Page 113 of Protection (Mobsters + Billionaires 2)
ANTHONY
Madsand I take the short elevator ride down to Luca's apartment. Not gonna lie—he's looking cute in his summer cardigan, but I am missing the orange puffer jacket.
God, don't tell him that.
Thankfully, it should be back from the cleaners by tomorrow.
“So I take it you haven’t minded the longer trip into work these last few weeks?” I ask as we step off the elevator.
“I get to ride in with you,” he says, kissing my jaw. “So I don’t mind it at all.”
“You do know you own an entire building, right? With a retinal scanner and everything.”
“Yeah, but it's missing a pretty crucial amenity.”
“A pool?” I ask, tickling his ribs.
“Nope,” he chokes out, squirming away from me.
I cluck my tongue. “You also don't have a gym, which is a little disappointing.”
Mads shakes his head, shifting away from my questing fingers with a giggle. “That’s not it.”
Grabbing him, I yank him to me, and his eyes widen in arousal. Temporarily distracted, I stop in the hallway to pull him into a kiss. And another. And another.
Dizzy, wanting to drag him back up to my apartment, I growl, “I wonder what it could be?”
“Easy,” he says, tickling my ribs, making me jerk away. He winks and then smooths a hand over the ticklish spot. “A dangerously stern, rule-following man is conspicuously absent from the picture.”
Of course, we’re playing around here, but his sweetly delivered admission sends soft currents running through my body.
“I dunno.” I pick him up, loving how he automatically wraps his legs around me as I push him against the wall next to Luca’s door. “You've been staying every night in my cramped little apartment. How can you maintain your billionaire elite status slumming around with me?”
Mads, pinned against the wall as he is, smiles as though I’ve stepped into a perfectly laid trap. He points to the two doors opposite Luca’s apartment.
“As it happens, these two are for sale.”
I’m going in for another kiss when the meaning of his words hits me. “Wait. You would really buy these apartments?”
There’s that bitten-lip-scrunchy-face thing he does when he knows he’s done something off-protocol.
“Maddie?” I ask, squaring my jaw while raising a brow.
I further emphasize my question with a hip roll, and he lets his head drop back to the wall behind him, panting.
“Okay, fine,” he concedes, bringing his head forward, his seductive, fucking manipulative eyes nailing me with a self-satisfied look. “I already have.”
“Mads! Are you insane?” I ask, kissing him because…well, I’ve already mentioned the eyes and the legs wrapped around my waist.
“Maybe,” he shrugs, kissing me. “Or maybe I’m just in love—really in love—for the first time in my life.”
“Baby, I would've moved in with you. You didn’t have to buy something here.” I freeze up, hoping I’m not jumping to the wrong conclusions. “If that's what you're talking about,” I say, looking off to the side.
His hands come to my face, forcing me to look into his expressive eyes. They’re steady, serious.
“That is exactly what I'm talking about. The fact of the matter is, you run your business out of this building. And your relationship with Luca is really important, so it's important to me. A building is a building. But a home…well, that is something entirely different.”
“And that's what you want with me? A home?”
