Page 36 of His Wicked Wants (West Coast Mobsters #6)

CHAPTER 33

GAbrIEL

After distributing produce all morning I get back to Redwood and abandon all hope of working on the grounds for today. I fall into bed and sleep dreamlessly. It’s evening when I finally wake and shower, and then I’m startled when I get out by a knocking on my front door, insistent and getting louder. When I come out to open it, having pulled on my ratty old pajama pants again, I’m both shocked and somehow unsurprised to see Nero Andretti leaning against the door frame, looking well-rested and thoughtful.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hello,” he says back.

And then we just look at each other. “Do you want to come in?” I ask at last. He gives a slight nod, so I move back and let him into the cottage.

“Did you talk to Sandro?” I ask.

“I did.”

“And it looks like everything turned out okay, since you’re still alive and everything.”

He gives a half smile. “For now,” he agrees.

“Is there…something I can do for you?” My heart is beating fast but I’m not sure why. Fear? Or hope?

“I wanted some of that tea you make. The apple pie.”

“Oh!” That’s literally the last thing I expected him to say, but… “Sure. Take a seat. I’ll make it.”

But Nero follows me to the kitchen area and watches silently as I go about making the tea. For once, his gaze doesn’t discomfort me. He merely seems interested in the process, and when I finally hand him the mug of sweetened tea, he closes his eyes to take a sip, and then smiles. “Just as I remember.”

“What’s going on?” I ask. “There’s something going on, isn’t there?”

He sighs. “I know I have done nothing to earn your trust, little gardener, but it does get wearing after a while to have every word questioned.”

His reply doesn’t make me any less worried. “Is it the community garden? Did Sandro refuse to protect it?”

Nero shakes his head. “Sandro understands the value it provides and wants to see it continue and thrive. You have nothing to fear.”

But I can still tell there’s something off. He hasn’t said something incredibly condescending to me in the whole five minutes he’s been here, for one thing. “Come and sit down,” I tell him, and steer him with my free hand back into the living room. He takes a seat in the armchair and I sit opposite on the couch. “If there is some problem, I wish you’d just tell me.”

“There is no problem for you,” Nero says decisively. He takes another sip. “As American as apple pie. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”

“I guess?”

“Do you enjoy your life here, Gabriel?”

“I do,” I say slowly. “I know I’m doing good things with the community garden, and my work here at Redwood allows me to continue that.”

“There are plenty of places in the world where people are in need, though. Are you determined to stay here in Los Angeles?”

“Well, I don’t want to go back to Boston, that’s for sure. But I guess at some point I’d like to travel. See the world.” I’m still confused. I can’t imagine that Nero Andretti is having some kind of existential crisis. Men like him don’t philosophize. “I wish you’d just tell me?—”

“Las Vegas,” he says. “You could make a desert bloom, Gabriel Carstairs. I have full confidence in you.”

“Vegas? I mean, it might be fun to visit?—”

“ Italia , then,” he says. “There are so many incredible things to see in my homeland, Gabriel. I could show you. I could give you…whatever you wanted, I could give it to you.”

“Where is this coming from? Are you leaving Redwood?”

He puts down the mug. “You told me this morning that you wanted me to stop hurting you. Tell me to go, right now, and I will.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about—what any of this means. But I do know one thing. “I don’t want you to go.”

He studies me. “And I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Gabriel. But I can’t deny that the idea of you on your knees for me, or face down, spread open for me, or with your knees pressed up to your face—I can’t deny that all of these are things that I would like to do to you. With you. With your permission, of course.”

My heart is thrumming, fluttering in my chest like the golden butterflies in the maze, bumping crazily into my ribs. “That time in the greenhouse—you asked me what would happen if you were nicer to me. But I don’t know that this thing between us could ever be nice, Nero. And the truth is, all those things you just talked about, I want them too. I don’t even know if I like the fact that I want them—but I want them all the same. I just don’t want to put my heart on the line if it’s going to get broken. I’m not interested in playing games.”

Nero is quiet for a long moment. Then he sighs, “There is more than a little of the devil in me. So you need to be sure. Because I do want you, Gabriel. All of you. And if you agree, if you allow it, there can be no going back. You will belong to me completely.”

I can barely believe the words are coming out of my mouth, but I force them through. Because it’s the truth. “I want to be yours, Nero.”

He watches me carefully for another few seconds and then says softly, “Then go and shower. Prepare yourself for me. When you are ready, come back in here and kneel before me.”

The whole time I’m obeying his instructions, my mind is turning over and over. I wish he’d just grabbed me right there in the living room and kissed me—but I think I know why he didn’t. He wants me to think hard about what I’m doing.

He wants me to be sure.

There’s a part of me that wants to stay safe. That wants things to go back to how they were before Nero Andretti stormed into my life. But that part is just scared, and I’m glad it’s there, because it tells me that I’m making my decision without blinders. I know what kind of man he is. I know my life will only get more complicated.

But I still want it. I still want him .

And yet my knees are a little weak when I walk back out of my bedroom, wondering if he’ll still be waiting there in the armchair. What if he had second thoughts? What if he got tired of waiting and left? What if he decided this wasn’t what he wanted after all—that I wasn’t what he wanted?

But he’s still there. In fact, he’s leaning forward in the chair, elbows resting on his knees, and he’s waiting for me, watching the doorway. His dark eyes are so serious, his mouth so severe, that all I want to do is go over there and kiss him. Instead, I go over there and I kneel down in front of him.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and his voice is so soft I can barely hear it.

“Yes.”

“You want to be mine, Gabriel?”

“Yes.”

“Then say it. Make me believe you.”

“I want to be yours, Nero.”

He lets out a soft breath, and gives me one more command. “Smile at me.”

He doesn’t smile back when I do. He just reaches down and runs his thumb over my lips. And then, with a roughness that makes me shiver, he grabs my chin, holding me steady. He leans down until his lips are a breath away from mine, and his dark eyes are boring into mine, and he says, “I can promise you will not regret this, Gabriel. My little gardener. You will tend to me, won’t you? As carefully as you do to all those plants?” He almost sounds jealous.

“I’ll take care of you, Nero. Whatever you need.”

“And in return,” he murmurs, “I will take care of you.”

He stands, and for a moment I think we’ll be revisiting that blow job where I came all over his shoes—shoes that I haven’t seen since—but he reaches down a hand for me and helps me up. My body is a traitor, letting him know exactly what I want, my cock thickening up as he looks down at it with a satisfied smile.

His hand slides around the back of my head and pulls my mouth to his. A thrill runs through me, tongue to balls, where it settles into a deep, needy throb. His mouth moves slowly on mine, tasting me carefully. I’m overcome with sensation. Nero is everywhere : I can smell his cologne, feel the soft, expensive fabric of his shirt as he presses against me, taste the apple pie tea still on his tongue. His fingers card into my hair, yanking until I gasp, a sound swallowed up by his kiss.

But then he breaks away. “I do like to make you hurt, Gabriel,” he breathes. “But only so I can make you feel better afterward. Will you let me?—”

“Yes,” I pant, even before I know what he’s asking. “You can do whatever you want. Just don’t…”

“Just don’t what, tesoro ?”

I feel like some clingy kid, but I need to set the ground rules. “Just don’t ghost me after.”

He cups my face and presses his lips to my forehead. “Are you mine?” he asks.

“You know I am.” There’s a note of despair in my voice as I admit it.

He must hear my unspoken fears, because he pulls back to look into my face. “Then you know that I am also yours,” he tells me. “You’ve cast some kind of spell on me, Gabriel Carstairs. I have not felt like this before. I have never needed something like this. But I do need you. All of you.”

Looking into those dark eyes with the melting caramel flecks…I believe him. “Then take me,” I tell him.

“But I have taken you in this room already,” he says, and my breath quickens as I remember that time, the feel of him working into me raw and almost dry, the pain—and his tenderness after… “Today I want a change of scenery,” he continues, watching me closely. “Let’s go to your bedroom.”