Shielded Wrongs (Bellandi Crime Syndicate # 4) - Adelaide Forrest Page 0,72

love and accept me. I just needed one.

Sometimes it felt like that might be too much to ask.

"Something dropped," I teased, using perversion to change the subject since the hot water had brought him out to play. He laughed, but shook his head with a sigh.

"You're impossible."

"Funny, that's what my mom says right before she yells, Sadie Anne!" He gave another chuckle as he touched his chin to my shoulder, hazel eyes filled with exasperation.

"My mom doesn't yell," he admitted. "She does that disappointed voice. The one where you know shit just got real and you better run out of the house before she gets her wooden spoon? My sisters and I learned a long time ago not to fuck with that voice."

"How many sisters do you have?" I asked.

He gave me a lopsided grin that sent my stomach tumbling over itself with nerves. "I think that's the first time you've asked anything about me. Hard to deny you care if you ask about my family." He kissed me briefly, and I listened to the cadence in his voice as he spoke animatedly about all five of his sisters and his niece and nephews.

Even though it wasn't a romantic relationship, I wondered what it must be like to have someone love me so much that it excited them to talk about me to their friends and family. I couldn’t deny any longer that I wanted that and him desperately.

That the life he painted with his words could be mine to share in. Because an animated Enzo was a beautiful sight.

It wasn’t until he carried me toward the stairs at the edge of the pool that I snapped out of the trance I’d fallen into listening to him talking about the people he loved. “I want to give you something,” he murmured, setting me to my feet at the edge. Hurrying up the steps and to the house, he grabbed two towels off the rack just inside. Wrapping one around me, he dried me off quickly as I shivered. “Get inside,” he ordered, swatting my ass. I didn’t hesitate to follow that order, racing in the open door and watching him dry himself off.

He followed me in, closing the door in a hurry and going to his bedroom without another word. He emerged with the towel wrapped around his waist, a gun in the grip of his left hand. Clutching the towel tighter to my chest, I studied it cautiously as he held it out to me. “Try not to shoot me with it when I piss you off,” he said with a laugh.

Taking it from him, I looked down at the engraving along the sides of the barrel. Flowers etched into the surface, the words “Ride or Die” placed among them in a silver color. My eyes immediately went to his tattoo, to the echo of it on the gift he’d given me.

“It’s the gun we took off the man who broke into your apartment. The bullet that was meant for you. Seems only fitting that you use it to protect yourself now.”

My thumb trailed over the words, drawing comfort from them as I spoke. “Does this mean I can go home now?” I asked. The thought should have been a welcome one. It was what I’d wanted. The freedom to make my own choices and spend my nights in my own apartment. But faced with the prospect of going home to a house devoid of Enzo, it no longer appealed to me.

I tried to hide the disappointment from my face, masking it behind a cautious smile that didn’t seem to convince him any more than it did myself.

“No,” he chuckled. “I am your home now. This is just an insurance policy. You know how to use it, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t have a back-up means to protect yourself. The only time you should ever need this is if someone gets through me, but I want to know you have it in case that day comes.”

“Well, that’s only slightly terrifying,” I mumbled. If the thought of going home without Enzo threatened to tear apart the guard I kept on my heart, the thought of him lying dead shattered it to dust.

“You’re my ride or die, Baby Girl,” he murmured, stepping into me until I turned my head to rest my cheek against his chest. His hand wrapped around the back of my neck, and I let him hold me until the agonizing threat of losing him faded beneath

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