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His eye twitches. Clapping a palm to his face, he mutters, “Right. How foolish of me.” Adamant, he straightens, points, commands, “Get ready to go.”
“Get ready to go, please?”
His eyes roll skyward, but I get a begrudging please out of him, so I do as I’m told.
Chapter 17
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Living with the monster—AKA…a…mafia romance?
Rowan
Briar Rosanera always gets her way.
The bullet point in my notes app reads more like a thesis statement than I’m entirely comfortable with. Unfortunately, the space following the line is distressingly bare. No further information explains the fact even if countless events thus far support it.
Per Briar’s request, I took her to dinner last night. After she somehow convinced the hostess two people who weren’t following the dress code belonged among the dim candlelight, live classical music, and seven-course meal, we ate and returned home. To my bedroom. Where I, for some uncanny reason, relinquished my bed in favor of the cot I managed to set up in the corner without anyone noticing.
At the very least, staring at the wall spared me from staring too long at whatever silken scrap of a nightgown she was wearing.
While we’re here clothes shopping, I should insist she get some new pajamas. Something thick. Flannel. Patterned.
Sighing, I cast a glance at the elegant boutique and shift my weight on the bench beside the dressing rooms. The vast displays and blinding white light make me sick, so I pour my attention back into the impromptu essay I’m formulating.
Briar Rosanera always gets her way.
Whenever someone attempts to defy her, she goes still for a moment—plastic smile in place. In the very next instant, things fall together. She’s a puppet master, and the world is full of marionettes.
“Pet!” she calls, and my stomach sours. “I need help.”
My eyes close briefly. “What do you mean you need help?”
The dressing room beside me unlatches, and her head pokes out. “I need you to zip me up.”
I stare at Briar as she pushes her short hair over her ear. The dark strands fall loose before she so much as completes the action, and the urge to fix them consumes me. “If it’s too small, take it off and throw it over the door. I’ll get you the next size up.”
She stills—plastic smile in place—and my stomach dips. In the next moment, she’s stepping out of the dressing room in something I can classify as a normal dress. No lace. No frills. No sleeves… No…skirt. The bare slice of her back—gaping between the zipper—hits me before I can compute how little fabric she’s wearing. “It fits. It’s just one of those stupid thin zippers that get stuck.
A swear hisses from my lips, and I scan the store for wandering eyes. Only other women. Chatting amongst themselves. We are invisible. Somehow. Somehow, because Briar is so beautiful it seems as though she should conduct her own center of gravity and draw the attention of anything and everything with a pulse.
She looks over her shoulder at me.
I’m not certain I’m breathing when our eyes meet.
Her smile falls. “You hate it.”
“Can we not get you some decent sets of shirts and pants?” Air pulls through my lungs.
“You said you wanted me to get normal clothes. Dresses are normal. At one point, it’s all women were allowed to wear.”
“I’ve seen you in pants.”
“You’ve seen me in a jumpsuit, and I still have it, too. We can swing by The Giungla and pick my torture clothes up if that’s what you’d prefer.”
Prefer is once again a very strong word to use here. I don’t think I know what to do with myself when she’s in either style. Picturing her in this, what she normally wears, or her torture garb every day in front of Veleno men puts me on edge.
Something intrinsic within me revolts at the very notion.
