“You were going to ask Bahbie if she could accept Brunei dollahs,” he said with a dry laugh. “What’d she say?”
I chuckled. “She said yes.”
He slapped his hand against the countertop. “I contanti, per favore.”
The goombah dropped the bag onto the counter, unzipped it, and began slapping banded stacks of bills onto the marble surface, side by side. When the stack was so high I could barely peer over the top of it, I shifted my attention from the money to Vinnie.
“Do I want to know where this came from?” I asked with a laugh.
“The money’s clean,” Vinnie said, seeming irritated that I said anything. “There’s one more thing, though.”
I doubted his response regarding the cash was completely true. There was a reason he had sixty million dollars in Brunei ten-thousand-dollar notes. I didn’t press the issue. If Teddi was okay with the deal, I needed to be, too. I scanned the stacks of bills in disbelief and met his stone-faced gaze.
“What is it?” I asked. “The other thing?”
He tilted his head toward Paulie. “The house goes in Paulie’s name.”
“I’m not sure if we can—”
He waved the back of his hand at the display of cash. “O mangiar questa minestra o saltar questa finestra.”
My brows raised. “Translation?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Take this soup or jump out the fuckin’ window.”
I gave him a look of disbelief. “You’re saying, take it or leave it?”
“We’ll take it,” Teddi said from behind me.
Chapter Sixteen
Teddi
A sense of serenity washed over me. I stretched my arms wide. Like an eagle soaring over a wide open plain, I sailed over the six-lane-wide stretch of pavement without an ounce of worry.
“This is crazy!” I shouted. “We’re flying.”
Devin cocked his head to the side. “This is about as close as you can get.”
In fulfilling my promise to do so, I was on the back of Devin’s Harley as we rode along a winding road that connected North Naples to Bonita Springs. We weren’t traveling much more than forty miles an hour, but it was enough to give me a sense of what it was like to fly.
The wind enveloped me. The aroma of the summer’s flowers tickled my nostrils. The palm trees that lined the sides of the street swooshed past. A crew of landscapers in the distance pruned hedges and replaced withered flowers with new ones. I closed my eyes as the aroma of freshly cut grass filled the air. The sights, sounds, and smells that accompanied a motorcycle ride were more than my mind could come to grips with.
He twisted the throttle and accelerated past a soccer mom in a BMW. The sound from the exhaust echoed off the side of her SUV. As we passed, she stared straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel like her life depended on it.
The tattoos and stern look etched on Devin’s face was enough to ward off those who felt they might want to approach as he walked through crowds and past patrons of fine-dining establishments. On the highway, the ear-piercing drone from his motorcycle’s exhaust obviously served as a warning to those within earshot that the man with his hands draped over the sky-high handlebars wasn’t one to be fucked with.
I felt powerful and protected on the back of his motorcycle. Like I too couldn’t be intimidated by the lesser humans who dared to occupy the roads in their cages constructed of steel and glass.
My desire to please Devin had opened my eyes—and my mind—to accepting changes in my life. So far, he hadn’t steered me in the wrong direction. I hoped our future together was equally as eye-opening and free of regret as our past had been.
“This is crazy,” I said. “I can’t believe it took me this long to do this.”
He coasted to a stop at a traffic light. “It’s the best way I’ve found to clear my mind.”
Over the years, I’d seen many bikers stopped at beaches, bars, and alongside the highway as they passed through Naples on their way to who knows where. The men—like the motorcycles they rode—all differed. Each of them, however, possessed the same look.
One of being content.
In the twenty minutes that we’d traveled on Devin’s two-wheeled wonder, I felt that I’d somehow managed to join those men. Although we were separated by time and distance, we now shared the very same experience of obtaining a sense of tranquility that could only be derived from a ride on the open road.
A few minutes later, we parked across the street from Devin’s favorite coffee shop. A handful of people were seated outside. Sad that we’d stopped but eager to sit down with Devin and express how much I enjoyed our trip, I relaxed against the seat’s backrest and ogled the patrons. Some drank from wineglasses while others sipped their drinks from porcelain coffee cups.
Devin turned off the engine and leaned the motorcycle onto the kickstand. After getting off, he extended his hand to help me do the same. Upon seeing the satisfaction plastered all over my face, he grinned.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
I stepped off the motorcycle and into the narrow curb-side parking lane. I realized in doing so that half an hour with an eight-hundred-pound vibrator between my legs had done wonders in stimulating my nether region.
In short, my panties were soaked.
“This is embarrassing.” I tugged against the inner thighs of my jeans. “I’m soaking wet.”
He pulled me into him and kissed me. He slid his hand into the waist of my jeans. The tip of his finger gently grazed the length of my wetness. I pulled my mouth from his and gave him a dirty look.
“Are you really going to tease me like that?” I asked. “Right here?”
He pushed his finger beyond my wet folds. I sucked an uneven breath. He inserted another. I winced.
“Is that better?” he asked.
I ached for him to finger me into oblivion.
I closed my eyes and bucked my hips, forcing my wet pussy against his hand. He obliged, pushing his fingers deeper until the tips tickled my G-spot. He curled them repeatedly, grazing the hypersensitive flesh with each motion. Euphoria smothered me, stripping me of my ability to resist. With each stroke of his fingers, I grew closer to climax. I was seconds from an earth-shattering orgasm when a car whizzed past, the rush of air in its wake a reminder that we were standing in a public street.
I opened my eyes.
Many of the coffee shop’s patrons were unaware I was two finger strokes away from reaching climax, while others seemed all too interested in what we were doing. Being fingered while I stood in the narrow two-lane road wasn’t the best of ideas.
I glared, but in a playful way. “You make me mad.”
He smirked. “Do I?”
“You’re starting something you can’t finish,” I complained. “So yes, you do.”
He pressed his fingertips into my G-spot. “Why can’t I finish it?”
“We’re standing in the street,” I whispered, my body shuddering as I spoke. I nodded toward the patio in the distance. “And there are people over there. A few of them are watching us.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Do I look like I give a fuck?”