Page 13 of Spring Break with a Mafia Prince
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I got carried away.”
She stared up at me with luminous eyes the color of the sea beneath a stormy sky. “You don’t need to apologize to me,” she whispered, repeating my own words from earlier back at me.
“Don’t I?”
I kissed her again, finding her clothes and dressing her like a doll before I forgot my silent promise to her, laid her out and taught her everything I knew about pleasure and how many edges there were to the strange shape of it.
Because this girl was mine in every way and I'd be damned if I let one day with her ever be enough.
She tucked herself against me, her arms wrapped around my waist, cheek resting against my chest as she stood on trembling legs inside the circle of my arms as I directed the boat home.
The long way around.
CHAPTER FIVE
BELLA
My peace lasted as long as the walk to the door to the beach house where Falcon refused to let go, kissing me long after was probably socially acceptable, except that neither of us cared any longer. I’d only met him the night before. Already he’d broken through barriers I spent years erecting around myself in a bid to keep out creepers and stalkers…and sweethearts like himself that were destined to break untried hearts like mine.
He finally let me go, his eyes reflecting the claim that he didn’t state in so many words but that his touch conveyed anyway. His hold tightened at the last minute as he reeled me back into his chest. “Tonight. Tomorrow. I need to see you again.”
I laughed and batted at him, but it wasn’t like I was trying that hard to extricate myself from his embrace. “I need to sleep.Youneed to sleep.” I pushed at his shoulder when he kissed along my throat and sighed, too blissed out to really care.
“I’ll live without sleep. Or we can find a place to snooze together. Picnic?” He raised his head and waggled his eyebrows.
“Deal.” I grinned as his eyes lit up. “You’re insatiable. In a few days.Afteryou have slept. Promise.” I kissed him lightly and letmyself into the house while he was still professing undying love of some random description at the base of top flight of the beach house stairs.
I hoped he didn’t trip over himself and tumble several flights as he walked backwards, still waving to me like a lovelorn.
Aren’t we?
And cue worry. That’s all it took for my anxiety to spike. I watched him cross the road and head away from the house, down the hill and back to the marina. Actually, my preference would have been to watch him walk all the way to the marina where he would have been the size of an ant in the end from my point of view, but a voice from the back of their house pulled my attention away from his spectacular frame.
“Dad?” I called, wandering through the level I was on.
I placed Falcon’s hoodie that he still wouldn’t let me return on the marble benchtop in the kitchen. I checked the study, but that was empty too, through the desk was messy, like he had been working in there earlier. “Where are you?”
It took me a flight up the stairs to the bedrooms, then down a different flight of stairs into the living area below and out the back to the ground level garage below to find him standing in a darkened corner, tapping away at his phone.
“Dad? What are you doing all the way down here?” As far as I knew, he had never touched the tool chests or any of the mechanical equipment that came with the house, gifted on from the previous owner who didn’t want to take anything with them.
He mumbled something, and as I inched closer, I noted the half empty bottle of liquor with a label I couldn't make out in the dim light standing by his side.
“Are you okay?” I reached for the bottle and slid it off the workbench, placing it on the level below and behind something, not taking my eyes off him. “Why don’t you come upstairs? I just got home. I’ll make something for dinner.” Guilt assuaged mefor staying out so late and having fun with Falcon when Dad was home, drinking away his grief on his own.
“Dinner?” He peered at me from squinted, watery eyes. “Is it that late?”
“Yep.” I took his arm, slipped his phone into my pocket when he didn’t protest, and steered him up the stairs. “Come on. One at a time. What would you like to eat?”
“I was looking at photos of your mother. I miss her.” His voice cracked as he hugged me, one armed.
Which would have been sweet, but he was drunk, twice my size, and we were on the stairs and it wasn't working out well. At all.
“Okay, this is good. Let’s keep on moving.” After a day on the water and what Falcon did with his tongue—my God, could that man kiss and…other things…I struggled to stand, let alone manage my father’s weight.
We made it to the second story without side effects—like death—by some utter miracle. I parked him on the sofa, pulled off his shoes and threw some sports channels on without checking what was playing. If he didn't like it, he could fix it. But I doubted he was paying much attention at this point, either.
“She had blonde hair. Just like yours.” He patted me lightly, though his attention waned.
