Maximo is waiting to drive Lenny home as soon as I can find the little fuck. He wandered off in his morphine-induced haze while I was debriefing what happened tonight with Maximo. A routine pickup doesn’t usually end up in my second-in-command getting involved in a knife fight. With Lenny around, I suppose anything can happen. The guy finds trouble wherever he goes. Last month he made a move on someone’s wife and almost ended up thrown out of the window of a hotel room. From the twelfth floor. If he wasn’t my second cousin, I would have cut him loose a long time ago.
I can’t get that look on Kat’s face when she was fixing him up out of my head. She was smiling the whole time. He is a whiny little bitch when he’s hurt, but she calmed him right down. The way she spoke to him, it was like her voice completely changed. I’ve never seen anyone have that effect on someone before. She could have told him she was about to saw his cock off and I’m sure he’d have just nodded and smiled at her.
She must have been an incredible nurse, and it obviously still makes her happy. So, why the hell hasn’t she done it for two years?
The sound of hushed voices drifts out of the open kitchen doorway as I approach, and when I step inside, I see Kat standing beside the counter with her back to me. She’s wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt, which leaves far too much of her beautiful pale skin on display for my liking, especially when Lenny is standing right next to her. He leans down and whispers something in her ear, and the rage that burns through my veins at the sight of them together is unexpected and vicious.
She leans back, trying to create a little distance, and that simple act fills me with relief. But Lenny is a charmer who’s used to getting almost any woman he wants. He places his hand on her back, sliding it down toward her ass, and she flinches like she’s been burned by a hot poker.
“Lenny!” I bark as I stride across the kitchen.
He spins on his heel and looks at me, a goofy smirk on his face. “Yes, Boss?”
“Keep your fucking hands off her.”
He blinks at me, full of confusion and still buzzed from the whiskey he had in my study and the morphine Kat gave him when she stitched him up earlier. “Boss?”
I’m standing directly in front of him now. Instinctively, my hand reaches for his throat, and I squeeze until he gasps for air. “I said, keep your fucking hands off her.”
His face pales as he stares at me, his pupils wide with fear as he realizes he has crossed a line. Because he knows I will make him pay.
I push him away from me. “Go wait outside with Maximo.”
He rubs at his raw throat and hurries out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with Kat. She looks up at me, traces of fear lingering in her deep blue eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“I didn’t do that for you,” I lie because I’m not her fucking knight-in-shining-armor here. “My men are too busy to be distracted, and you, kitten, are a distraction.”
“I-I…” she stammers, her pretty pink lips open and begging to be wrapped around my cock.
“And if you wander around here half-naked, is it any wonder my men see you as an easy target?”
Fire flashes in her eyes. There she is. The wildcat. I don’t know why but pushing her buttons makes me hard as fucking iron. “I’m not half-naked!” she insists.
I arch an eyebrow at her, and we both assess her shirt. “No?”
“Well… but that doesn’t mean… I was about to go to bed. I needed something to eat. I didn’t realize anyone would be here.”
Her cheeks turn pink as she babbles at me, but my eyes are drawn down the length of her body. That t-shirt. It’s too big to belong to her. “Whose shirt is that?”
“Mine,” she whispers.
I take a deep breath, my nostrils flaring with suppressed rage. “Whose was it then?”
Her forehead creases into a frown. “An ex-boyfriend’s. I like it because it’s soft. Nothing to do with him.”
“So, you’re walking around my house wearing another man’s clothes?” I’m aware that I sound crazy. I mean, she should be able to wear what she wants, right? So why does it make my blood boil to think of her wearing her ex-boyfriend’s clothes? Not just wearing them though, sleeping in them. Having it the only thing on her soft skin. The only thing between me and her right now as I edge closer.
“What? It’s just a t-shirt,” she protests.
“Take it off!” I command.
She tilts her head up, jaw set in rebellious defiance that makes my aching cock even more desperate to be inside her.
“No.”
I clench my hands into fists at my sides, about five seconds away from tearing the goddamn thing off her myself. “Take it off, or I will do it for you.”
“And walk back to my room completely naked?” she says with a scowl.
“I’ll carry you back to your room naked if you don’t stop with the smart mouth,” I growl as I start unbuttoning my own shirt. “Now take it the fuck off, Kat. I won’t tell you again.”
“Can you at least turn around, then?” she asks, her tone dripping with snark that I would love to fuck out of her.
“No,” I say with a shake of my head.
“You’re a goddamn asshole, Dante,” she mutters as she peels the t-shirt off over her head and holds it in front of her body.
I try not to make it obvious that I’m looking at her, but I’m only a man, not a fucking saint, and her incredible tits and pebbled nipples are kind of hard not to stare at. She’s wearing a pair of black cotton panties with a tiny white daisy print. It’s an effort not to think about the sweet distraction that lies beneath them.
I take off my shirt and hand it to her, taking the one she was just wearing and tossing it into the trashcan nearby. She shrugs it on, the white cotton gliding over her arms and then her breasts as she begins to fasten it. Her hard nipples protrude through the fabric, and all I can think about is sucking one into my mouth. She is going to be the fucking ruin of me.
“There. Happy now?” she snaps as she fastens the last button, leaving just a small glimpse of her soft skin at the base of her neck visible.
“Not entirely. Now go back to bed before you get yourself into some more trouble, kitten.”
She rolls her eyes at me and then stalks off out of the kitchen wearing my shirt and looking far too fuckable for her own good.
After Kat leaves, I take the pair of secateurs from the cupboard and slip them into my pocket before heading out onto the driveway where I find Maximo standing watch over Lenny, who is sucking on a vape like his life depends on it and pacing up and down. Upon seeing me heading toward him, Lenny pockets his vape and holds his hands out wide.
“I didn’t know she meant anything to you, Boss. If I had…” he says.
“Did you have my permission to touch her?”
“N-no,” he stammers. “But I thought she was…”
I narrow my eyes as I approach him. “She was what?”
“Fair game, you know?” he says with a shrug.
Maximo is at my side a second later. He arches an eyebrow at me. “He touched Katerina?”
“He did.”
“Ouch,” he laughs darkly, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Hold his arm for me,” I say, nodding toward Lenny before I take the secateurs from my pocket.
“B-boss,” Lenny babbles as he starts to take a few steps backward. “I’m your cousin.”
“No, you’re my father’s cousin, Lenny. This man is my brother.” I nod toward Maximo. “And even he wouldn’t touch what belongs to me.”
Lenny stands frozen to the spot now, eyeing Maximo and me like a frightened deer in the path of two wolves.
“Don’t make me fucking chase you down, Lenny,” Maximo snarls.
Lenny’s eyes continue darting between the two of us as his face turns a strange shade of pale. He’s aware that if he runs, Maximo will take great joy in taking him down, and then any punishment I’m about to mete out will be doubled for Maximo’s efforts. He holds out his trembling arm and Maximo grabs it in his large hand, squeezing his forearm until he’s restricting his blood flow back through his arm and causing his fingers to turn a deep red.
I open the secateurs and press the blades against the base of his pointer finger. “Why the fuck did you think you could touch what belongs to me?”
He stares at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “I-I didn’t think she was with you, Boss.”
“She is in my fucking house, stronzo, that means she belongs to me.”
He stares into my eyes, his pupils blown wide with fear and his lip trembling. I snap the shears closed, chopping off his finger, and his face contorts in twisted agony, and a strangled cry escapes his mouth.
“Hold him still,” I order Maximo, and he tightens his grip on Lenny’s arm who looks about to pass out from the pain whilst looking at his missing digit sitting on the floor next to his feet.
I grip the base of his middle finger with the blades. “Touch her again and I will bury you, Lenny. You ever even speak to her again without my permission and I will cut out your fucking tongue. You understand me?”
“Y-yes, Boss,” he snivels as tears run down his face.
I clip off his middle finger too, and he howls as he stares at his second finger bouncing onto the ground between us.
I close the secateurs, and Maximo takes it as his cue to release his grip on Lenny’s arm. As soon as he’s free from the iron-clad grasp, a shaking, crying Lenny pulls his injured hand toward his body. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he wraps it around his bleeding stumps before bending down as his body tries to deal with the pain.
“Get him the fuck out of here,” I say to Maximo before turning and walking back into the warmth of my house, while my best friend and most trusted soldier takes care of the aftermath of the message I’ve just delivered.
Kat is mine.
