We spend the rest of the night like that, her body under mine, sweating and working and pressed together. I don’t know how many times I taste her, but by the time the sun’s coming up, I haven’t gotten my fill.

It’s Saturday morning. We get a few hours of sleep before I slip out of bed to make coffee and breakfast. She comes down about a half hour later, looking bleary-eyed from sleep, but with a smile on her face.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey. Sit down, I have toast, eggs, and coffee.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, grinning. “I could get used to this.”

“I bet you could.” I put a plate in front of her, fill one up for myself, and then sit down. I sip my coffee as she eats a little bit.

I don’t know how to broach this subject without freaking her out, but I’ve been thinking all night about how to keep her safe. I’ve come up with something, but I’m afraid it’ll seem insane. I don’t want her to think I’m suggesting this just to keep her close.

But on some selfish level, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I need to protect her and I can’t do that without being near her all the time.

“Listen, can we talk?” I say, breaking the short silence.

She looks up. “Sure. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “I just have a thought.”

“Have those often?” She grins a little bit.

I roll my eyes. “Listen, okay?”

“Go ahead.” She leans back in her chair, looking very serious. She’s so fucking sexy in just an old t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts, hair messy from bed. It’s almost not fair.

“Look, we talked about keeping you safe, now that… you know, they’ve seen you.”

She nods a little, frowning. “Yeah, I know.”

I decide just to blurt it out. “I think you should come live with me.”

She doesn’t react. She just stares at me for a second before grinning a little bit. “Yeah, right. Great idea.”

“I’m serious,” I say.

Her smile disappears again and she slowly shakes her head. “Elias, I can’t do that.”

“Why?” I lean toward her. “Hear me out. The only way I can really make sure these guys don’t fuck with you is if you’re always here with me.”

“It’s not like they know where I live,” she says.

I sigh. “They’ll figure it out pretty easily if they want to, Alexa,” I say. “Please, I’m not asking this for myself… although maybe it is for me, a little bit. But mostly it’s for you and for the baby.”

She looks away from me and is quiet for a little while. I want to make more arguments, hell, I want to fucking beg her to stay. I feel like if she goes back to her place, something bad will happen, and I won’t be able to get there fast enough to help. But if she’s here, I have a shot.

Finally, she looks back at me. “I’ll do it, but not for you or for me. I’ll do it because I think it’s the best thing for the baby.”

I nod, and I’m surprised. I didn’t know she felt that way about the baby. I figured she saw it as a problem, but maybe I’m totally mistaken. It was a surprise and a complication and yeah, maybe it’s a problem too, but… she’s clearly starting to care about it more than I bet she’s willing to admit.

“Okay,” I say. “That’s enough for me. As long as you’re here.”

“And we’re not just… you know,” she says. “Doing that all the time.”

I grin at her. “Why not?”

“I can’t… I don’t want this to become something else.” She looks down at her food again.

“And you’re afraid you’ll get addicted if I keep fucking you?”

She looks up at me fiercely. “Don’t be so cocky.”

“That’s it, though. You’re afraid you’ll get addicted to my cock. I think you already might be.”

“Don’t be crude. I’ll change my mind.”

I laugh but I hold up my hands. “Okay, okay. Don’t change your mind.”

She softens and smiles a little bit. “I’ll need to get some stuff from my apartment.”

“What, I don’t have everything you need already?”

“Believe it or not, your little bachelor pad isn’t equipped for a lady of my sophistication.”

That makes both of us laugh, but I know she’s right. She needs clothes and shoes and all the stuff she uses on a daily basis, and I can’t expect her to just go out and buy more. I can offer to buy it for her, but I suspect she’ll turn me down.

We finish eating breakfast and get dressed. She’s wearing her outfit from the day before, a little wrinkled but no worse for wear. I decide we’ll take my truck instead of the bike, since it’s a little less obvious. She climbs into the passenger seat and we head out.

Her place is a ten-minute drive. I slowly pull down toward her building, but I don’t stop.

“It’s right there, turn in there,” She says, pointing.

“Wait,” I answer, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling up. We drive past once, and I go to circle the block. We drive past again, and on the third pass, I park across the street.

“What are we doing?” she asks, a little worried.

“I was afraid of this,” I say. “Look. Right over there.”

I point toward the last car parked in the line in front of her building. She squints and stares at it. “It’s just a black SUV. So what?”

“Watch.”

She stares for a second then takes a sharp breath.

“Did you see him?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says softly.

“It’s Jimmy. One of the guys that were shaking down the mayor yesterday. I wasn’t sure when I first passed him, but it’s him.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Could be a coincidence, but… I doubt it.”

She groans and puts her head in her hands. “This can’t be happening.”

I rub her back slowly. I don’t say this out loud, but there’s something else bothering me. Jimmy and Vito always come as a pair, that’s just how the mafia does things. You have a partner, and your partner keeps you in check, helps keep you safe. It’s the buddy system for violent criminals.

But I don’t see Vito anywhere, and as we sit here in the truck, he doesn’t appear. He could be inside her apartment right now, flipping through it, but I have a weird feeling that he’s not.

Which means Jimmy’s here on his own, and that’s a bad thing. If Jimmy suspects Alexa of being more than just an unsuspecting bystander, then things really could get dicey.

“Let’s just watch for a little longer,” I say softly. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, breathing deep, trying to get herself together.

We sit and we wait. It’s tense and quiet, and I can tell Alexa just wants to get the hell out of here, but we wait. Ten minutes turns into a half hour, and eventually Jimmy drives off. We turn away, making sure he doesn’t spot us, and I doubt he’d recognize my truck since I rarely bring it out of my house’s garage.

“Is he gone?” she asks.

“He’s gone. We can go inside.”

She sighs. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. But make it fast, okay?”

“Okay.” She looks at me, eyes wide. “Fuck, Elias.”

“I know.” I lean forward and kiss her softly without thinking. “Just go. I’ll keep watch. You’ll be fine.”

She nods and leaves, heading into her building.

Vito never showed up. Unless he’s up there waiting for her, that means Jimmy was just watching this place on his own, staking it out. Clearly, he lost patience, but who knows how long he was out here.

Alexa comes back not long later with two duffel bags. She tosses them in the back and then gets up front.

“Let’s go,” she says.

“Did it look like anyone was inside?”

She shakes her head. “No. It looked fine.”

“Good.” I put the truck into gear and pull out.

This is fucking bad. It’s one thing for the pair of them to follow up on the Alexa thing. She saw something she shouldn’t have seen, and they’ll have to make sure she’s not talking or visiting with people she shouldn’t be. That’s just a routine check that these guys go through sometimes, and I bet they have a whole list of houses they stake out and harass from time to time.

But just Jimmy… I’m not sure what that means. He suspects something, but maybe Vito doesn’t? That’s bad, because without Vito, I think Jimmy is a violent piece of shit, liable to do something drastic.

I can’t tell Alexa this. It’ll just make things even worse. Instead, I’ll keep her at my place and make sure that the piece of shit gangster Jimmy never gets close to her again. I’ll kill the bastard myself if he tries to touch her.

And for some reason, I think it just might come down to that.