the door, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning against it. Staring Sadie down, I grinned at her as she wracked her brain for a way to get rid of me. Her face was like a window to her mind, as every thought and emotion played on her features with such an obviousness that I had to wonder if everyone else saw right through her too.
The thought bothered me more than it should have. I wanted to be the only one who saw straight inside her. I wanted everything that made her to be a secret between the two of us, something nobody else got to experience and something that was mine alone.
I wanted to own her.
"Alright. This is how it’s going to go, Baby Girl. Pack a bag or I will. Your ass is getting on my bike. My house is bigger. It has better security—"
She cut me off, her voice dropping until she practically growled at me herself. "I am not your Baby Girl."
I smiled at her, pausing to study her face for a moment before I gave her the answer I already knew she'd never expect.
"You are now."
8
Sadie
I blinked up at him in shock.
I was not touching that statement with a ten-foot pole. I'd seen three women get wrapped up in the ridiculous insanity of Bellandi men. I would not become the next victim.
Not that it would matter. Enzo wouldn't want me for long. They never did once they got a glimpse at the real me and the amount of energy it took to keep up with my shit.
I opened my mouth, then thought better of it. Shaking my head, I turned on my heel and went for the kitchen. As soon as I opened the cupboard below the sink, my fingertips grazed against the bucket I kept there.
Right where it belonged.
Tugging it out, I reached down blindly and wrapped my fingers around the handle on the spray bottle of carpet cleaner. I didn't suspect it would be enough to get the blood stain out of my beige carpeting, but any little bit would help.
It had to.
I pulled on rubber gloves and filled the bucket with water. Grabbing a rag, I made my way back to the living room. Enzo stood right where I'd left him, studying the cleaning supplies in my hand. "Someone will take care of that," he said, pushing off the door with his foot.
"You're still here," I said, stating the obvious.
He just grinned at the best bitchy face I could muster, so it didn't seem like that would work in my favor. "You're cute."
"Don't call me cute," I warned, kneeling on the floor and using the rag to soak up as much of the blood as I could.
He studied the motion before the smile faded from his face. "Have it your way then." He walked past me, going straight into my open bedroom door. I hated him in that moment when I had no choice but to drop my rag into the dirty pink water and strip the gloves from my hands. Strange men did not get to wander about in my bedroom.
Under any circumstances.
The major reason for that wasn't that I had anything to hide or was afraid of what someone might find. It was that he might touch my shit.
I liked my shit right where it was.
By the time I made it to the doorway, the drawers of my dresser were all tugged open and he stared at the meticulously folded clothes and studied them. "You like folding laundry?" he asked, picking up a shirt from the top drawer. I strode forward, ripping it out of his grasp and refolding it to place it back on top of the pile where it belonged. His eyes were too knowing as he studied the way everything was arranged by color, at least until his eyes wandered to the drawer closest to my bed.
The apartment above the gym was small. Thanks to the high ceilings downstairs, there was only so much room we'd been able to work with. It was perfect for me, because I didn't need a lot of space. But it meant my dresser served as both that and my nightstand.
Tucked into a little box on the right side of my underwear drawer, my bright pink vibrator stood out like a shining beacon of masturbation. Enzo shook his head and bit his bottom lip to stifle his laugh as he lifted the tote bag he must have taken off the hook