J.D., however, surprised the crap out of her by coming to sit on the side of her bed and taking her hand. "You know that big lug loves you, don't you?"
Ally scowled. Lovely. Advice from the lovelorn. She extracted her hand from his.
"I know that you're mad at him, but he wasn't trying to hurt you. He was using that information to keep track of that—was it Frank—guy who wanted to hurt you."
He'd as much as told her that, himself, not that she was inclined to believe either one of them.
"You should go home with him. Let him make amends. He's been here for you every second. I bet he's done that for you before in your life. You two have known each other for a while." He took a breath, then caught her eye and asked, "Do you really think he was trying to be underhanded in gathering that information?"
J.D. was aware of Enzo's occupation, although he had let it be known that he didn't approve. Ally hadn't told him that she, too, had been the head of a crime family, if a much, much smaller one.
He could have been trying to take over her family—which he did eventually, anyway. She supposed that he had ample opportunity to use the information he'd gathered against her, but he never had. But even if he hadn't meant to harm her with his spying, she didn't like the sheer invasion of her privacy.
"Think about it, please," he said, getting up just as Enzo came back in, looking determined.
"All right, Ally, enough is enough," Enzo said then.
He reached down and lifted her out of bed, stalking out through the door with her in his arms. "Where are you taking me?" she asked indignantly. "Put me down!"
He tucked her into the back of a limousine that she would have sworn wasn't there ten minutes ago and told the driver to go.
"But my things—"
"I'll buy you new ones."
"No, you won't!" she yelled back at him, sitting stiffly on his lap, royally pissed at him on several fronts now.
But that was until he melted his lips onto hers. It had been so long! Her body had already forgiven him, and those familiar cravings came to the forefront, where they had always been with him. But she wouldn't. She couldn't give in to him.
Although she was struggling against the both of them, Ally pushed against his chest and was surprised when he let her lean away from him. "No, Enzo! You can't do this to me."
He lifted her chin with the tip of his finger and stared deeply into her eyes as he said, "You are mine. I can do anything I want to you, by your own words—multiple times. And I would never, ever do anything on purpose to hurt you, Ally. If you don't remember anything else, please remember that. I slept on a couch that was like cruel and inhumane punishment, I've agonized over where you were for the past eighteen months and whether you were okay or sick or hurting, or if you'd found someone else, and at first, when I found out where you were, I wanted to kill J.D. because you were so obviously happy and I thought you two were more to each other than you were. And I thought—long and hard—about whether or not I could let you go, let you find happiness without me. And, well, I guess you know the answer to that."
He kissed her again, softly, coaxing a response from her that she didn't want to give, but that the rest of her was dying to.
"Please forgive me. I love you. Come back and be my wife and my love and my submissive, not necessarily in that order."
Ally didn't know what to say. Forgiving him hadn't ever really entered her mind. She'd spent the majority of her time entertaining revenge fantasies, not reunion scenes between them. She didn't really know what to say, and he could see it plainly in her eyes.
"Come home with me."
It wasn't a question.
The home he meant wasn't necessarily his cabin, either. She found that he had bought and moved into her parents' place and had even gone so far as to buy the contents of the storage units she'd rented and then let lapse, whether consciously or unconsciously.
"We can live in either place," he said. "I thought you might want to stay here, although it's your decision."
He had been a perfect gentleman from the limo ride to the private jet he'd hired—he'd been romantic and affectionate, but he hadn't pressed for a resumption of their intimate relationship on any level—submission or not.
Ally was surprised that she was as glad to be back as she was. She'd thought all she would ever feel about these places was pain, but she was wrong. There were a lot of good memories, too, and he was a part of lots of them.
Especially those they had made at the cabin. She glanced up at him, suddenly feeling unusually shy, not sure exactly where they stood with each other now. "I think I'd prefer to live at the cabin."
His eyes lit up. It was her first real acknowledgment of what he'd said to her in the limo.
He waited until they were there and he had closed and locked the door behind them, barely able to comprehend that she was back in this house with him, before he captured her left hand and slid the rings he'd carried with him ever since he'd discovered them on his bureau, back onto her fingers.
Then he kissed the tips of her fingers, saying reverently, with everything he felt for her in his voice and his eyes, "You are mine."
Her smile was the biggest he'd seen on her face in quite some time. But she didn't give him the desired response immediately, and he was in no mood to wait. He hauled her up against him and put his hand over her
