Chapter 23
Elise
I jolt awake. Something feels off in my room, but I can’t pinpoint what it could be. I don’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. That is, until I rub my eyes and see someone rise from the chair in the corner of the room. I scream, only to be instantly shushed by Joey.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I whisper angrily. “You scared the shit out of me. That’s the creepiest thing anyone has ever done to me. And I live in Enzo’s house.” My heart feels like it’s trying to take a running start before it leaps out of my chest. What kind of maniac hides in someone’s room while they’re sleeping?
He helps himself to a seat on the side of my bed and goes to put his hand on my leg but pulls it back at the last second. It’s as if he isn’t sure I’m okay with him touching me. The fact that it would even occur to him to care is almost touching, but I’m still recovering from my near-death experience moments ago.
“Sorry,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay after, well, you know.”
“After Enzo shot that guy for looking at me funny?”
My eyes have adjusted, and he’s sitting close enough to me that I can see his face when he grimaces. “Uh, yeah. That.”
I think back to earlier in the evening, after Enzo joined us in my room. How he made the other three wait while he ran me a bath and helped me get in. I don’t know if he was putting on a show for his friends—who still don’t know who I really am—or if he genuinely thought I needed some self-care to recover from the trauma of seeing a man die. Either way, it was unusually and unexpectedly sweet.
Once I was situated in the bath, the four of them sat in my room and discussed their strategy regarding the new information about the Irish princess. I couldn’t participate without arousing suspicion, but they were close enough to my bathroom for me to hear what they were saying.
Enzo’s kindness had caught me completely off guard. If you’d asked me how he would handle me being present during an incident like that, I would have guessed that he’d tell me to get over it and then probably sneak into my room later to burn off the excess energy that the adrenaline left him with. Never in my wildest dreams would I have predicted a bath and a strategy meeting.
“I’m fine,” I tell Joey. And I’m not lying; that wasn’t my first time seeing a dead body, and I’m sure it won’t be my last. It’s a hazard of the job, but I can’t tell him that.
He looks like he’s hesitating, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should. His lack of confidence is unusual and endearing, so I decide to help him out.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Did you know that none of us have fucked another girl since being with you?” He eyes me cautiously, like he’s not sure how I’m going to take that news. But he doesn’t stop there. “Also, we’ve never seen Enzo act the way he did tonight. He’s not usually so… attentive.”
“It surprised me,” I admit. “But about the other thing… Why?”
He shrugs. “Fuck if I know. I mean, it was a good audition, but we’ve had a lot of good auditions that haven’t pushed us to celibacy. Well, Sal and Frankie aren’t celibate. But they usually add girls to the mix, and they’ve only been with each other since your audition.”
“You know you don’t have to be celibate, right?”
“Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s not really a choice at this point. But there’s more. Enzo hasn’t ever—not one single time—let a woman stay in this house. Or cared if anyone sampled his sloppy seconds. Not that there’s anything sloppy about you,” he rushes to clarify.
I laugh. “Relax, you’re not going to offend me.” More seriously, I say, “I don’t really understand what any of that means.”
“None of us do,” he says with a shrug. “I just felt like it was stuff you should probably know. Since it seems like you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
We both fall silent, lost in our own thoughts. I stare out the window, admiring the way the moonlight illuminates the leaves of the trees, giving them an almost ethereal, silvery glow.
“Has Enzo explained his new rules to you?” Joey’s question brings me back to the moment, and I debate how much I want to tell him.
“He mentioned something about it but said you guys would know the details.” Not a lie.
He nods. “Basically, we’re allowed to share you as long as we don’t actually fuck you. In either hole.”
“Either?”
“We can use your mouth. Not your pussy or your ass.”
“So I don’t need to worry about one or both of us getting in trouble for you being in here?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
So I was right. None of us are confident that the new rules will last.
He hesitates again.
“What’s the matter? You already called me sloppy,” I remind him. “Afraid to accidentally say something worse?”
Joey laughs. “I was just trying to figure out a nice way to ask how you feel about the new rules. About being shared.”
“About being treated like an object? Like a possession that Enzo can choose to share with his friends when he wants to?”
I can see his cheeks turn pink in the moonlight. “Uh… yeah. Pretty much.”
I shrug and consider lying and pretending to be offended. “Honestly? It’s kind of exciting,” I admit. “I enjoyed my audition more than I thought I would, and I wouldn’t mind a repeat.”
The heat in his eyes amplifies with my words, and I think I’m finally going to get to test these new boundaries. He grins at me, and everything about his demeanor is pure sex. I lean back into my pillows when he stands up. But then he walks over to the door and opens it.
“Where are you going?” I sit up, completely confused. I thought we were on the same page for a minute there.
“I’m getting back to work. Enzo asked me to keep an eye on things around here—on you—while he went to tend to something at the club.”
“He thinks I need a babysitter?” Maybe he really has forgotten about my job.
“He just doesn’t want anything to happen to you. He might be overreacting, but better safe than sorry, right?”
“Are you just sitting out in the hall while I sleep?”
“Pretty much. Easiest job I’ve ever had.” He turns and leaves, suddenly very eager to do his job.
“You could sit in here and give me orgasms instead,” I mutter to the empty room, lying back and pouting with my arms crossed over my chest. I fume silently for a few more minutes until I finally tell myself that it’s not Joey’s fault; Enzo is being sweet in an overprotective way. That thought calms me enough that I’m able to drift back off to sleep. Hopefully dreams of Joey sneaking back into my room for some fun are waiting for me in my subconscious mind.