Is he as big where it counts as he is everywhere else? I’ll bet he can go all night.”
I can feel myself blushing. “He’s—”
“That good. I am jealous.” She pauses for a moment before perking up. “So you should give him a chance. You can train him a little and maybe then he will be everything you want.”
“He’s not a pair of shoes I can just buy,” I protest.
Do I really want Xander Volkov? He is a dangerous, hard man—a man who waited six years for me and then has looked out for me every step of the way since. He’s not a nice guy. He won’t be easy. He doesn’t talk about feelings or emotions—and I don’t know if that is because he believes he doesn’t have them or if he just doesn’t have the vocabulary. He will never be a guy man. He will always be more, the head of his family, and a power to be reckoned with.
Delia regards me with sympathetic eyes. “It is not simple, being married to a mob boss.”
“Is that why you’re single?”
She wrinkles her nose. “I would need to learn to take orders and that is not something that has ever interested me.”
“And you think I could?” I can’t help laughing at her.
She grins back. “I think you could pretend better than I could. I would never be able to keep a straight face. But I do have my eye on someone. Perhaps we make a merger, or maybe I will just take advantage of his very talented penis. I am open to negotiation on this point.”
I suspect I am open to negotiating with one particular mob king. Xander is who his circumstances have taught him to be. He sees life as a series of opportunities, negotiations, and hostile take overs. He is a Mafia king, but I hope he is more. Maybe he can also be a man who loves me. And maybe I can be the woman who loves him and has his back.
Point in case? After Delia struts out of my house, her four-inch Louboutins firmly back on her feet, I go down to the private dock. I’ve decided I should learn to boat. Since I’m new to the mob life (and sticking to strictly legal enterprise anyhow) and can’t afford a gazillion-dollar yacht, I have a dinghy. The Wishful Thinking is a mere ten feet long and it took three bottles of nail polish to paint her name onto her beat-up aluminum side. But she has a tiller and sails and seats for two—she’s definitely a boat. Unfortunately, making her go in a particular direction still eludes me.
I consult my rather damp copy of Sailing for Dummies. It turns out they do make that book, and it has been invaluable.
At least now I know there are two-hundred-plus pages of instructions that I haven’t mastered. The Craigslist guy who sold me the dinghy promised me that the Wishful Thinking was extremely responsive and that she’d feel each touch on the tiller and any trim to her sails. I nodded and forked over cash. What I subsequently discovered is that dinghies sit low in the water—and so I get wet and then wetter each time I sail. It’s also important to pay attention to where I park my butt. One foot too far left or right, and the Wishful Thinking likes to dump my ass into the ocean and then she’s painfully difficult to right.
I have managed to get my dinghy twenty feet from the dock when I look up. Maybe my body has some built-in proximity alarm because I’m painfully, wonderfully aware that Xander is standing there at the end of my dock. He looks breathtakingly handsome and large in an expensive suit and tie—maybe he has come straight from a business meeting? He eyes my poor dinghy.
“What the fuck, Lily?”
These are not the romantic words I have dreamed of. Perhaps they were not the words he planned on saying either because he curses and his hands tighten by his side. Good. He’s screwed up and I want him to know that. I am not a sure thing, even if he and my father conspired when I was sixteen. I have choices and it’s my life.
I yank the ropes hard because I can’t kick the man standing so arrogantly on the dock and I certainly can’t
I can feel myself blushing. “He’s—”
“That good. I am jealous.” She pauses for a moment before perking up. “So you should give him a chance. You can train him a little and maybe then he will be everything you want.”
“He’s not a pair of shoes I can just buy,” I protest.
Do I really want Xander Volkov? He is a dangerous, hard man—a man who waited six years for me and then has looked out for me every step of the way since. He’s not a nice guy. He won’t be easy. He doesn’t talk about feelings or emotions—and I don’t know if that is because he believes he doesn’t have them or if he just doesn’t have the vocabulary. He will never be a guy man. He will always be more, the head of his family, and a power to be reckoned with.
Delia regards me with sympathetic eyes. “It is not simple, being married to a mob boss.”
“Is that why you’re single?”
She wrinkles her nose. “I would need to learn to take orders and that is not something that has ever interested me.”
“And you think I could?” I can’t help laughing at her.
She grins back. “I think you could pretend better than I could. I would never be able to keep a straight face. But I do have my eye on someone. Perhaps we make a merger, or maybe I will just take advantage of his very talented penis. I am open to negotiation on this point.”
I suspect I am open to negotiating with one particular mob king. Xander is who his circumstances have taught him to be. He sees life as a series of opportunities, negotiations, and hostile take overs. He is a Mafia king, but I hope he is more. Maybe he can also be a man who loves me. And maybe I can be the woman who loves him and has his back.
Point in case? After Delia struts out of my house, her four-inch Louboutins firmly back on her feet, I go down to the private dock. I’ve decided I should learn to boat. Since I’m new to the mob life (and sticking to strictly legal enterprise anyhow) and can’t afford a gazillion-dollar yacht, I have a dinghy. The Wishful Thinking is a mere ten feet long and it took three bottles of nail polish to paint her name onto her beat-up aluminum side. But she has a tiller and sails and seats for two—she’s definitely a boat. Unfortunately, making her go in a particular direction still eludes me.
I consult my rather damp copy of Sailing for Dummies. It turns out they do make that book, and it has been invaluable.
At least now I know there are two-hundred-plus pages of instructions that I haven’t mastered. The Craigslist guy who sold me the dinghy promised me that the Wishful Thinking was extremely responsive and that she’d feel each touch on the tiller and any trim to her sails. I nodded and forked over cash. What I subsequently discovered is that dinghies sit low in the water—and so I get wet and then wetter each time I sail. It’s also important to pay attention to where I park my butt. One foot too far left or right, and the Wishful Thinking likes to dump my ass into the ocean and then she’s painfully difficult to right.
I have managed to get my dinghy twenty feet from the dock when I look up. Maybe my body has some built-in proximity alarm because I’m painfully, wonderfully aware that Xander is standing there at the end of my dock. He looks breathtakingly handsome and large in an expensive suit and tie—maybe he has come straight from a business meeting? He eyes my poor dinghy.
“What the fuck, Lily?”
These are not the romantic words I have dreamed of. Perhaps they were not the words he planned on saying either because he curses and his hands tighten by his side. Good. He’s screwed up and I want him to know that. I am not a sure thing, even if he and my father conspired when I was sixteen. I have choices and it’s my life.
I yank the ropes hard because I can’t kick the man standing so arrogantly on the dock and I certainly can’t
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