Deep (Pagano Family #4)(86)

He was quiet, thinking again, and she finally ended the silence with a huff. “It’s silly. I can’t do it.”

“Stop that. If that’s what you want, we’ll hire somebody to help you. Somebody who knows the business.”

She liked that idea. “Okay. Yeah. But not…you know…” She lost her nerve before the next word came out. It had been stupid to start the sentence at all.

His eyes darkened, and she knew that he could see where she’d been headed. He asked anyway. “Not what?”

“Never mind.”

“One and only time for this conversation, Beverly. Say it.”

“Not a…wiseguy.”

He laughed, but there was a bite at its end. “How about a bentnose? A button? A goodfella? You watch too much television, bella.”

“You don’t use those words?”

“They’re used about us. We call ourselves Paganos. To your point, we don’t mix business and family. Now that I’ve told you that, you remember it, and you trust it. If you decide to keep the bookshop, my business won’t be part of it.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t ask questions about my business again.”

She didn’t like his tone. Often she found his simple imperatives endearing, and the confident power behind them hot. But this was a different kind of order, and there was a threat behind it. That pissed her off. A whole lot. “What happened at the diner, what those men did to me—that was your business mixing in my life. I spent a month with a wiseguy shadowing my every move, sitting in my apartment, eating my food, because your business was in my life. And still I got raped and butchered by men in your business. So don’t pull attitude because I don’t want it to happen again.”

Nick’s face had gone completely slack. She had never seen such an expression of dumb shock on him before.

He didn’t seem prepared to say anything. She really was angry, so angry her heart was pulsing in her ears. It actually felt kind of good. It was exhilarating, such a pure surge of powerful emotion.

“I’ll go get the papers from my car.” She stood, and Nick’s hand went around her arm and yanked her back down to the sofa.

“No.”

“What?”

“You don’t drop that and walk away.”

“Drop what? Did I say something you didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know you blamed me. You told me you didn’t.”

“I don’t. But then you make a big show of laying down the law about me asking about your business, when all I want is for your business to stay out of my life. I don’t want to know about your business. I don’t want any part of it. I love you. I love all of you, the bad and the good. I need all of you. I don’t care what you do, or what you’ve done. It makes you who you are, and I love you. I’m glad of what you did, whatever it was, to the men who came to the diner. But whatever happens in your work that isn’t moving teddy bears out of containers on the harbor and into toy stores in Boise, I don’t want to know. That’s why I said what I said. Don’t ask, don’t tell.” She took a breath, still feeling strangely excited. Then, she had a new thought and narrowed her eyes. “Where business is concerned. I won’t be okay with a ‘goo-mar-dah’ or whatever you call that—a mistress. I’ll ask about that shit.”

Nick’s expression had been shifting during her diatribe, and by the time she said her last sentence, he was smiling. “Comare. But close. I told you before, I’ve never cheated. I’ve had plenty of relationships back to back, but I don’t cheat.” He leaned toward her and pulled at the hem of her knit top. When he spoke again, his voice was low and rough. “You’re plenty for me, bella. I love you. I’d have been faithful even if you’d never wanted me inside you again.” His hand slid under her top and over the skin of her belly. “But you do want me inside you.” His other hand pushed up her short, flowing skirt and slid along the outside of her thigh, under her panties, and around to cup her cheek. “Don’t you?”

He pulled her down to lie on the sofa under him. “Don’t you?”

She did. The exhilaration she’d felt at getting truly, thoroughly angry and speaking her mind, standing up for herself, was making her nerves and muscles buzz pleasantly, and she realized, when his hand left her side to move under her skirt and panties, that her * was buzzing, too. And soaking wet.

His fingers brushed back and forth over her clit, and the intensity of the pleasure made her body twitch and bounce. His mouth hovered just above hers. Wanting to taste him, to feel his tongue moving with hers in the way she knew so well, she lifted her head and tried to catch him, but he lifted away. “Don’t you?”

She no longer had any idea what he was talking about. The fingers of one hand were at her clit, those of the other hand brushed lightly up and down over her anus, his mouth was tantalizingly close to hers. “Don’t I what?” she growled, frustrated.

“Want me inside you. You want me to fill you up and f*ck you hard. I can feel your * throbbing already.”

“If you already know, why are you still talking?”

“Good point.” He slid his fingers inside her, and Bev thought she’d come right then. She surged toward him, getting his fingers deeper, and made a noise in the back of her throat.