Chapter 3 MINKA
MINKA
He’s hurting.
Of that, I’m certain.
He’s anxious. I feel it.
But he’s not ready to speak of it, so he pulls out once we’re done and drags my dress down, patting the excess fabric around my ankles. Taking my hands, he draws me up and carefully tugs the bust of my dress higher.
His heart pounds visibly against his neck, a thunderous pulse that beats against stubbled skin.
“You wanna discuss what that was all about?”
He drops his hands and turns away. So I latch onto his wrist and bring him back around, then I bend my neck and lean lower, closer, to secure his avoidant gaze. “Archer?”
“I’m not allowed to fuck my wife just because?”
“Sure you are.” I drag him in until his hips touch the edge of the countertop and his hands go to my thighs.
Then I cup his face and search his troubled eyes.
“But that was something else entirely. I’ve been with you through a few seasons now.
Happy. Sad. Stressed.” I slide my thumb over his bottom lip.
“Angry. Worried. This was one of the latter.”
“It’s this place.” He sighs. “These people.”
“Your family?”
His nostrils flare, hardly noticeable if not for the fact I’m staring straight at him.
“Archer?”
“The people who have followed my family. Cordoza. Barbaro. Agosti. I saw another one out there—Bianchini—he’s a bastard.
” He turns his face and nuzzles into my palm.
“It’s PTSD, I think. I’m seeing faces I haven’t seen in a long time, and remembering names I haven’t had to remember in almost two decades. ”
“Are they doing something wrong by being here? Are they screwing around, and I didn’t see it?”
He exhales heavily, warm breath traveling all the way along my wrist and down to where I so often insert a needle for infusion. “All on their best behavior, as far as I see. I doubt Cordoza is allowing them long leashes.”
“Okay, so…” I scratch the hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re concerned about what they represent, and not necessarily what they’re doing today.”
“Like I said.” He snags my wrist, trapping me with a fast tug that makes my heart skip a beat, then he kisses the delicate skin covering my pulse.
“PTSD. You were all the way on the other side of the room, but for a bit there, I couldn’t see you at all.
Having you and them in the same space, and not being able to see you, fucked with me. ”
“Well… How about I promise to stay where you can touch me, or see me, or at the very worst, I’ll be with someone you trust?”
“A guard?” His expression lightens. It glows. Right in front of me, his eyes brighten and grow wider. “You’d accept a security team?”
“I’d accept a security check-in. For tonight only. But I’d demand your trust, too.”
He scoffs. “It’s not your actions I’m worried about.”
“Trust that I’m no one’s victim. That I’ll destroy anyone who dares to touch without my permission. Trust that I can take care of myself.”
He drops his gaze again.
“I’m not Jill.” I tilt my head to the side and watch… wait… for him to peek up at me. “I’m not sixteen years old, Archer. I’m not a kid naively swimming with sharks.”
“Sharks.” He huffs. “Basically.”
“I’m okay.” I cup his tense jaw and lay a soft kiss on the very corner of his lips. “I’m always going to be okay. And though I’m not opposed to banging at your brother’s wedding—”
He snorts.
“I’d rather bang you because we’re horny, and not because you think I’m going to die soon.”
He rolls his eyes and nibbles along my wrist. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Inching forward on the cold steel countertop, I push him back and drop to my feet, an aching tingle pulsing up through my ankles and into my calves as blood flow reestablishes.
I bend and collect my panties, stepping into the lace with quick movements now that reality has come back to the forefront of my mind and the thumping bass of a live band reverberates in my veins.
“We’re in a professional kitchen.” I drag my underwear up and cast a wary glance at the door.
“This is so unsanitary, Archer! What if someone walks in on us?”
“No one would.” He tucks himself back into his shorts, fixing the zipper of his pants and tidying his crisp white shirt. “I have men on the doors.”
“So, there are people out there who know what we were doing?”
“There are men out there who know to mind their own fuckin’ business.
” He straightens his tie and suit jacket, returning to his handsome, tailored self with just a few tweaks and changes to his outfit.
Then he looks me up and down, his expression turning goofy.
Finally. “You look all mussed up, Mrs. Malone. Enjoy yourself?”
“Shut up.” His cum dribbles along my thigh, that icky wet slide that sends my senses into overload every damn time. “You need to start carrying condoms around. I’m tired of your jizz being my problem.”
Chuckling, he closes the space between us and grips my face in one hand. Taking control of my movements, he tilts my head back and searches my eyes. “Turns me on every time I leave a little deposit.”
“Savage.”
His lips twitch with amusement. “Biology, probably. Wearing a condom wouldn’t feel nearly as satisfying. We didn’t mess up your makeup.” He uses his thumb to trace a neat line below my bottom lip. “Credit to the artist.”
“The artist was a pain in my ass. Like you are.” I slip out of his hold and tuck my boobs away properly, sitting on their shelf in a dress made for the man’s adoring observation.
“They don’t make dresses like this for women’s comfort, ya know?
No self-loving woman wants to wear a corset that crushes her lungs or squeezes her stomach.
No one actually likes setting their tits on a platter, purely for dudes to stare and pretend they’re not. ”
“Who’s staring?” He settles back on his heels and digs his hands into his pockets. “Tell me now, while I’m New York Malone. Once Copeland Malone returns, I have to become respectable again.”
“Oh yeah? You’re New York Malone right now?” Assigning men to secure the doors. Demanding hotel employees leave their kitchen with a single, simple get out. No shit, he’s New York Malone. “What should I ask of my New York husband while he’s here?”
His eyes twinkle with deviousness. “What would you like? Are you partial to diamonds?”
I raise my left hand and study the stunning ring he gifted me a little over a year ago. On a superyacht. In the Caribbean Ocean. Jesus. “I have diamonds.”
“Land, then?”
Like the nine-bedroom McMansion we’re technically moving into when we leave here tonight? “Seems my real estate portfolio is already quite plump.”
“Which leaves us with… Power?” He studies me with a playful hunger in his eyes. “I’d say you’re the third most powerful person in this building tonight, Doctor Mayet.”
“Third?”
“Cordoza. Felix. You.”
“I find it interesting you so casually bypass the mayor. Tim. Aubree. Even you.”
He hums in the back of his throat and meanders one step closer. Two steps. “The mayor wields authority… administratively, and only to this city. He’s got nothing on Cordoza, though. Nothing on you.”
“Shouldn’t Sophia land somewhere near the top, too, then?”
Another step. A fourth. “Cordoza. Felix. You.” He leans in and drops a kiss on my cheek.
“Tim could command a room if he demanded his seat at the table. If he did, then Aubree would become her own authority, too. But he’s happy where he is, and you, my dear Minnnnka, exude power the way a tigress prowls her kingdom.
Formidable. Beautiful. Indisputable. I don’t need to claim my New York status for Cordoza to appreciate you for what you are. It’s terrifying, really.”
“Me?” I finish with my gown and place my hands on his hips. “You think I’m terrifying?”
“No. I think your natural-born ability to command an army you never built is terrifying. Because I’m not the only man who sees you.
Where there is power to behold, there will always be someone who wants it.
Some will be satisfied to own what you own.
Others will want to own you.” His eyes flash with anxiety again.
“Having you inside this building, with these people, terrifies me. Because half of me is scared they'll see you as a target. The other half is scared they’ll see you as a prize. I lose you either way.”
“Hmm…” I take his hand in mine, elongating his fingers and splaying them wide, then I press a kiss to each and every one.
A gentle touch of my lips. A sneaky tap of my tongue.
“So if I have no need for diamonds or real estate, and I’m already a tigress, commanding an army…
What is it, Mr. Malone, that your New York ancestry can offer me? ”
He sets the tip of his pointer finger under my chin and draws me to my toes. “I can offer you me.”
“My prize.” I press my lips to his and sigh when our tongues dance. “I already nabbed the best thing New York had to offer. The East Coast is worse for having lost you.”
“Sucks to be them.” He nips at the corner of my lips. My chin. The dimple digging into my cheek. And though his heart pounds against my chest, the worry he carried in here seems to weigh just a little less now. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.” I spy a smudge of red lipstick on his jaw, so I swipe it away with a quick glide of my thumb. “And I’m safe, in case you needed to hear me say it.”
“I did.” He rests his forehead against mine, exhaling a hefty dose of concern.
“Gonna need every-ten-minute check-ins till those fuckers are back on a plane and flying somewhere over the mountains, far away from here.” He pauses for a beat, searching my eyes.
“Maybe you’d agree to wearing a camera? And heart rate monitors.
And having guards everywhere you go. That way, I’ll never have to worry you’re not okay. ”