The Carrero Contract - Finding Freedom (Book 3 of Contract Trilogy)

34

The rest of dinner is anticlimactic, uneventful and about as interesting as the fifteen minutes we spent in the ladies' room making polite strained conversation. Everyone seems to be on their best behaviour after the interlude and the meal goes on with no more drama.

It's not exactly riveting company or thrilling conversation. The majority is discussing the casino, family, New York and stock markets. I swear, for a moment, I forgot Alexi is even a crime lord at all when he can be exceedingly convincing at playing boring businessman and plays nice with imbeciles and their puppy dog wives.

Alessandra and Gino are itching to get the night going, I can sense it seeping from them. Alessandra told me in the bathroom we are heading out to a club after this, just the four of us. To party the night away and I'm not complaining, after spending most of the day in bed. I want to experience a night out like we had in Miami with the way Alexi and I are now. I think it would increase the enjoyment tenfold, being able to curl on his lap and get crazily drunk and horny before letting him carry me back to our shared bed.

That has me excited with anticipation for a good fun filled night, drunken crazy sex with my hot Italian and then lazing away in bed with him as we recover. Sounds like heaven.

I still really love the fact that I get to sleep beside him every night. It's weird, something I'm not used to and a complete novelty I'm still in the throes of treasuring. I never thought I would ever look forward to sharing a bed with a man on a long-term basis, let alone actually want to be in a relationship with one. I never thought I had it in me to not run a thousand miles from a man trying to trap me into his life this way, yet here I am. Not even attempting an escape.

The opposite in fact. I look forward to climbing into bed with him, even if all we do is curl up close and sleep. It's a connection like no other and takes trust to be that vulnerable beside someone else, from both sides. Sleeping nose to nose while wrapped up cutely.

I find myself glancing his way through dinner and dessert, even when we move to after-dinner drinks. Listening to him and his men talk and just bask in his presence. Enjoying being able to relax beside him, watch him and be secure in knowing that afterwards, I get to have him all alone and monopolise his attention. Nothing terrifying or sadistic, just tender and safe. My Lexi from his bolthole, the version I was afraid was a one-off. It's not. He is with me always and I'm starting to realise he is always under that mask, ready to reassure me in tiny ways when I get worried about how he seems.

He isn't the dual personality I once thought him.

His little looks in return are not lost on me, neither is the subtle way his hand occasionally strays under the table to stroke my thigh or rest on my knee. Little intimate touches kept under wraps just to tell me he likes me by his side. Reinforcing the fact that no matter how Mr Mafia he seems on the surface; his heart still beats for me inside that body. That little shining, flickering candle that never goes out.

Outwardly he seems like he always does, smooth, unemotional and far too cool, but I can see through it.

Alexi is controlled by choice. He masks everything from probing eyes and it's only now I have got to know the layers of him I can see subtle tells. He does feel, he does care, and he gets rattled. It slips sometimes, but mostly, he keeps it all behind doors of indifference until he is alone and can let it loose. Those closest to him get to see more of who he is, and I get to see everything under that.

I realise that is something very special not even Mico gets to see. The way he is with me, I doubt he has ever shown anyone else in his life for a very long time. I get the special parts of him just like he gets the deepest secret parts of me. That's why this is working. We both have something more to give that is only meant for each other. Something just for the two of us. A safe space to be weak, vulnerable, gentle, honest. No judgment and no one trying to use it against us in that little bubble.