“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
—Leonardo da Vinci
I HATED HIS CAR, HOW it was infinitely him. How I was suffocated in his space in a way I couldn’t find unpleasant.
I hated his car.
But I loved how he drove it.
How his hand fit the wheel, how he sat in the driver’s seat with an unpretentious confidence, and how he always drove the speed limit as if to maintain that gentlemanly façade.
It reminded me of the soft sound of fabric hitting the floor, the scrape of teeth on the nape of my neck, the tug of my hair.
My pulse drifted between my thighs, and I pressed my legs together.
I wasn’t usually a betting girl, but I would put all of my papà’s ill-gotten gains on the idea that this man fucked just like he drove. With complete control and confidence.
Nico remained silent as we drove uptown, streetlights flickering and fading across an unreadable expression. Earlier, he’d picked the simple vase and said, “Less is more,” and I had to agree with him.
After that, he’d hardly said a word to me. During his silence, I realized I liked his voice. I wanted to know what he would say. There were whole sentences in that head just waiting to be drawled, and I wanted every one of them. I couldn’t and wouldn’t analyze why.
The quiet, the pressure between my legs, they started to build until I had to break the tension.
“How fast does this thing go?” I asked.
His head tilted to the side, catching my gaze. He held it for a moment before turning back to the road. “Fast.”
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, trying to think of how to respond. What I came up with was, “How fast?”
He didn’t glance at me, but a small smile appeared.
“Show me.” It escaped my lips on a breath, quiet and suggestive.
“No.”
I raised a brow. “Why? Are you scared?”
He flicked a gaze to me. Darkness glinted behind an ounce of amusement. “Scared and reckless are two different things.”
I didn’t know why considering it didn’t help my case, but it was a relief he’d said that. I had a rash brother—I didn’t want a similar husband. However, I wasn’t ready to give up yet; his attention had sparked a thrill inside of me.
“Are you saying you’ve never shown off with a woman in the car before?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“So, you have?”
“When I was sixteen, probably.”
That was a long time ago, yet I couldn’t stop a sliver of envy from finding its way to me. What girl was important enough to him that he’d shown off to impress her? I shook it off. “I’m marrying a Russo. Don’t you think I should know what it’s like before it’s too late?”
The glance he cast my way was nothing but heat. “It’s already too late.”
My pulse fluttered, but I forced a sigh. “It’s okay. If you’re scared—”
He shook his head before the car accelerated so fast I fell against my seat. A laugh escaped my lips, yet his only response was a look in my direction, a spark passing through his eyes. I watched the odometer hit 90 . . . 100 . . . 110.
Nico drove like he would if he were going a mere sixty mph: relaxed, not conveying an ounce of emotion. Adrenaline surged and fizzled through my veins. He hit 120 before he had to slow for our exit.
High on lust and life and speed, I rolled down my window and let the warm air brush my cheeks. We pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later, and I couldn’t exactly say it felt like home yet, but something about it did feel right.
The adrenaline had faded to chugging along, like a train running out of fuel. It left a hot and cold sensation under my skin, nerves thriving in the atmosphere.
He turned the ignition off, and the soft pops and crackles of a hot engine filtered into the car through the open window. Hot urban air, silver moonlight, and a heavy tension settled in the space between us. My breaths were labored, each second feeling like a pregnant pause.
I was sure the truth was as clear as the sounds of the ball game escaping the neighbor’s window. That I wanted this man. Every time I was near him I lost all poise and control. What scared me the most was that I didn’t want control, I wanted him to have it all. I wanted to experience what I was sure a hundred other girls had, no matter that the thought made me burn with jealousy.
He must have known all of this, but I wasn’t so sure he shared the same sentiment.
I was a convenience.
His second choice.
It took a moment to realize Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck played on the radio. The song was far from romantic, but it was rough and compelling, like the man beside me. It was the song I’d kissed him to. Someone might as well have yelled it into the car, as aware of it as we suddenly were.
I opened my door an inch so the radio would shut off, but I didn’t get out. Something pounded in my chest. An unfulfilled need that felt close to bursting. My palms grew clammy.
“Nico—”
His hand came toward my face and my words caught in my throat. As if my body expected a blow, a breath escaped me when his thumb brushed across my lips and down my chin. “Go inside. I have some things to do out here.”
The truth was, I hadn’t exactly figured out what I would say, and for that reason I was glad he’d stopped me. But as I made my way inside, a heavy weight that felt too much like rejection settled in my chest.
Once I was inside my room, I slipped into my Yankees t-shirt. My body thrummed with indecision, my heart beating with a speed that made me feel alive. I sat in the seat below the window and stared through the glass, at the light underneath the garage door.
I fell asleep before I ever heard the creak of the stairs.
A crick in my neck ached as I awoke curled up on the window seat. Sunlight filtered into the room in rays, lighting dust particles in the air. My mouth watered as the smell of bacon reached my nose. I wondered if Nico’s cook was here, though it was Sunday and she wasn’t due until tomorrow.
Not fully awake, I made my way into the hallway bathroom, combed my hair, and brushed my teeth. Maybe I should’ve put on a little makeup now that I had a fiancé I could run into at any moment, but truthfully, I’d never cared much for the stuff.
I padded toward the smell of bacon, and then stopped short at the base of the stairs. Heat curled in my stomach and drifted through my body in one smooth sweep. My heartbeat settled between my legs. A pan was cooking on the stove, but I hardly had a sexual fetish for food. That I knew of, anyway. I’d seldom seen this man out of a suit and tie. Now that he stood at the island without a single stitch on his upper half, it was a shock to my nervous system.
He was more brawn than chiseled, wide shoulders, defined chest, and when he ran a hand across his bare abs, my cheeks grew so warm they could have heated the house. I swore blushing was the bane of my existence.
He flipped a page of the magazine that held his attention. “Thought I told you to burn that shirt,” he drawled.
I swallowed, and couldn’t think of one thing to say, because it was so early and there was so much skin. His ink stopped at the shoulder of one arm, leaving everything else tan, hard, and ugh. I opened my mouth, and what came out was, “Why? So we can both walk around inappropriately dressed?”
His lips lifted, though he didn’t bother to look at me. “I don’t know, seems platonic compared to what you were begging me—”
“Okay,” I blurted. “Fine. But I’m not burning my shirt. You’ll have to convert.” I told him this with all seriousness as I made my way to the coffeemaker.
His response was a dry noise of amusement that let me know that was not going to happen.
I worked on getting the coffee started like it required my full attention, because his nudity made butterflies dance in my stomach. However, I got distracted somewhere along the way and ended up staring at his back.
All of a sudden I decided I had a thing for men’s backs, though I was uncertain about the gun tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants. No wonder he was still alive—he was never unarmed. There was a small circular scar low on his side, and I wondered where the two other bullet wounds had been.
“Who taught you how to cook?” I asked, eyeing the pan on the stove.
He turned around and leaned against the island, grasping the counter on either side of him. “Are you telling me you can’t make bacon and eggs?”
I frowned and shifted my weight to the other foot. “Well . . .”
His smile was sly and charming at the same time. “Starting to wonder what I’m getting out of this marriage.”
I bit my lip. “Me too.”
He laughed, deep and hearty, and it made my pulse skip a beat. It was only the second genuine laugh I’d heard from him, and I suddenly knew I could grow used to it.
The coffee began brewing, filling the kitchen with a rich and earthy smell. Nico had gotten me the good stuff, though I would have drunk burnt gas station coffee for my fix. Glancing at the clock, it read seven-thirty a.m.
“Does this marriage thing mean I have to go to your church?”
He smiled and then wiped it away with a palm. “Yeah. That’s what this marriage thing means.”
My lips pursed in thought. It wasn’t like I had a particular fondness for my church—in fact, I knew our priest was on Papà’s payroll. Therefore, I couldn’t be honest during Confession, leaving me with all these sins that needed to be absolved. It was a mess on my conscience, really. But I imagined it wouldn’t be that different at Nico’s church. And I’d also have to be surrounded by Russos . . .
I swallowed. “I guess I better go get ready.”
“Nah, not this week. We’ve got somewhere else to be.”
I watched him for a moment while a tickle played in the back of my mind. My gaze narrowed. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact your priest won’t approve of me living here before marriage?”
The tiniest flicker passed through his eyes and I knew I was right. He was hiding me from his priest. He wanted to be a respectable Catholic, and even though it was far, far from the truth, it was sort of admirable.
“So, I’m like your dirty little secret.” It was supposed to be teasing, but it came out more acutely as I realized it bothered me.
“Dirty?” The look he shot me was warm whiskey over ice. “Hopefully.”
I inhaled, though my lungs refused to accept it. I didn’t know how he could say something like that as if the intensity of it didn’t bother him a bit, whereas I needed to break eye contact and brush the moment away.
“I don’t need to keep you a secret, Elena,” he said, going to tend to his pan on the stove. “I just don’t have the patience to listen to what people think I should do with what’s mine.”
Mine. It drifted through the room, hanging above our heads like a lazy breeze unwilling to depart. Something touched me deep in the chest.
“Yours, huh?”
He stilled, running a hand across his jaw. “My fiancée,” he corrected with indifference, as though he’d realized his simple mistake, as though fiancée had a different meaning than mine. In this world, it did.
“My family’s aware you’re here and that’s all that matters,” he said. “They aren’t going to say anything.”
“Or you’ll shoot them?”
He glanced my way, gaze lazy. “Or I’ll shoot them.”
The frightening thing about it was that I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. A part of me heard the light, teasing tone, while the other replayed him shooting his cousin in the head on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
His stare swept me from head to toe, burning my skin. But when his eyes met mine, something soft came to the front.
I don’t keep secrets, Elena.
He was lying to me.
And I could only think of one reason for it. A part of me rebuffed the possibility, while the other went soft and warm inside.
He was keeping me a secret because he worried about my reputation.
Maybe it was for selfish reasons, but my heart still decided to grow twice its size. Guilt deflated it just as fast. I seemed to bring this man more trouble than I was worth. The numbers I’d copied onto paper sat in the bottom of my duffel bag upstairs and heavily on my conscience. “Maybe I should stay at home until the marriage,” I offered.
“This is your home.”
“You know what—”
“No.”
Okay.
Not one for negotiating, it seemed.
He grabbed two plates from the cupboard. “Thought you ran every morning.”
I almost didn’t hear him over how shirtless he was.
I pursed my lips. “I’ve decided it doesn’t suit me.”
He gave me a dark look. “If you decide it does suit you, use the treadmill in the spare room upstairs. You can’t run the streets like you used to.”
My smile was sweet. “You have a way of making me feel so very liberated.”
He wasn’t amused. “What are your plans for dance?”
I hadn’t signed up for another class since the recital and I didn’t think I was going to. Although, now I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get out of the house any other way.
“I haven’t decided.”
He filled two plates while I poured a cup of coffee. This man had given me an orgasm and made me breakfast. The former I had only hoped for, the latter I hadn’t imagined. I was beginning to wonder what he wanted with me. I would be a poor excuse of a wife.
He leaned against the counter, giving me all of his autocratic attention. “If you decide to go back, we’ll have to find you a new studio.”
I paused. “Why?”
“I don’t trust your papà’s streets.”
My eyes narrowed.
He noticed and returned the look. “You’re awfully loyal to the wrong people.” Annoyance coated his voice.
“You mean my family? Those people?” I raised a brow. “There’s nothing wrong with my papà’s streets.”
The unimpressed expression he gave me said driveby loud and clear.
I had nothing substantial to respond with, so I reflected. “Maybe I don’t trust your streets.”
“You won’t be an Abelli for much longer. If you’re going to dance or whatever else it is you do, you’re doing it on my streets.” He added with a dark tone, “And forget sucking anyone’s life away.”
A shiver went through me as I realized I would be Elena Russo in a short amount of time. I forced a sigh to hide my unsettlement.
“You’re dreadfully totalitarian today.”
“Just shy of psychotic, then?” His eyes sparked. “Guess I’d better up my game.”
As we stared at each other, three feet apart, something heavy flowed into the kitchen. A languid, hot, and suggestive air. My heart thumped the heavy beats of a drum. He stood there, half-naked, so much man. And I knew that if I remained silent, something was going to happen. Everything was going to change. Just before eight a.m. on a Sunday. Unease, anticipation, and a sliver of panic flooded me.
I knew something about the next step would break my heart.
“Please do,” I breathed. “So I know what to expect.” The words cut through the thick haze, clearing the air.
He watched me for another second. Shook his head. And then pushed off the counter.
“Eat your breakfast. We’re leaving in twenty.”
“Where are we going?”
He grabbed a magazine off the island and dropped it on the counter in front of me. The advertisement said Show and Shine Car Show.
What on earth did you wear to a car show?
