Page 52 of Wicked Sinner

brIDGET

Caesar’s words are still rattling around in my head as I finish the breakfast he brought up for us and go to get in the shower. True to his word, I’m not left to ruminate over it for very long before he joins me, muscles rippling as he steps under the hot water and runs his hands over my body.

“I’m sore,” I warn him, and it’s true—I can feel the ache spreading through me from the relentless thrusts of his cock since yesterday.

Even without the piercings, it would be hard to take a man like him as many times as I have, but the piercings add to it, especially when I’m not used to having sex this much.

Caesar relents, releasing me to focus on washing, but by the third time I bump up against him in the shower, I can see that he’s rock hard again.

I look at him, feeling my body tighten with arousal despite myself, and his hands land on my hips, backing me up against the shower wall as he sinks down to his knees.

“I know a way to soothe that,” he murmurs, and then his mouth is between my thighs, tongue sliding over me without giving me a moment to protest before my pleasure is already climbing.

He’s too good at all of this, and he knows it.

He’s far too aware of what he can do with his body, with his mouth, with his fingers.

And it’s so hard to resist—especially when I just agreed not to, to have one day where we act like all of the problems that make our relationship untenable don’t exist.

So I let him push me over the edge, let his tongue send me into another mind-blowing orgasm as he strokes his cock, kneeling in front of me, only to stand up and finish on my stomach and breasts, coating me in his cum before guiding me under the water to wash me off.

If Caesar wasn’t a mafia boss, I think as he runs a washcloth over the taut plane of my stomach, if he weren’t a man with enemies who want to hurt me and his child, if he were a normal man with a normal job—I wouldn’t be able to walk away from this. I wouldn’t be able to say no.

But if that were true, he wouldn’t have kidnapped me.

And who knows what would have happened? He wouldn’t have made me some ridiculous offer to be his mistress instead of his girlfriend.

Thinking what if is impossible, because if Caesar were a different man, so many other things would be different that none of it makes sense.

I wrap a towel around myself as I get out of the shower, leaving my hair to air dry as I go in search of clothes in my own room.

When I emerge fifteen minutes later in blue jeans, a favorite band T-shirt, and Vans, Caesar is just stepping out of his room as well.

He looks me up and down, his mouth curling at one corner, and I glare at him.

“What? You wanted me, you said. A day that I’d enjoy. So I dressed like me. What’s the problem?”

Caesar chuckles, striding toward me with a heat in his eyes that instantly tells me I’ve read the situation wrong. “No problem,” he murmurs. “I like you like this. Just as much as I like you in silk and diamonds.”

My traitorous heart flutters despite myself, and I look up at him as he reaches me and puts a hand on my waist, leaning in to kiss me.

Like we’re a couple. Like, this is all normal.

Like our marriage isn’t ticking down to the day when we can divorce.

“What are we doing today?” Caesar asks, straightening. “What part of the city do you want to show me? I want to see it through your eyes.”

I bite my lip, chewing on it nervously. I’m not so sure he really wants to see my world.

It’s very different from his. His is all trendy restaurants and expensive clubs, sex and lights and money and power.

I’ve never really spent time in downtown Miami.

What I like is outside the city. Smaller. Quieter.

"I don't really know the city that well," I admit. "I mean, I've lived here my whole life, but I stayed mostly in the suburbs, out near the shop. That's where I'm comfortable."

"Then take me there." His dark eyes are serious. " I want to understand what normal looks like to you. I want to spend the day doing whatever you like to do."

The request is so simple, so genuine, that I feel my walls starting to crumble a little more. "Okay," I say. "But I'm driving. The Ferrari," I clarify with a gleam in my eyes. “I want a turn behind that wheel.”

Caesar smirks. “You want to drive my car?”

“We’re married, right?” I shrug, grinning devilishly at him. “What’s yours is mine, right?”

“If you crash it—” he warns as we start to head downstairs, and I whip around, glaring at him.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. If I crash it? Says the man who brought it to me with problems the first day he bought it?”

“Have you ever driven a Ferrari before?”

“No, but I’ve driven classics. Have you tried the power steering on some of those? Much more difficult. Your Ferrari will be a breeze.”

Caesar grins, and I can tell he likes this. He likes me sassy and confident, mouthing off to him. It makes me feel, for just a moment, as if he’s telling the truth—as if he likes me, whether or not I fit in with the socialites of his world.

That thought is far more tempting than it should be.

Today is a bad idea, I think, as we head down to the garage.

We’re not just crossing lines now, we’re erasing them.

This isn’t going to make things better; it’s going to make the inevitable end worse.

It’s going to give us memories that we can’t get rid of, moments that we were never supposed to have.

We’re not really together. And we have no business trying to pretend that we are.

But I promised, so I push my reservations aside and follow Caesar down to the garage, where he hands me the keys to the Ferrari.

“Can’t wait to find out how you drive,” he says with a grin, heading for the passenger side.

"Where to?" he asks as I start the engine.

“We’re going back to my little town,” I tell him firmly, pulling out of the parking garage.

In the rearview mirror, I can see two black SUVs falling into formation behind us—I was under no illusions that there wouldn’t be security somewhere, watching us at some point.

There’s no such thing as complete privacy in Caesar’s world.

It’s a reminder that I very much needed, considering what we’re doing today.

The drive takes us away from the gleaming skyscrapers and expensive neighborhoods of downtown Miami, through suburban streets lined with palm trees and modest houses. The farther we get from the city, the more I feel myself relaxing.

"Tell me about it," Caesar says as we turn onto a familiar street.

"About what?" I glance at him, caught up in how good the Ferrari feels. For all that I gave him shit about the fuse it blew right off the bat, it handles like a dream, and it’s tempting to open it up and see just how fast she can go.

"Your life before. What it was like growing up here." He leans back in his seat, clearly not concerned with my driving at all.

I glance at him, surprised by the genuine interest in his voice.

"It was… quiet. Normal. My dad and I lived in the house that I live in…

lived in, now. Connected to the shop. He was always there for mealtimes and everything important, always right there if I needed him, because work was right on the other side of the kitchen door.

I took the bus to school. Came home and did homework at the kitchen table while he made dinner.

Weekends were for working on cars together and going to the beach. "

"Sounds nice." There’s something faintly jealous in Caesar’s voice, I realize, a wistful hint of longing. “My father definitely didn’t help with homework or share hobbies with me. His head of security taught me to use a gun. There was no closeness there.”

“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “That must have been hard.”

Caesar shrugs. “I didn’t know anything else. I was an asset. Not a child.”

I bite my lip, turning into a small parking lot with a retro-style diner on one side of it, a big sign that says Fran’s Drive-In out front.

It’s been here for decades, complete with red vinyl booths and waitresses on roller skates.

"This is where my dad brought me for my birthday every year.

Best hot dogs in South Florida, according to him. "

Caesar looks at the humble restaurant with its neon signs and checkered floor, and I can't read his expression. "You want to eat here?"

"You said you wanted to see my world." I turn off the engine. "This is it."

Inside, Fran's Drive-In is exactly as I remember it—slightly run-down but clean, filled with the smell of grilled onions and the sound of classic rock playing from a genuine jukebox.

The waitress who seats us looks like she's been here since the place opened, her gray hair teased into a puffy bun and her uniform a throwback to another era.

"What can I get you folks?" she asks, pulling out a pad and pencil.

"One regular dog with sauerkraut, one chili dog with onions," I say without looking at the menu. "A chocolate milkshake, and an order of fries to share."

"You got it, honey." The waitress turns to Caesar. "And for you?"

He's studying the menu with the intensity of someone trying to decode a foreign language. "I'll have the same," he says finally.

After she leaves, Caesar looks around the restaurant with obvious curiosity. "You really came here every year?"

"Every birthday from age five to eighteen.

" I slide into the red vinyl booth across from him.

"Dad said it was important to have traditions, things that stayed the same even when everything else was changing. He’d cook us holiday meals at home, even though it was just the two of us, had a different place that we went to for his birthday every year.

He liked sameness, routine. The comfort and stability of it. "

Caesar is looking at me with an expression I can’t entirely decipher. “He sounds like an incredible man.”