“I can…”
“Don’t say it.” I took Smoke’s hand from my face and he didn’t fight me. He let me get as far as the driver’s side, not stopping me when I threw Mateo’s diaper bag in through the open window. “I can’t let you go to battle for us. I won’t be responsible for all that—”
I was nearly to the entrance of my building, reaching my hand for the door, when Smoke grabbed my arm. He turned me and pressed me against its stone surface. “You don’t get to make that decision anymore. It’s not yours alone. You think you can come into my life, our lives and just walk away? You think you haven’t left a mark? You think there isn’t a person in my family who wouldn’t burn down the world to protect you and that baby?” He held my face still, his fingers tight, demanding. “No. This isn’t going down without me in the thick of it. Fuck that. I won’t let you do this shit without me.”
“It’s not your choice,” I told him, not caring that my voice was loud, that it was inching toward ten o’clock and there were still people leaving their jobs just blocks away from my building.
“Like hell it’s not!” he yelled, kissing me silent.
Smoke made me drunk with that kiss, taking his time, his tongue and teeth intoxicating me before he took it all away. He moved my chin up, staring in my eyes like he wanted to make sure he had my full attention. “I’ve never loved anything more than you and Mateo. You’re mine, both of you. I’m yours. You have to know that by now. I’m willing to give up my entire life here. I’m willing to run after you, to tell my fucking cousin I can’t help him, can’t do anything for him.” He stretched his head back, not making any sense at all to me. But Smoke didn’t stop. He didn’t give me any space to breathe either.
Instead, he leaned on his arm, pressing it against the wall at my head, his free hand in my hair. “I love you enough that I’m thinking stupid things, like telling the fucker who put a bullet in my most loyal man’s chest that he can have my business because all I care about is you and me and our…our boy. Everything is different with you, bella. I’m different with you. I’m not…” He shook his head and for a second I got lost in thought, in the moment, wondering what he wanted, who he could be with me. “You don’t expect me to be…” A long breath and he lowered his voice, the tone coming out in a rasp that had the air freezing in my lungs. “I’m only myself with you. Only you. There’s no criminal, no gangster. There’s only the man that loves you. There’s only…”
“Dimitri…” I said, the word sounding comfortable, familiar. He nodded once, wiping the tears from my lashes as they fell onto my cheek. All I could do was to grab his shirt and dip my head, holding onto him as I cried.
“I didn’t want any of this,” he said against the side of my face, his hands on the back of my head as he held me. “Not with you. Not with anyone, don’t you understand that?”
I lifted my head, my chin and mouth shaking.
“I just wanted to keep everyone safe, but fuck, I can’t do that and be who they need me to be, but I love you enough to walk away from it all. You and Mateo…to me, don’t you get it? You’re the only ones that matter anymore. I can’t let you climb into that car and drive away without a backward glance. I don’t work that way. I can’t.” Smoke pushed his eyebrows together, like he couldn’t believe anything coming out of his mouth. Like they were words someone else put there and he was helpless to keep from speaking them. “You got inside. You both did and I can’t…I won’t let you go.”
His thumbs were warm, soft against my cheeks when he rubbed my face there. I could make out the slightest glint in his eyes, thought maybe, it could have been moisture. But this was Smoke Carelli. He wasn’t a man who cried. Not ever.
“Alejandro…”
A hard frown returned to Dimitri’s mouth and he flexed his jaw as he stretched his neck. “Is a dead fucking man if he thinks he can take what’s mine, that’s a promise.”
“It…won’t be that simple.” The only reason I escaped him was because he’d been so strung out on whatever it was that he’d been taking. I’d always assumed he’d stayed that way for the past year. “If he’s gotten sober, then he’s a dangerous man.”
Smoke smiled, the same smile he reserved for me when I tried to leave his bed in the middle of the night. It meant he’d end up getting his way.
“I know you’re dangerous too…”
“Baby, you don’t know the half of it.” He lowered his smile but didn’t let it drop from his mouth.
I rested against the wall, taking his hand when he kissed my palm. “Maybe not, but if Alejandro is motivated and sober? Then we’re in trouble. He’s the most motivated man I’ve ever met when there’s something he wants.”
“You’re saying he wants you?”
He looked away when I shrugged, seeming indifferent about my non-answer until he grabbed me around my waist, kissing me one last time. “He’s too fucking late and I don’t give a shit what he wants. You and that baby,” he nodded toward the stairs, punctuating his point by pulling me close, “you are mine, same as I am yours. There’s no way I’m letting some drugged-out asshole take you away from me.” He stepped back, gripping my fingers in his hands. “Now come on.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, as he moved us to the building entrance.
Dimitri paused long enough to open the door and stretch out his arm for me to walk inside. “To get our boy and call-in reinforcements.” When I stopped, tugging on his hand, he grinned, holding up his palm to calm me. “Stop worrying. It’s not what you think.”
“And what am I thinking?”
He scratched the stubble on his chin and nodded me toward the lobby. “That I’m gonna lock you and the baby in a room with a bunch of no-neck guards sporting nines and wearing holsters.”
When I shot my eyebrows up and tilted my head, giving him a silent confirmation, the man laughed, rolling his eyes.
“Give me a little credit, yeah? I’ve got something scarier than that shit planned for your ex.”
“What the hell could be scarier than armed guards?” I asked, waiting as he pushed the call button for the elevator.
He grabbed me around the waist again, kissing me once before the doors opened. His laugh was calm, sweet and got lowered when I looked at him.
“Me, baby, and whatever the hell I come up with to protect what’s mine.”
14
Smoke
She was still nervous. Maggie clutched my hand as the elevator shot up the building, moving her fingers in a beat across the top on my hand. One two, one, two, until the skin on my knuckles itched.
I covered her fingers, grinning down at her. The woman smiled back, the same lazy, sweet gesture I got any time I’d done anything that made her feel good.
“You’re fine. Promise,” I told her, meaning it to put her at ease, calm her a little as the car stopped and the doors opened.