“What if I don’t want to stay a virgin until I get married? It’s mine to give to whoever I want. If I want to give it to you, that’s my decision.”
He leaned in and kissed me again. That kiss told me he already made up his mind. No one would ever be able to talk him out of it. Leo didn’t work that way. “It’s my decision too, Princess.”
He took a step back to give me plenty of room to get off the desk. I picked up my panties, but I couldn’t put them back on.
I gulped down the lump in my throat, pulled my skirt down, and hurried out of the room without looking at him again.
I paused in the hall outside, shut my eyes, and leaned against the wall. My head still spun from kissing him and coming so close to doing it for the first time in my life.
I did want Leo. I wanted Leo more than anything, but that little voice in the back of my mind kept whispering, You shouldn’t.
I just got home from my father’s funeral. Leo was Papa’s best friend, his consigliere, and my guardian.
I shouldn’t, but I still wanted to. What was happening to me? My body was going crazy with these wild feelings. It would explode out of my skin any second now. I could barely contain all the ideas and pictures and sensations going through me.
I saw what I just did with Leo. If I ever heard or found out about someone my age kissing and touching and screwing around with a man twenty years older than herself on her father’s desk, I would have thought she was a shameless slut who couldn’t control herself.
Was I turning into that? I kissed him. I unbuckled his belt and pushed down his pants and touched him like that.
Fuck, his cock felt so incredibly hot! A thread of adrenaline went through my insides just thinking about it. Those eyes electrified me out of my mind.
I would do it with him again if he ever gave me the chance. I would go all the way with him in a heartbeat if he only let me… but he probably never would. He would go back to being my uncle, my guardian, the keeper of the keys.
He would go back to being his usual professional self, and I would go back to aching for him. If I ever kissed him again, he would push me away, and I would never find out just how amazing it could be to feel him moving inside me.
NICKY
Iglanced out of the estate gatehouse at vanloads of security guys showing up by the dozen. I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. I had to get off this call pronto. “Yeah. I understand. No problem. I’ll handle it.”
I hung up and went out there to deal with the situation. Leo Evangelista had called in all these additional security guys. Now, it was my job to lick them into shape so they didn’t do us more harm than good.
Some big, fat bastard with more chins than brain cells bellied up to the gatehouse. Art, the family-assigned gatehouse guard, raised his eyebrows at me. He made a show of turning his back when the lard-ass threw back his shoulders and scowled at me. “Who’s in charge here?”
“Not you, jackass. Now pull in your gut before you bust yourself. Let me guess. How many miles did you do on the treadmill this week?”
Some of the other security guards started laughing, and the guy turned bright red. “We’re professionals, and I’m the sergeant-at-arms in charge of this team. We’re here to guard this estate, and I’ll just…”
“Who told you that you were here to guard the estate? Whoever told you that made a mistake. You aren’t here to guard the estate at all.”
The guy frowned. “What are we here for, then?”
“You’re here to receive your orders… from me. You might be the sergeant-at-arms in charge of this teamout there…” I pointed behind him toward Manhattan’s Riverside Drive. Then I jerked my thumb over my shoulder toward the estate. “In here, you’re shit. Understand? You’re what I say you are, and right now, you aren’t fit to guard a pile of steaming dog shit on the sidewalk, much less the important people who live here.”
The guy’s jaw dropped. The rest of the crew gathered around to listen. Art craned his head out and grinned behind my back.
I sliced my forefinger at them all. “You boys, line up along the driveway here.”
They couldn’t fall over themselves fast enough to follow my orders. They were learning, which meant they weren’t all totally brainless.
I strode down the line and measured each one with an unerring eye. I pointed to the ones who obviously worked out. A fraction of those had the nerve to make eye contact with me. I separated them from the rest and told them to line up on the opposite side of the driveway.
I got a notepad from the guardhouse and scribbled on it. I tore off strips of paper and handed them to the sorry crowd left.
“Each of you will report to the address on your slip. You’ll report to the men already stationed there, and you’ll follow their orders to the letter if you want to get paid. Each of them will be reporting to me, so if I hear about any sergeants-at-arms or fat bastards throwing their weight around, I won’t be happy.”
The tub on the far end frowned at his paper slip. “But… this is all wrong. We were told we would be guarding this address. This is all the way over in the Bronx.”
“Do you have a problem with that?” I asked.