She’s silent on the ride to my house. At the last minute, I’d grabbed all of the extra bags of clothes and makeup and thrown them into the backseat. We’d be coming back to Pops’ house, that was for sure, but I wanted to be able to keep her to myself for as long as possible while we sorted all of this shit out.
Eva pipes up right when I’m about to turn off of the main road onto a gravel one that leads up to my house. The rest of the family all wanted to live relatively close to each other, but I knew that I’d need a private place to be able to get away from everything once in a while.
Even though my house isn’t more than twenty minutes from Pops, it feels like it’s in an entirely different world. It’s much smaller than I could have afforded, but it’s secluded by a lake and has a huge yard. Woods surround the property, which means that I don’t have any nosy neighbors peeking in on me, and I can’t hear anyone.
It’s heaven, and if I’m honest, I’m a bit nervous about taking Eva there. I’ve never taken a woman there before, especially not one that I think I may have a future with – one that I can’t get out of my mind.
“Are we almost there? Is this really your home or is it like a murder home or something?” She sounds a little nervous and I can’t help but smile at her.
“It’s my home. Not a murder home, don’t worry.” Even though I think that the question is ridiculous, I can kinda see why she may think that. Strange man, threatening family, murder attempt, secluded house? Murder home, definitely.
“Okay.” She blows out a breath of air and turns to look at me for the first time since we got in the car. “So, do you want to tell me why you’re taking me here? Why can’t we just hash things out where we were? And tell me again why I can’t go home.”
Chapter 17
Eva
It’s not that I don’t trust Roque, it’s that…well, okay. It’s that I don’t completely trust Roque. I mean, I want to. I look at him and I feel my heart flip in my chest in a way that it’s never done before, and he certainly does things to my body that nobody has ever done before, but that doesn’t mean that I want to go with him to his house in the middle of nowhere so we can…what? Talk.
Yeah, right.
He doesn’t answer my questions until he parks the car. The house we’re sitting in front of us a lot smaller than I would have thought that someone in the mafia would own, and there’s a pond off to the side. My heart leaps when I see an overrun garden near the house. It would look great if someone would clean it up, and I immediately think about how good it would feel to get my hands in the dirt when I stop myself.
I’m not here to work on his gardens, no matter how tempting that may be. I’m here because he’s taken me and he’s not going to let me free until he knows for sure that I’m not a threat.
“I brought you here, Eva, so that you and I can talk without being interrupted. Now, I’d like it very much if you walked with me to the house and didn’t cause a scene by trying to run away. If you do, I promise you that I will catch you, and I won’t be happy about it. Your choice.”
Nervously, I pick my purse up from the floorboard and nod at him. Okay. I’ll walk with him to the house. I already know how bad it can be to be tackled by one of these guys, and I’m not looking to add another injury to my list. Besides, even though I can put some weight on my ankle as long as I’m careful, running on it would surely cause me to go down. Hard.
“Great.” He’s out of the car in a flash and opens my door, reaching in to help me out. I have to suck in a breath at the fire that flames through me when we touch, and I get the feeling looking at his face that he feels the same thing. Well, at least I’m not alone in wanting to rip off his clothes.
There’s a short path to the house and then a great little front porch, where I wait while he unlocks the door. “Don’t you want to sit outside?” I ask him, but the look on his face tells me that he thinks that’s a stupid idea.
Right. I’m a runner, apparently.
“We’ll be more comfortable inside. Come on.” He holds the door for me and I hobble inside, a little scared, but also really interested to see exactly what his house looks like.
It’s…not what I’m expecting. There are huge windows all around the house, and they let in a ton of light, so even though he hasn’t turned on a lamp yet, the entire house is bright enough to easily see around. We’re in a living room, and there’s a comfy rug on the floor along with huge floor-to-ceiling bookcases in between the windows.
When I look to the right, I can see into the kitchen. Something smells good in there, and my stomach rumbles. Up until now, I hadn’t really realized how hungry I was. Sure, they gave me some things to eat before, but I wasn’t really in the mood to enjoy it. Now, all I want to do is each
