But if there was anyone who could roll with the punches, it was Sadie.
“I need to shower,” she said, taking that first step up the stairs. “I always do when I get home from the gym,” she added. Her face twisted as she thought over the words, showing me they were true even though she didn’t want to offer them to me. The little brat wanted me to think she was in a hurry to wash me from her skin.
“Okay. Dinner will be here soon,” I reminded her. I’d ordered food when she retreated to the bathroom at the gym, anticipating her ravenous hunger. She’d pushed hard at the gym, needing the release after I called her out on her shit at the estate.
The weight of the gun at my back reminded me to put it somewhere safe until I decided what to do with it, and I stashed it in the safe hidden in my bedroom closet while I waited. The shower in the upstairs bathroom ran, the sound traveling down the stairs even though I knew she’d have closed and locked the door behind her to keep me out.
I wanted nothing more than to climb into the shower with her, to remind her that she could never remove me from her body. Even if she tried, I’d just cover her in my scent all over again. Only the knowledge that she needed to work through what had happened kept me away.
She’d rebuild her walls. Dismiss what happened between us as just sex. Eventually she’d be forced to admit that it was more than that. But that wouldn’t happen tonight. Dinner came before she emerged from upstairs, but she followed soon enough.
Even on her most spiteful of days, nobody could resist the kind of hunger she probably felt, and staying upstairs would mean hiding from me.
Sadie hid from no one.
She came down the stairs in sweatpants and a baggy shirt, hiding her body from me so obviously that I couldn’t resist the urge to chuckle. But I pressed forward without comment, letting her have her small rebellion. I’d won the first battle.
She didn’t yet realize I’d win the war, because I was playing for keeps.
“I ordered from the thai place down the street. I hope that’s okay,” I said.
“Sounds perfect,” she said, grabbing the plates and silverware from where I’d stacked them on the counter and bringing them to the kitchen island. She took her time, laying it all out just so. Her fixation on them seemed unnatural, and I thought for a moment it was her desperate attempt to ignore me. But the way she set the forks on the napkins, perfectly centered and perpendicular to the edge of the counter spoke of it being a well practiced activity for her.
Flawless ninety degree angles.
I turned away to grab glasses before she could notice me watching her, setting them down just to the left of the plates she’d laid out. Without even glancing up, she shifted them to the right. Chuckling, I moved mine back to the left. “I’m left-handed,” I admitted to her, watching as her teeth sank into her bottom lip briefly and her eyes darted down to the glass once more.
“Okay,” she whispered, pulling herself onto a stool as I moved the containers of food closer to her. She grabbed the thai basil fried rice, scooping a healthy portion onto her plate and digging in while I filled the glasses with water from the fridge.
“There’s pad thai too,” I said, opening up the second container. She thanked me, but ignored it as I sat and took portions of each for myself. It wasn’t until she finished her rice that she scooped pad thai onto her plate and ate that. “Do we need to talk about what happened?” I asked after I’d given her enough time to fill her empty stomach.
“Nope,” she said, taking a sip of water. “We had sex. Moving on.”
“It was more than just sex, Baby Girl. That’s why you’re being so weird right now. Because you know it as well as I do.” Every time she set her fork down, she placed it on her napkin so that it lined up perfectly. She blanched when she realized I noticed it, moving past it by plastering a fake smile on her face.
“Don’t be clingy. You were fun, Enzo. That’s all it can be.”
“Why's that?” I asked. Sadie guarded herself more fiercely than women I knew who’d suffered a serious heartbreak, but she gave nothing away as she finished eating and stood to rinse her plate and load it into the dishwasher.
“Because I don’t want anything else.”
“Even you don’t believe that, Little Liar,” I said, watching as she retreated for the steps to lock herself away for the night. She stilled for a moment, turning her head back to face me.
“Do yourself a favor and just stop. This won’t end well,” she whispered.
“Who says it has to end?”
“Because it always does,” she murmured, hurrying up the steps to get away from me. I let it slide, giving her the space she needed as I tried to quell the conflicting urges inside me. I wanted to stab the man who’d hurt her so horrendously, but I also felt grateful that he’d walked away from the woman I’d made mine.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
The roar of the bike thrummed beneath me as we swerved between traffic. For years, my bike had been my home on wheels. The place I went to when I needed to feel grounded against all the bullshit circling my world. When I needed to remind myself I was human, that it was okay to feel guilt over all the death in my life, that it served as a reminder that I wasn't a robot without emotions.
Not entirely anyway.
I wasn't Ryker, with no remorse for torture and death. I'd never paint the world red and go home to kiss my wife and kids without a shred of guilt. Even when blood and brain splatter served as my medium on a canvas of death, there were still moments in the aftermath where I wondered if I lived on borrowed time. If the day would come when I lost all traces of who I'd once been and became nothing but the killing machine that roared in my veins the same as my bike thrummed underneath me.
The thought of my bike without Sadie's warmth pressed against my spine as it was in that moment no longer held the same appeal it had before. Where it had once felt like freedom, I suspected all I would feel without her there was the need to have her against me.
She was my new home.
She was my freedom and my redemption. This spunky woman who looked at me as if I held the keys to the chains that trapped her in a cage of her own making. She'd fight it and wouldn't recognize what I already saw in her honey brown eyes when she looked at me, but the clutch of her fingers against my t-shirt as she held on for dear life was more than just a safety precaution. It was the grasp of a woman clinging to everything she wanted, and everything she convinced herself she could never have.
I knew the sentiment better than most. I understood the mentality and recognized it for what it was.
Even if I didn't know what damage plagued her and made her feel unworthy, I'd get to the bottom of it soon enough. There was no part of Sadie that I wouldn't uncover for myself. No piece of her soul that I wouldn't overturn in my quest to make her mine. Her doubts, her fears, her strengths and weaknesses: I'd swallow them whole and claim them as my own. When she was ready, I'd imprint her with my soul until I was a steady pulse inside her, unable to be separated from the woman she'd been before me.
Until death did we part.
Pulling into the parking lot of the gym that meant so much to the woman clinging to me, I tried not to let irrational jealousy consume me. What was it about Sadie that made me jealous of a fucking building?
It couldn't touch her. It couldn't make her scream her pleasure until the very air would remember the addicting sound. I would never forget it, until I took my dying breath. The gym had been the first place I tasted her. The first place I fucked her only the day before. It was the first place I marked her as mine in the most instinctive of ways.
But it was also the place where she raced to the bathroom and washed me from her skin as her own regret sank inside her and swallowed her whole. The fact that she'd been quiet when we went home the night before only deepened the need for me to do it all over again. To remind her that there was no turning back from what happened between us, no matter how much she might try to retreat into her shel
l or hide behind the sass that she showed to all the people who saw only what she wanted them to see.
I was not people to Sadie. I saw beneath the facade to the vulnerable woman lurking just below the surface, hiding in only the distant corners of herself like a puppy who had been kicked down by life...
Like a puppy.
Just like the one curled up on the bottom step of the stairs that led to Sadie's apartment. Weak. Skinny. The unmistakable coloring and shape of its head was that of a blue pit, even curled up into itself to try to stay warm from the cold.
The moment I eased the bike into a parking spot at the side of the building, Sadie vaulted off the back of the bike and dropped her helmet on the pavement. She jogged over to the dog as I switched off the ignition and hurried after her. "Sadie!" I called after her, snatching her hand and making her stop. "He could be dangerous. Cornered and hungry dogs do desperate things," I said.
"Does it look like I give a shit?" she snapped, stomping her booted foot down onto my own with all her might and tugging her hand free in the split second of distraction that followed.
"Sadie!" I yelled.
But Sadie was not to be deterred, striding forward with smooth but purposeful steps until she crouched down in front of the dog. The poor thing lifted its head to sniff the hand she held out, letting her pet his nose gently. "Hi, Baby. It’s okay," she whispered. "Where did you come from?"
With her so close, I moved as slowly as my urgency would allow. I couldn't risk startling the dog and having Sadie hurt. The thought of her bleeding, of her blood being on that canvas of death, threatened to send me careening into a spiral of rage. Shoving it down, reminding myself she was alive and well, with a dog licking her hand adoringly, I stepped up next to her.
The dog made no move to harm either of us, even with me towering over it in what might have been intimidating for most animals. "He doesn't have a collar," I said, though I couldn't be surprised. The dog looked like it hadn't eaten in days, with its ribs starting to hollow out, and what looked like a dry nose.
"Even if he did, I'd be damned if I brought the poor thing back to that owner," Sadie growled in warning. I recognized it instantly, the sound so similar to the way I felt whenever the thought or threat of losing Sadie came over me.
Three minutes had passed.
And she'd already laid claim to the fucking dog.
Shit.
If I'd been jealous of the gym, how would I feel about a dog that could take her attention away from me? Something that could cuddle up with her and steal the warmth that was mine. "Let's get her inside," I sighed, leaning down to pick up the dog but then stopping. The quiet warning growl didn't come as a surprise, given the state of the animal, but I didn't appreciate it in the slightest.
Sadie laughed, clearly not as bothered by the potential danger the dog might present to her as I was. "Yeah, he makes me want to growl too. Come on, Rebel. Let's go," Sadie called, patting her thigh with a hand as she walked around the corner and to the front door. The dog got to her feet slowly, following Sadie without hesitation. Like she'd follow her to the ends of the Earth and never question where she led.
I knew the feeling.
Dropping my head back to stare at the sky, I wondered once more just what I'd gotten myself into with Sadie Hicks.
I didn't have the slightest clue, aside from the fact that it would never be anything but interesting.
Then, like the damn dog, I followed Sadie inside the gym. Leaning against the wall, I watched her gather up towels and make a little bed behind the front desk. The dog settled in comfortably while Sadie moved around like a whirlwind, flying around the gym like a machine with single-minded focus. She grabbed water from one of the coolers and a bowl from the staff room, pouring it for the dog to drink.
"I left some grilled chicken in the fridge the day before yesterday because I was too anxious to eat. The container has a blue lid. Can you grab it?" Immediately I wanted to know what had made her anxious, but the pointed look on her face while she picked up her phone made me refrain from asking. There'd be other times to discuss the little hints of her problem with anxiety, the particular ways she did things in exact repetitions.
I did as she asked, finding the chicken and bringing it out. I opened the container, shredding the chicken breast by hand before placing it back in the container and putting it in front of the dog. “Wash your hands,” Sadie ordered, not missing a beat. Turning my attention to her, I found her on the phone, her voice quiet as she paced back and forth in front of the desk. As the dog dug in behind me and ate the chicken hastily, I leaned against the desk and cleaned my hands with a wet wipe off the counter while I studied her.
Five steps in each direction, and then she'd turn and go back the other way.
She did it five times, and then she'd pause. Her fingers tapped against her thigh five times, and she'd start all over again.
It struck me that it was the reason everything Sadie did seemed to have a particular rhythm. It was always to the count of five. I'd watched her brush her teeth methodically that morning, each side of her teeth getting five brushes before she moved to the next and then did it all over again. Most people would just brush the outside of their bottom teeth until they were finished with that spot, but Sadie had to do it five times.
That wasn't enough, so she went back and did it again.
She ended the call, shoving her phone into the pocket of her jacket and zipping it up. "Ivory's going to call Smaug's vet. She does dogs and other typical animals too, apparently, and she'll call me once the vet can make a house call to the Estate," Sadie explained.
Pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumbs, I sighed. "Why does Smaug have a vet?"
"Um he's alive? All animals need veterinary care, Lorenzo," she said teasingly but then flinched. Her tawny cheeks tinted with the blush of a rose, and she turned away to hide it. Seeing her come so undone, be so affected by me, I wanted to spend the rest of my life knowing I was the only man who got those genuine reactions from her. Before I'd made her say my name during sex, she'd thought nothing of trying to use my name as a weapon. Of taking the name no one else was allowed to say and tormenting me with it. Now she'd automatically remember how it felt to have me moving inside her. She'd associate my name with the feel of my cock striking against the deepest part of her and my skin smothering hers.
She'd remember her Lorenzo taking everything she had to give and making it his.
Sadie dropped to the floor next to the dog, as the dog finished eating. Shifting to rest her head on Sadie’s thigh, the dog—Rebel—stared up at her like she hung the moon in the starry night sky and led her home.
Sadie's fingers scratched behind Rebel's ears, studying the motion with a soft, unusually vulnerable smile on her face. "I always wanted a dog," she admitted quietly. My heart clenched watching the two of them together, of the instantaneous love and bond that formed between them.
I couldn't take that dog away from her, even if I was jealous of all the attention she gave it. Not with the way Sadie looked at her.
"So why didn't you get one?" I asked, sliding down the wall to sit opposite them and study Sadie's face. My boots brushed against hers, and, in a surprising turn, Sadie shifted to the side so she could rest her ankles on my shins. She didn't look at me as she did it, too absorbed in looking at the dog's admittedly sweet face.
"The apartment is too small. I'm never home enough. Among other things. I wasn't sure I'd be the right person for a dog, and I'd never be able to give one up once I took her home," she whispered. I didn't know much about Sadie's habits, aside from figuring out she counted to five with everything she did and that she liked ninety-degree angles.
But I suspected the cause went deeper than that, and wondered if the mess a dog tended to make would be problematic for her. "But now you have one."
Sadie turned a bright smile to me, her eyes bright even though moisture gathered in the bottom corners of them. "Yeah. Now I have Rebel," she said, massaging the dog'
s belly when she rolled to her back.
Rebel.
As if Sadie could name the dog anything else.
Time passed through the day, with Sadie's anxiety growing with every hour that went by without word from Ivory. Rebel slept the day away behind the desk, content in her makeshift bed and with the warmth that was probably so unfamiliar to her in the harsh February in Chicago. How she'd survived in the cold with her fur being as short as it was, I didn't know.
Even with Sadie busy with clients and paperwork and tours for new members, she was still preoccupied. She glanced at Rebel nervously any time she could, and I felt so bad for her being so seemingly conflicted that I took it upon myself to spend a few minutes at a time with the dog throughout the day. I grew on her, the growling never happening again, and eventually the little shit wormed her way under my skin, too.
I liked dogs.
I especially liked dogs when they weren't mine.
But this dog somehow felt like mine within a few hours. The bond might not have been as instant as it had been for Sadie, but she was mine. My woman. My dog. My girls.
What the fuck had happened to my life?
When Rebel finally fell back asleep, I stood and made my way back to Sadie. I ignored her guarded eyes on me while she watched one of her female clients strike a bag, observing the motion and the strength so she could offer notes for improvement. It had been too long since I’d had my hands on her, too long since I felt her heat against me. I wrapped my arms around her from behind, breathing in the scent of her hair. Like orange blossoms and vanilla, it flooded my nose and instantly put me at ease. Sadie shrugged out of my grip after leaning into me briefly, turning a glare my way.
"I'll be back in a second," she said to her client, taking my hand and storming over to the corner. Her body stiffened with fury, her rage palpable, but I couldn't be bothered to care. She'd have to get used to me touching her in public, because there was nowhere she could go that I wouldn't touch what was mine. "I'm working."
Shielded Wrongs: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 4) Page 9