by Bethany-Kris
“You’re diabetic?”
Gabbie’s head snapped up fast, and she found a sleepy, but still quite sexy, looking Michel standing in the entryway of her kitchen. He hadn’t bothered to toss any clothes on, instead making due with his boxer-briefs from the night before. It allowed her a glorious view of the railroad path of abs leading down his stomach, and the way the band of his underwear rested on the hard cut V of his groin. The dark dusting of hair that led from his navel to under his shorts made her think what it might be like to drag her fingernails across his lower stomach as she sucked his cock.
And wow.
That was enough of that.
She was wet again.
Grand.
“I am,” Gabbie said. “Type two.”
Michel’s brow dipped for a second, and he gave her a look. “Developed later, then?”
“Around sixteen, almost seventeen when they diagnosed me with type two. I was born insulin resistant, so I was used to having to manage my diet and whatnot, anyway. Something changed—”
“Hormones, life,” Michel interjected.
Gabbie laughed. “Yeah, something. And I had a sudden weight gain …” She trailed off, quite aware of the way Michel’s gaze traveled down her body and then slowly came back up to her face. The intensity of his stare was enough to make her shiver right there on the spot, but the idea that he might be disgusted at the thought of her a little heavier made her stomach twist painfully. “I know, hard to tell, right? Thirty pounds added onto this doesn’t exactly sit well.”
“Actually, I was thinking you probably looked good like that, too, and it was a shame I missed out.”
Heat bloomed in her stomach.
She was sure it colored her cheeks, too.
“Charmer,” she replied.
Michel winked. “I state truths.”
“Mmhmm.”
He crossed the kitchen, and picked up an apple slice on the table as he passed. It wasn’t until he was standing right in front of her, and popping that piece of fruit in his mouth that she looked up to meet his gaze again. He looked far too good chewing on that fruit and looking at her like he would rather it be a part of her that he had in his mouth.
Goddamn.
“I stayed for breakfast,” he murmured.
“It’s not done yet.”
“Is it going to be good?”
“I have to eat a lot, and it has to be healthy things, so I make sure everything that goes into my body is an experience. You’re the lucky lad that’s going to get to share that with me this morning.”
Michel grinned lazily, his thumb coming up to press against the seam of her lips. She heard his silent question to open up, so she did just that. He popped just the tip of his apple-flavored thumb in her mouth, and she sucked on the tip, letting her teeth drag along the pad of his skin before he pulled it out and dragged it down her chin.
“How long?” he asked.
Gabbie blinked. “For what?”
“The food.”
Heat curled in her belly.
Anticipation.
That look in his eye, she knew it.
It was the same one from last night.
“About five more minutes for the bit in the oven,” she whispered.
“Enough to see what I can do with my hand, then.”
“Oh, I really want to see that.”
Michel had her pushed up against the counter before she even blinked. His hand skimmed her inner thigh with a slow touch—feckin’ torturous, really.
“Open up a little more,” he demanded.
She did, widening her stance enough that his palm cupped her thigh close enough to the apex of her thighs that she could feel his warmth radiating. A tremor worked its way through her body as his fingertips danced along her skin, and he flashed his teeth in a wicked smile.
“What do you like, huh?” he asked. “I didn’t get to play very much last night.”
Her breath hitched when his knuckles grazed her bare sex—she hadn’t even bothered to toss on panties, simply an over-sized shirt because it would do the job. “What do you mean?”
“Do you like a couple of fingers toying with your clit? A thumb pressing hard circles? Do you need to have something inside you to get you off? What does it the fastest, Gabbie?”
She wet her lips. “A-a mixture.”
Michel nodded, and then cupped her sex with his palm. His fingers drifted over her clit, tapping a quick beat to the throbbing nub and he bent down lower to put them eye level. “How about you show me, then? Show me what you do, and we’ll see how fast you can come when it’s me doing it, too.”
How was she supposed to deny him when he was looking at her like that? All intense, and ravenous. It made her feel like she was the only person in the world that he could see. It was a lot to take in, and it only served to notch up her desire even more.
“Come on,” Michel said, “before the timer on that oven goes off, and I want to eat.”
“Your attention switches that fast?”
“Food and sex …” Michel grinned. “Equally good things.”
He wasn’t wrong.
One of her hands dipped between her thighs to sit overtop his. She used the pad of two of her fingers to press against one of his—slow circles at first, she moved his fingers with hers, showing him exactly the way she liked to get off when it was just her to do the job. That grin of Michel’s turned all the more sinful when Gabbie’s breaths came out faster, and her lips parted. The right pressure on her clit, and those circles could get her off faster than anything else.
“My turn,” Michel said darkly.
He snatched her hand away to pin it to the counter while the one on her pussy kept working that same, steady beat. He was fast learner, it seemed. It didn’t take long at all for Gabbie’s peak to climb higher, and she felt the orgasm rushing in just as the oven started to beep to signal the food was done.
Bliss raged on.
Michel didn’t let up for a second.
“The food,” she gasped, “… I have to get it out of the oven.”
Michel’s dark laughter filtered into her senses as his lips crashed down on hers. There was something primal in his kiss—so feckin’ hungry, and ready to eat her right up. Gabbie was almost willing to forgo the food on the off chance she could get him back to her bed as soon as possible but Michel was the smart one between them, clearly.
He pulled away from the kiss, and dropped a soft one to the tip of her nose. “You need to eat—we can play after.”
“Okay.”
His wink about undid her again.
They were halfway through the food on the table when a ring started to echo somewhere down the hallway. Michel’s head popped up from his plate, and his gaze narrowed. “Is that my phone?”
Gabbie shrugged. “It isn’t mine.”
“Give me a sec.”
“Sure.”
He disappeared from the kitchen, and into the hallway. She listened as his footsteps quieted when he neared the end of the hallway—her bedroom. He didn’t seem to care if she heard him pick up the call, though.
“Ciao, Michel here.”
Gabbie tore off a piece of whole wheat bread, and smeared a bit of hummus on the top before popping it into her mouth.
“Shit, I knew I recognized that last name,” Michel said, his voice coming closer to her now. Silence echoed his statement before he quickly added, “No, no. I’m not going to find myself in any more shit, thanks.” Footsteps followed Michel’s words, and then an annoyed, “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Wrong place—I was just answering your people who wanted to cop, Sal, so who’s problem is this really, anyway?”
And then just before he came back to the doorway, she heard him say, “So I stepped on someone’s toes, fine. I’ll make sure next time, I don’t do that. What do you want from me right now?” Another stretch of silence answered that question before Michel muttered, “All right, I’ll be there and we can figure it out.”
Gabbie swallowed her
bite of food as Michel came back to stand in the doorway. Only now, he had his clothes in one hand, and his phone in the other. She knew it then, without him needing to tell her, that he wasn’t going to be staying with her for much longer.
Shame, really.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
Michel let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, something’s wrong. Casey, huh?”
She arched a brow. “Casey, aye.”
“I’m not familiar with all the ins and outs of the families in Detroit that … control the cities and outer limits, you know?”
“You should learn then, Michel.”
“Apparently.” He scrubbed a hand down his jaw, glancing away as he asked, “You told me your father’s name last night … it just got mentioned again.”
Gabbie almost grinned. “Head of the family—the boss.”
Michel nodded. “My father, too, but in New York. Marcello.”
She blinked, stunned.
Everyone knew the Marcellos. Anyone who was familiar with the criminal world, anyway.
Michel’s gaze drifted back to her, but now, he just looked amused. “Wrong place, wrong time last night, that’s all. I have to go—someone’s in a fit, and I need to handle it before they handle me.”
Selling on someone else’s territory could do that. Gabbie didn’t say it out loud, though. She doubted Michel needed the reminder seeing as how he looked like he knew exactly the kind of shit he’d stepped in now.
“I’d like to see you again,” she said.
She wasn’t one to be forward.
Right now?
After last night?
And this morning?
Hell, yeah.
Michel smirked. “Would you?”
“Why not?”
“Not sure it’d be smart, is all.”
Gabbie made a face. “Who said anything about being smart? My phone is on the table—plug your number in, and text yourself from it so I have yours, too.”
She didn’t offer it like a suggestion. A demand. Michel chuckled as he did what she said. They’d figure out the details another time. That’s what later was all about, right?
• • •
Gabbie’s morning routine went on as normal once Michel was gone. She even managed to clean up the kitchen before she had to check her sugars again after eating. She was considering doing a quick warm-up exercise that would get her prepped for the gym, so she didn’t have to bother with one when she got there later in the day, but the ringing cell phone in her bag stopped her from rolling the yoga mat out.
She didn’t bother to check the caller ID before putting the phone to her ear after grabbing it. “Hello?”
“Gabbie, sweetness.”
Despite it being way too early to deal with any kind of grumblings from her father, she had to smile at his greeting. Usually, he left her mornings alone, and didn’t bother her until later in the day when he would then want to know every single detail about her day, and more. His hovering could get to be a bit much, but she was his only child, and she had simply resigned herself to this.
“Hey, Da.”
“How’s your morning going?”
“Fine.”
Not a lie.
It had been damn fine.
She didn’t think he wanted the details, though.
“How do you feel about breakfast with me and Brennan, then?”
“Well, I—”
“Oh, that wasn’t a request. We’re outside. I will see you in five minutes. I’m sure you’re up and about by now.”
Her father wasn’t joking.
He hung up the phone before she could explain that she had already eaten, and wasn’t in the mood to entertain him and his best friend for the entire morning. She had better things to do, for one, and she still needed a damn shower.
She also knew Charles.
If she wasn’t outside in five minutes, ready to go and do whatever he wanted for the morning, then he would quickly make his way inside her house. Then, he would take her out of it like she should have just done in the first place.
Might as well make it easier on herself.
Gabbie tried to be as fast as she could to pull something more suitable on than black leggings, and a baggy T-shirt. She was still trying to pull her hair into a manageable ponytail when she stepped out of her house. Locking the front door, she eyed the car idling at the curb next to her driveway.
Charles waited just long enough for her to lock the door before he started honking the Lexus’s horn for her to hurry up. She glared at her father sitting in the passenger seat, where he leaned over to keep his hand pressed against the horn of the steering wheel until she had opened the back door, and slid into the vehicle.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Mind what?”
Charles sounded so confused.
Gabbie just gave him a look. “I do have neighbors, you know.”
“A whole lot of eejits, too.”
“First of all, my neighborhood is fine.”
“I know, I picked it.”
As annoying as that was. She couldn’t even pick the place where she wanted to live because her father had to do that for her, too. She loved him, but he needed to back off. Just a wee bit, that was all.
Gabbie sighed. “I think the man honking the horn at nine in the morning might be the one doing something wrong, Da.”
Charles shrugged his broad shoulders under the navy blazer he wore, and shot her a grin over his shoulder. “Boss’s right, no?”
“I already ate breakfast,” she said, wanting to change the conversation.
“Well, you can keep us company. Brennan doesn’t mind, do you, mate?”
Brennan passed Gabbie a look, and smiled. “Never.”
She opted to say nothing because at this point, there wasn’t anything worth saying. The car pulled away from the curb, and she settled into the back seat after she buckled up. Her father and his right-hand man conversed back and forth, their conversation switching from their mother tongue to English in a blink.
Gabbie found that most difficult to follow along—she understood Gaelic well enough, but only when someone was speaking slowly. It was harder for her to distinguish the many topics they bounced between when they used both Irish and English to bark at one another, though. Yet another thing that she never understood between her father and his best friend. They yelled at one another more often than they talked.
Then, her father glanced into the mirror again, catching her gaze. “How did last night go, lass?”
“Grand, Da.”
“Oh?”
“Aye.”
She was not about to go into every little detail of her night. She’d managed to pull on a long sleeve sweater that hid the cut on her arm, although she was sure at some point, someone at the club who witnessed the accident would mention it to her father. If he didn’t know about it now, then she wasn’t going to bring it up.
Plus, Michel …
She didn’t think Charles wanted to know that.
“Anything interesting happen?” her father asked.
Gabbie arched a brow. “No.”
“Hmm.”
“Any drinking?”
She sighed. “I’m not even twenty-one, they won’t serve me.”
Lies.
They would and did serve her at some of the mob-owned joints she attended simply because they knew who she was. Plus, she seriously believed they were scared of what might happen if they refused the Irish boss’s daughter something she asked for.
And, if she went to a club that wasn’t mob-owned … well, she had a nice little fake ID provided to her by Aine that worked to get her whatever she wanted. None of those details were important for her father to know, or this discussion.
What were a few white lies?
They wouldn’t really hurt, right?
“No problems at the new place?” Charles asked.
“None that I noticed.”
Except a gorgeous Italian sellin
g drugs in your territory. She kept that thought to herself because she wasn’t sure if her father even knew about Michel being at the club to deal. There was only one major Italian crime family in Detroit—the Vannozzos. They didn’t particularly get along with her father’s organization, but over the years, they’d accepted that they would just keep a healthy distance.
Gabbie wasn’t sure, and she didn’t think she could ask her father without raising his suspicions about why she was asking, but she was sure the Vannozzos were a brand of the Marcellos in New York. She didn’t actively seek out information about the criminal world her father was so involved in, but she wasn’t dumb or deaf, either. She heard when people talked, and she had been around long enough to hear conversations on that topic.
Was that it?
Had Michel came down from New York, and while doing his pre-med, decided to keep himself entertained by messing with the Vannozzos?
“I heard the club was quite full last night,” her father said, dragging her from her thoughts.
Gabbie nodded. “A wee bit. Not too bad, though.”
He didn’t seem very serious about his line of questioning, and if he knew that she was lying, then he didn’t show it. His face remained passive even as he probed her a bit more about her night, and what her plans were for the day after they went to breakfast.
Did her father know about the night before?
All the details?
She couldn’t be sure, but she wasn’t going to offer them willingly. As it was, he already worried about her and hovered far too much. She allowed him so much control over her life—although, allowed implied she got some kind of choice—and sometimes, she just wanted to feel normal.
“You know I love you, Gabbie,” her father murmured from the front. “If I don’t look out for you and make sure you stay out of trouble, then nobody will.”
He said things like that a lot.
She figured he did that for himself.
Gabbie couldn’t forget.
“I know, Da.”
“Good. Remember that, lass.”
FIVE
Michel stuffed his hands in his pockets and checked the street for oncoming cars before deciding it was safe to pass. Across the way, a barber shop waited for him to enter. Next to the door, a barber’s pole moved around in slow circles, the white and red lines almost melting together the longer he watched it spin.