Tempted By The Mafia Boss

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mimi

My God…

I think I finally lost my damn mind.

How could a person get so lost in emotion?

I never knew until last night that it could happen to me.

I’m so wrapped up that I don’t want him to stop touching me for fear that reality will drag me back to face all that I fear.

I press against the hard wood of the table as he pulls out of me and grabs a wad of kitchen towel and starts cleaning me then himself too. He’s not looking at me though. Not like before.

I know it’s because he’s thinking the same, that we can’t keep this up.

He wants an answer.

An answer to the enhanced version of the question he asked me before.

Will I be his.

He adjusts his boxers, covering himself up, still not looking at me. While he goes to the bathroom to dispose of the tissue I shrug back into his shirt and move to the living room. I go to the window and crack it open slightly to get some air.

The cool breeze comes in but it’s not enough. The damn heat is too much. The heat from the weather and the heat from us.

The heat now from his fingers as he slips them around my waist. It burns through the soft cotton of his shirt.

He turns me to him and I gaze up into his handsome, handsome face.

The handsome, handsome face of the man I’ve gone to the edge of ecstasy with and I don’t want to go back to reality.

“We need to talk, Mimi. I won’t start this day without your answer. I’m damn serious,” he demands.

That’s the part that conflicts me. If I feel like this, then I should just give him a chance. It should be easy. The fucking restaurant shouldn’t come into the question.

“Is this the way you want me to be with you? Holding something I want over my head so I’ll be with you?” I ask and he doesn’t like it.

“That is irrelevant. The other way didn’t work. This is the way it’s gonna work. I own the restaurant. You get the whole damn fucking thing if you give me a chance,” he replies.

“Doesn’t it bother you that this will be like some contract I’m being forced into?” I throw back.

He surprises me by smiling. It’s not a smile of humor though. It’s more of a sneer.

“Babygirl, we’ve been fucking since last night. Nobody’s forcing you to do a goddamn thing. You hopped on my cock all by yourself. Might have given you a hand once or twice, could be three times, I lost count. There was no force.”

His crass words make my whole body burn. He’s right though.

I continue to stare at him and my silence seems to infuriate him.

“Salvatore, this doesn’t feel right,” I say. I don’t want this. It feels like I’m being forced to fly out of the nest of comfort sooner than I have strength for.

He sneers again. “So… it’s a no? After last night you’re still fucking telling me no?”

I shake my head at him. “No… it’s not a no. I just don’t like it… I wanted to be with you in my own time,” I confess.

“Oh yeah… like fuck Mimi. Let me give you a fucking rude awakening,” he growls and hits out at the wall. “If we don’t do this I’m done. I’m fucking done.”

A chill races through me. “What do you mean by… done?” I hold his gaze.

“It means I’m done with you, Babygirl. It means we end in every way. I won’t be one of these pansy ass shits who can tell a doll they want to keep fucked up crap like ‘I’d rather be a friend than not in your life’. I won’t do it, I won’t watch you with some other guy and accept that you didn’t want to be with me because you hold the sins of my brother over my fucking head.”

I blow out a ragged breath and a tear runs down my cheek. “I never meant to make it seem that way.”

“That is what it is Mimi. You’re scared I’ll break you like Gabe did. Worse…you said it would be worse because you’re fucking scared to feel what you already feel for me.”

He’s calling me out on truth but realistically, I’m scared to change the only thing that’s constant in my life. That’s him.

“Salvatore-”

“No Mimi,” he cuts me off and shakes his head like he did before. “I’m being serious as fuck here, so you better listen to me.”

I’m listening and hearing, receiving his words. “I am.”

“You’d better, because you need to hear this and pay attention. You’ve never been with me Babygirl. You’ve never been my doll. I won’t hurt you, I would never hurt you or put you through the shit Gabe did to you. But I won’t do this to myself either. I won’t be in this whatever it is we are and not have you the way I want. That means I can’t be your friend either. When you look at me you’ll know I want you. When you look at me, you’ll know I want you in every way that a man can want a woman so this stops here Mimi, right now. We decide. You do.” He pulls in a sharp breath and stares at me long and hard, then continues. “Option one, you give me that chance. I let you know when I think you’ve given me a fair chance, and hand over the ownership of the restaurant. If we work out we work out, if not then at least we’ll know. You still get the restaurant and like a normal couple you can leave at any time. Option two… we stop here. Right now. I’ll have a professional relationship with you as your boss at the club and that is all we will be. What’s your answer Babygirl?”

When I think of option two my soul shivers.

That option doesn’t exist to me. It can’t. It doesn’t.

We both know this isn’t about the restaurant. He knows and I damn well know too. That was just a well-played pawn move to get me in position in the game to give me the rude awakening.

The real threat is losing him. That is what it is, pure and simple.

The real risk is the loss of him in my life and all that he means to me.

The actual threat is this: be with him or be without him.

Those are my choices.

Be with him and give him the chance to be with me, or be without him.

I have a long way to go, to feel better about myself and all the shit from last year, but I won’t lose him. What I need to do is try to push past my worries and fear of heartbreak. I need to try.

“Option one,” I answer and a mingle of fire and desire comes into his dark eyes.

“Option one? Are you sure… Mimi?” he tilts his head to the side.

“Yes,” I breathe. “I choose option one… I choose you and everything that means.”

He lifts my head and moves closer like he’s coming back to my lips but doesn’t kiss me.

“Good… then your safe word is red.” He leers at me with that wild menacing smile, eyes darkening.

Red…

Safe word…

He’s making it sound dark and dangerous on purpose. My breath catches and I feel the intended arousal in his words.

We both work in a sex club. We’re standing right inside it now. I know what he means. I’m very well versed in it.

Me choosing him means being on some wild dark, very dark, sexual adventure. The kind I’d need a safe word for if I go over the edge and can’t make my way back.

The kind of wild that this place is built on.

The kind of wild we are.

“Say it.”

“Red…”

“Good girl.”

My cheeks are still burning from the fire in his words.

Red…

Safe word…

Salvatore Giordano…

I can’t think about anything that’s not him even when I’m not with him. I’m thinking about him still as I walk down the path between the tables. Tables in my restaurant.

Jesus.

It’s like walking in a dream and it doesn’t feel real to me.

None of it does because in the dream I first had I leased this beautiful place and I was going to open in a few months’ time.

In this dream I own the complex itself and I can turn the place into something spectacular.

Gina comes out of the kitchen with a massive smile on her face. She’s more mesmerized than I am. I appear to be in this weird mood but really I’m stunned. Salvatore bought the place for three million, just like that. His offer to me was just this morning and in the space of hours this happened, it happened oh so quickly because of who he is.

Speak the name Giordano and people act. They move quickly, no questions asked. They just know to do whatever they need to faster than humanly possible.

He’s still taking care of various legal matters but he got the keys for the place by lunchtime and handed it over to me.

“I can’t get over it Mimi,” Gina bubbles spinning around and smiling.

I smile back at her and take it all in. “Me neither Gina. This is so much more than I could imagine. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

She laughs. “Are you kidding, you know what to do with yourself. Girl, you better give that man whatever loving he wants. No way would my man do anything like this for me. Mario didn’t even buy me flowers.”

“Tony does though,” I point out. It’s a little distraction for me, just a little.

“I guess I should call Mario an ex then,” she chuckles. She’s smiling but I know deep down she’s hurt. Apparently she broke up with Mario, but I’m not so sure it’s the end.

I want the best for her. That means I don’t want her with Tony either. She can do better than the both of them.

“Whatever makes you happy.” I nod.

She takes my hands into hers and smiles. “Mimi this is a good thing. This is a very good thing. Please look more excited. We’re standing in your restaurant, and it’s your building. Your place.”

“I know… I just …feel bad, Gina. I feel bad that this was what he had to do. I feel bad that this was what he felt he had to do.”

“The point isn’t to focus on that Mimi. He wanted his chance with you. Think of that part and enjoy it. Jesus girl, look at the man you have. Sweep the shit under the rug and enjoy him. That’s all you have to do.” She nods and I smile.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Enjoy him?

I think I can do that.

I’m supposed to meet him later at the club.

I think I can slip into my old self and have fun with him.

Even if a part of me still hangs on to how vulnerable I feel to fear.