off and haven’t put them away.”
“You put your own clothes away?” She casts a skeptical look in my direction.
“I have housekeeping, but I don’t want them snooping through my pants and singlets. I’m not a posh fucker. Get that out of your head. I’m well aware of how to manage the wash.”
Her nose scrunches in the most adorable way, and that in itself catches me off guard. Since when did this woman go from shaggable to fucking provocative to adorable? Nope, nope, nope. I need to get those thoughts out of my mind. She’s my business-arranged wife, not some sweet thing I want to pamper.
“Oh come on, your knickers and under tops… Surely, you have them too and don’t want anyone being nosey?”
She laughs, the sound leaving her a bit throaty. It shoots straight to my cock. The bugger is paying far too much attention to Ismerlda for my liking. “So I should expect to arrange my own laundry service then? Or will housekeeping take care of mine if I request them to?”
“Her card’s on the fridge. You can set up everything how you want it. Don’t answer the door, and I mean under no circumstance whatsoever.”
“Because the famiglias are being hunted down?”
I release a sigh. “No, because I have my fair share of arsehole enemies as well. They shouldn’t be able to get up here, but you never know whose arse is royally chapped enough to manage the impossible. I’ll need a copy of your schedule for this to work properly.”
“You and my father seem to have the same hang-up of treating me as if I’m a teenager without any street smarts. I’m thirty-three years old, for heaven’s sake. My schedule changes frequently with the amount of business I have. If I have a prominent client, then I spend more time working with them and so forth.”
A growl rumbles my chest, throwing me off-balance a bit. Jealous to obsessive to possessive seem to be my mood swings when it comes to this damn woman. I don’t know what’s so bloody special about my new fiancée for me to be giving myself a bit of whiplash over her. I should want her gone and out of my way for the most part, yet here I am, wondering who in the hell these clients are and if they’re fucking or have fucked in the past. They won’t care for me, because I won’t be allowing them anywhere near her on my watch.
“Unless I’m the one next to you to slit a bloke’s throat, I want you to heed my instructions. Tell me, do I know these clients of yours? I need names and businesses.” I’ll admit, I was thrown a bit hearing she works at all. I assumed she was another spoiled American, wanting everything handed to them for free. Their entitlement knows no bounds, I’ve come to learn, and it’s positively exhausting at times.
She gets up in my face—the woman’s full of salt and vinegar and cock-sucking lips. Her fingers move to grip the lapels of my jacket, her ruby nails filed sharp enough to draw a man’s blood. She leans in and I tilt my head down, a glutton for whatever punishment she’s about to dole out. My body shudders with desire as her tongue flicks out to lick the tip of my earlobe. She’s a bloody talented cock tease. Her sultry voice murmurs, “None. Of. Your. Business.”
“Hmm,” I grunt, my teeth clenching, wanting to toss her over my thigh and spank her arse a bit. Ismerlda’s got nerve, poking the bear. Something tells me she’s used to pushing and prodding until she gets her way. She bulldozes right over any weak tosser in her path. She’s in for the shock of her life if she believes I’ll wither to her ways. If anything, it’ll be the opposite. It always is.
My hand grips the back of her neck before she has a chance to escape. Holding her alluring curves against my much larger frame, I reverse our positions. Leaning in, I gruffly taunt, “Oh, darling, haven’t you worked it out in your pretty little head yet? Everything that concerns you is my business. You belong to me now. You’ll have my last name—mine.”
“Fuck you,” she rebukes, pushing against my solid chest. I don’t move, just to prove a point. I do absolutely nothing unless I decide it, and right now I want her feeling my strength.
“Brilliant. We can arrange that as well,” I whisper against her heated flesh and