Driven By Fate(43)

Dinner. She did a mental scan of her closet’s contents. Not a damn dress in sight. She’d have to do something about that. Oh wow, she actually had a reason to buy a dress. Excitement coated her nerves like pancake batter. Not just about the prospect of dressing in something other than jeans, but being with Porter, spending the night in the same bed as him, watching him shave.

The warning bell in the back of her mind rang louder, but she didn’t want to listen. Not just then. She had a trip to pack for. Her body felt well-used. More. All she could think of was more. Getting her fill. When she got back from Miami, she’d figure out a way to reel back these feelings for Porter. With her upcoming presentation, it would be easy to pull focus from him and place it on work. But she could have this one thing, this one memory. Couldn’t she?

“There’s a lot going on in that beautiful head,” he murmured. “I’d love to know even half.”

Schooling her features, she ducked around his powerful form and headed toward the door, her mind turning to the upcoming scene with her uncle. Before she reached the door, she stopped. Without giving herself a chance to think, she extended a hand toward Porter. A terrifying moment passed where she didn’t think he would take it, that he would find it silly or juvenile.

But he did. His hand slid around hers, and they walked downstairs together.

…

In Porter’s lifetime, he’d flogged, paddled, and tied women up, even caned willing participants on the odd occasion. Somehow holding a woman’s hand felt far more intimate than any of those activities. It required more control than he could have imagined. The dark half of him demanded he squeeze, squeeze her hand until she whimpered. Order her to put that hand to better use. But there was a lighter half he was slowly becoming aware of, one that maybe hadn’t been revealed until she’d ripped the lid off. That half felt suffocated by the very idea of crushing this offering she’d given him. Just reached out…and offered.

He walked into the kitchen feeling like a bear with a daisy in his paw.

It was a scene from one of those family sitcoms he flipped past on the way to the six o’clock news. The only difference was there wasn’t a single woman. It looked like the beginnings of poker night, six men huddled around a kitchen table. One child, approximately seven years of age, sat perched on the counter in a Jets hat, pouring what appeared to be colored sugar straight from a paper tube into his mouth. The men handed around a bag of potato chips and cracked open beers. And it was loud. Mother of God, it was loud.

That is until they turned toward the stairway and saw their daisy in the bear’s grip. Although, she wasn’t their daisy any longer, was she? Even though he’d been the one to have the damned thought, it angered him that it been released into the universe. The urge to drag her back upstairs increased. It swelled and pushed at the inside of his skull. It started to lessen immediately when she tightened her hold on his hand. Just a gentle squeeze, nothing like the one he’d nearly been compelled to deliver.

“Hey, guys.”

One man stood from the table. Porter recognized him from the pictures lining the hallway—Francesca’s uncle. Joe. “Hey, yourself.”

“This is Porter. Evans. Porter Evans. He’s British. Please don’t make fun of his accent.” She cocked a hip. “Sanchez, get your damn feet off my table.”

A man, who was obviously Sanchez, immediately dropped his booted feet to the linoleum floor. “Sorry, Frankie.” He leaned forward on one elbow. “I hope I didn’t just screw myself out of dinner.”

“Nope, but you’re on dish duty.”

Sanchez held up a hand. “Fair enough.”

Unbelievable. He’d pictured her slaving away over a stove like a maid, when in reality she seemed to run the house. Something akin to pride bumped around inside him, looking for an outlet.

Francesca’s uncle had been silently watching them, but now he rounded the table, a puzzled look on his face. “Did you come from upstairs?”

Porter sensed the men at the table trading nervous glances, but he kept his attention on Joe. If he didn’t think it would upset Francesca, he would tell the man to mind his own damn business. Francesca was twenty-four and had apparently been tasked with paying the bloody mortgage, so if she wanted her man upstairs, she’d have him. But she’d just agreed to accompany him to Miami. No way he was about to f*ck that up.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. De Luca.” He extended a hand toward Joe. “I’m seeing your niece.”

The older man’s eyebrows went up, but he shook Porter’s hand. “That right?”

“Quite.”

One of the men pushed back in his chair. “Frankie doesn’t date.”

Beside him, she smacked a hand to her forehead and Porter smothered a smile. “She doesn’t date anyone but me,” Porter corrected, setting off another round of anxious glances.

Francesca shifted from side to side. “Did the game end early?”

“No, we’re just getting too old to sit outside in the rain, even for the Jets.” Joe flexed his hand with what appeared to be serious difficulty before shoving it into his pocket. “We still have some of that spaghetti lying around? We’re starving.”

She shook her head. “It’s not enough I cook you breakfast, now its dinner, too?”

“Book club night for the wives,” Sanchez explained. “Also known as drink-too-much-red-wine-and-swap-recipes-that-they’ll-never-actually-use-on-us night.”