Page 16 of Claimed By The Mafia Prince
“Do you want me to be?” Her voice cracks, and I shoot my head up, meeting her with her glassy eyes. “I know who you are, Xander. I’m not that stupid.”
She pulls away, undressing as she goes to her private bathroom. I shamefully watch her greedily as she shimmies out of her spandex. She steps out of it, bending so the globes of her breasts heave as she rises again.
Then she walks away without a word. The bathroom door closes gently behind her, and the whoosh of water from the shower soon fills the bedroom. I shake my head at her even as the ghost of a smile snaps across my face. I finish the job she started, ripping off my undershirt and pants.
I drop them to the floor and, step out of it, push my underwear off and open the door. She’s got her back to the door, her face turned away as though she has no expectation I’ll join her in the bathroom. I watch her briefly and then step into the glass with her.
I’m hit by a blast of heat so strong that I slap the water nub off. She giggles gently. “Don’t tell me a little warmth is too much for you?”
I raise a brow at her. Her hair looks beautiful, matted to her head by the water and her eyes are clearer now. “What warmth? That shit was hot enough to scald my skin. And yours.”
She turns it on, and warm water washes over us both this time. “If I can stand it, then you can. Stop being a big baby.”
I pull her into my arms and drag my lips against her throat. “If it means I’m your baby, then I don’t mind.”
“You are mine,” she whispers, running her hand through my hair.
My eyes roll over her skin to her breasts, and I cup them. They fit into my palm almost perfectly, her cleavage spilling between my fingers.
Oh lord. How the fuck can she scramble my brain this way? I've been in a bad mood since the murder, and she manages to have me all wrapped up in her with one look at those eyes. Manages to drag the words from my throat.
She turns away and picks up the shampoo bottle. She points at the floor. “Sit.”
I wince and then frown, but I find myself going down to my hunches and sitting on the floor. I lift my head to see her squirting the shampoo into her palm and lathering it up. She pushes her hands into my head and scrubs at my hair, the sharp scent of the shampoo filling the bathroom.
I wring my hands around her waist and hold on while she runs her hand over and over my scalp until my shoulders slowly unlock. My breathing evens out, and I relax into her.
The water pounds down on my back from the shower, and she rinses my hair. She pinches my chin between her fingers, and I look up at her as she leans down to kiss me gently.
“You can stand now.” I chuckle at her command. “Turn around.”
She waves away from me, and I turn and give her my back. Her hands slide over my back, soft and tender as she washes my skin, soaping and sponging.
Her voice is oddly calm when she starts the conversation from the bedroom as though it has never ended. “I could never be disgusted by you, Xander. I could never hate you.”
I release a knot of tension I didn’t realize was forming in my chest as I place my head against the tile and close my eyes, focusing on the feel of her hands working out the kinks in my shoulders. “I don’t think I could live with myself if you did.”
For a moment, all I hear is the sound of the scrub dancing against my skin and the beating of the water against the tile and our bodies. “Xander, do you want to talk about it?”
Yes, but she shouldn’t know how the mole’s face, with his eyes rolled back and a leaking red bullet hole, haunts me every time I close my eyes. “Not now, maybe one day.”
She places her hands on my arms, turning me around to look at her. “Okay.”
She pushes up on her tippy toes and presses a kiss to my lips. She scrubs at my front with the sponge, her eyes locked on the body part she’s cleaning with laser focus.
“I don’t want to do it again.” She pauses on my chest. “I don't know if I can continue to do this, Mel.”
“Xander, in our world?—”
“I know,” I pause. “But it’s important you know I don’t just want to kill, to kill.”
“Xander, you are not a madman.” She smiles, giggling softly. “I mean, you are, but you are not a bad man because of what you do for the survival of yourself and your loved ones.”
“Maybe you're just naïve…seeing the good in me.”
“Maybe.” She turns, ushering me deeper into the water to wash away the suds. “Or maybe I just know who you are, even if you try to hide it.”
“I will always protect you, you know?” This is the closest I will get to her. I can’t tell her how much I love her, but the way her softened emerald eyes lock on mine, I know she knows what I mean to say.