his arm.
“Who’s on the phone?” His brows rise, and I can see that he is struggling to suppress a smile. “Never mind.” I drop my hold on him. I can find out for myself.
“It’s business. An issue has come up that I need to be updated on in Charleston.”
“Okay,” I simply mutter and keep walking.
“I won’t be long, Sunshine. I know you’ll miss me.” I glance over my shoulder at him, and he winks at me, taking me back to the third time I’d seen him.
“So you’re doing it?” Eros asks before stealing a piece of sausage off the dining table, where a full spread of food has now been laid out.
“What do you advise?” I ask my cousin, valuing his opinion. Most of my life I knew I’d grow up to work beside Mac and him. Though Mac has a lot of her own open projects. For all we know, she could have a whole other life, and it would not shock me.
“I’d advise you to do what makes you happy.”
“Success makes me happy.” Keeping control of all the East Coast docks is what my target is right now.
“I get that.” Eros drops down onto the sofa, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Mac nods in agreement.
“Holy hell.” Bonte rolls her eyes. “Success isn’t happiness. Have you ever heard the saying ‘Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.’”
“No.” That does not sound familiar, and I’m not prone to forget things.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Eros asks what I was also wondering.
“I don’t care for riddles.”
“It’s not a riddle.” Bonte laughs. “Success is a series of things you’ll always be working toward.
Chasing ‘happiness.’” She does air quotes around the word.
“Happiness has to come from within. It is a state of being.” I stare at her.
“Like me, you should be appreciative and happy to simply have me in your life.”
“I for sure get that.” Eros is quick to agree with her, but he’s full of shit. He doesn’t get it, but he knows happiness is Bonte, and in all fairness, he did kidnap her, so he was successful in his mission to have her.
“I’m not sure he does, but let me simplify it.
” Bonte turns her attention to Eros; her eyes always soften on him.
I think she is the only person in history that has looked upon Eros with softness of any kind.
“If you marry for love, real love, then no matter what happens in life, you always have happiness, as long as you have that person.”
That I understand more. It sounds odd, relaxing, and content even.
“We are to marry, but we’re not in love,” I remind them.
“What do you feel for him?” Bonte asks.
“Possession,” Eros says before I can. “Obsession.” He gives me a cocky smirk, knowing what he’s talking about.
“I will knock that off your face.”
“You can try,” he challenges.
“This is a nice hotel,” Mac butts in. “You’re not wrestling, so get it out of your minds.”
“We don’t wrestle; we spar,” I clarify.
“I spar.” Eros points at himself. “You’re a fucking honey badger.”
“I bit you one time.” I will never hear the end of this. “But I got out of your hold.” You do what you must. Paxton understands that.
“So who’s going to bring up Paxton and Naomi necking in the hallway first?” Mac asks, wiggling her brows.
“I was going to ease into it,” Bonte hisses.
“Naomi doesn’t need to be eased into anything.”
“It was—” I cut myself off before I can say anything because that’s not right. It was everything.
“It was,” Mac prompts, trying to get me to continue.
“I don’t know if I want to share these things.” I never understood when people would get so bashful about sex. It’s natural and human nature. “Besides, he could be using me, for all I know—”
Bonte and Mac start coughing to alert me that Paxton has returned, but I already knew that. Not because I heard or saw it. No, my body goes on alert when he’s near, but not in the way I’m used to.
“What do you know, Sunshine?”
“What your endgame is.” I have no problem telling him these things.
“I already told you, but I have no issue proving it.”
“I mean, does it really matter?” Eros asks.“He steps out of line and we kill him.”
I jerk back around to face my cousin. “He’s mine.” Eros holds his hands up. I fight down a range of emotions that flood through me, a war raging inside of me, starting to feel unconquerable. I fist my hands at my side, the air in the room turning thick.
“Okay, everyone take a breath. Only Naomi can kill Paxton.” Mac steps forward, right into the path between Eros and me.
“No one is going to kill me.” Paxton comes to me, hooking his arm around my waist. “You need to eat.” He tugs me toward the table.
His touch quickly calms me. I glance at him, and as always, he’s got one of those easy smiles.
The emotions and actions Paxton invokes in me should worry me, but I see there is a strength in it.
He was right when he spoke about how powerful my mother is.
“I will not take kindly to threats,” I tell them as Paxton sits and then tugs me right into his lap.
“A threat to Paxton is a threat to you, then?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Well.” Bonte snorts a laugh, kind of. Mac only glances between Eros and me, the three of us knowing this is far more important and serious than Bonte knows. Eros gives a small dip of his chin in acknowledgment, and I hear Mac release a breath.
“I can’t sit in your lap,” I tell Paxton.
“Why?” He pulls a plate toward me, taking the lid off, revealing French toast. “It’s only us.” His hands slide around my stomach, and he tugs me back a little. “Besides, a queen should sit upon her throne.” I turn to look at him over my shoulder, a small smile pulling at my lips.
“When I sit on Eros’s face, I call it my throne.”
“Ahh!” Mac bursts into laughter. Paxton slightly laughs, shaking me, while Eros merrily shrugs.
“Broke the tension,” Bonte says smugly, dropping down on the couch next to Eros.
“Eat; we need to leave soon,” Paxton encourages.
“What’s happening?”
“One of my warehouses in Charleston was hit last night.”
“What?” I try to stand, but he doesn’t let me. “Those warehouses are under our protection. Who would dare?” I turn slightly to face Paxton. Paxton is so calm.
“Once we’re married, that will be true. Right now, I’m fair game.”
That doesn’t sit well with me, not one bit.