“You mean, how long have we been watching a kid’s movie without the kid?”
I chuckled. “I guess we can get out of here.”
“I’ll go first. Do you think you can hand her to me gently?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, I think I’ll throw her like a football.”
Sarah reached over Alexis to shove my shoulder, and even the playful contact sent a thrill through my body. She had no idea how much I still wanted her.
I couldn’t help checking out her ass as she crawled out of the fort, and I continued to stare as she stood straight andarched her back, stretching her arms over her head after being in a tight space for so long. Her T-shirt rode up, revealing a couple inches of smooth skin at her waist.
Fuck.My fingers itched to touch her again. I wanted to run my tongue along that strip of exposed skin and then go lower. I’d bury my head between her legs and make her forget that any time had passed since the night we spent together.
But Alexis shifted on the pillow next to me, letting out a little sigh in her sleep, and I remembered that time hadpassed. Years.
So, I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and carefully lifted Alexis’s little body, making sure to support her head as I cradled her against my chest. Shuffling forward on my knees, I handed her over to Sarah. In that moment our eyes met, and it almost felt like we were a team.
Then she turned away, and the moment was broken.
While she took Alexis to the bedroom that they were sharing, I took apart the fort, returning the chairs to the dining room and stacking the pillows and folded blankets on the couch. I’d just finished cleaning up when Sarah came back downstairs.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said when she saw I’d taken care of the mess.
“Yeah, I did.” I didn’t elaborate, but I saw an understanding flash in her eyes.
“I guess having us around is different from how you usually live, huh? I’ve noticed that it’s very… clean here.”
She didn’t say the word ‘clean’ like it was necessarily a good thing. As if she were talking about the cold and lifeless sterility of a hospital or laboratory. I thought about her home, the brief glimpse that I’d gotten of it. It was a little cluttered, butit was warm and lived in. Unlike my home, which was decorated by a stranger.
“I’ve always liked to keep things neat,” I said.
What I didn’t tell her was that I used to keep things obsessively neat, and it started when I was a kid. I’d spent so long in an abusive household that was always completely out of my control, and at some point along the way, I began to focus much of my energy on one of the few things I could do to have some influence over my environment, one of the only things that didn’t piss my old man off.
From the time I was ten years old, I tried to keep my space as tidy as possible. I didn’t understand the impulse at the time, but now, nearly three decades later, I understood that I was so desperate to take someform of control over my own life that I latched onto orderliness as a way to feel like I wasn’t completely powerless.
Of course, I didn’t still need to live that way. There was no big, bad bully in my life anymore. My father was dead and gone.
But the memories of him lingered. It didn’t matter that I was thirty-eight years old and the head of a powerful criminal organization. There were times when I still took comfort in having a tidy home because it put me at ease in a way I didn’t quite understand. I didn’t know if it was just an old habit or if I had some unresolved trauma from my past, and I didn’t really want to know.
Some things were better left alone. I didn’t like to think too much about my past or the shit my father put me through.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I know having us here must be such a change for you. Maybe we should just go home—”
“No.” My voice was firm, and she snapped her mouth shut. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
Her eyes widened, and I wondered what she saw in my expression. Did she see the way I hungered for her?
“Why?” she asked breathlessly.
“It’s safe here.”
“But you haven’t explained why that matters to you. I’m the witness in the case against you. If anything, you want me to—”
“No,” I cut her off, gripping her upper arms as I stepped closer to her so that only an inch separated our chests. “I want you safe. I don’t give a shit about your testimony as long as you tell the truth.”
As I said those words, I knew they were true. I had little faith in the justice system, but I trusted Viktor. It was all circumstantial evidence against me, the defense may raise concerns about my involvement in organized crime, but there was nothing to connect me or my men to the murder of Sarah’s boss. I needed to know what she’d say on the stand, and of course, it would be much better for me if she didn’t lie about seeing me kill her boss, but I wouldn’t trade her safety for my own freedom. I just didn’t know how to explain that to her because I didn’t understand it myself.
“I’m going to have a drink,” I said, changing the subject. I turned and started toward the kitchen. “Do you want anything?”