Free ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS by Mallory Monroe Page A

was fal ing
    in love with this man. And she needed him to
    tel her about it. She needed him to let her know
    that he wouldn’t keep something like that from
    her.
    So she held her tongue, held it as his
    thick rod kept rotating inside of her. Held it as
    he pul ed her closer to him, fondling her breasts,
    as he banged her. Time would tel , and in time
    she’d know for sure if he was going to man up
    and level with her, or punk out and keep her in
    the dark. But she wanted to be strategic. She
    wanted to use what she knew to test the
    strength of their relationship. She didn’t want to
    be like some big mouth female who never had
    any ace up her sleeve, who blabbed everything
    she knew. Knowledge was power. She
    needed to play this smart. She needed him to
    be the one to bring it up.
    Later that next morning, however, when
    Reno was dressing to leave and she was stil
    naked in bed, the subject of his past wasn’t
    brought up at al . She had hoped he would
    discuss it, but he had become distracted,
    obsessed even, by his absolute belief that she
    needed to get herself a set of wheels.
    Reno looked at her, at her gorgeous
    brown body half-covered, revealing every curve
    he loved to touch, every crevice he knew so
    wel , and he was fighting within himself to not
    snatch back off his clothes and fuck her again.
    But he tried to stay focused. She
    needed a car, period. She started work at the
    PaLargio this coming Monday, and she wasn’t
    catching any buses to get to work there, not his
    woman. The only reason he didn’t suggest she
    not take the job in the first place, given the level
    of their relationship now, was twofold: she
    wouldn’t like it and therefore wouldn’t go for it,
    number one. And he could keep an eye on her,
    would at least know she was safe every day,
    number two. But to have her working there
    without wheels of her own, was taking it too far.
    But they kept talking past each other.
    He kept talking about the urgency of the matter,
    the necessity of it, she kept talking about how
    she was saving for a car, and would buy one as
    soon as she was able.
    “How much you saved so far?” he asked
    her as he continued to dress.
    “Almost a thousand dol ars,” she said.
    Reno stared at her. “You joking right? A
    thousand bucks, Trina? That wouldn’t get you
    the engine of a decent car.”
    “I’m not buying a Bentley, Reno. I just
    want a good, reliable, dependable car.”
    “What are you, Fred Sanford? The
    salvage girl? You ain’t driving around in no
    thousand dol ar car. My woman ain’t driving
    thousand dol ar car. My woman ain’t driving
    around in a car that cost less than one of my
    suits!”
    “That’s what I can afford, Reno,” she
    said. “I know this is a foreign concept to the
    owner of the PaLargio, but there are more
    people like me in this world than people like
    you. We’re just working stiffs who can only
    afford what we can afford. And I can only afford
    a thousand dol ar car. I don’t want any monthly
    payments.”
    Reno looked at her and his heart went
    out to her. She probably had been struggling al
    of her life, and here he was acting as if she was
    poor on purpose.
    He sat on the edge of her bed, his shirt
    stil in his hand. “I don’t mean to sound like I
    don’t get it. I get it. But answer me this: you’re
    my woman or you’re not my woman?”
    Trina smiled this time. He was perhaps
    the most genuine person she’d ever met. “I’m
    your woman, Reno,” she said.
    “How would it look if my woman was
    driving around in a Pinto, while I’m driving
    around in a Bentley? Tel me how would that
    look?”
    “It’l look like you had a woman who was
    her own woman, who handled her own
    business, who took care of her own self. It’l
    look like you had me, Reno.”
    Reno couldn’t help but smile. He had to
    hand it to her. “Okay, you got me there. But at
    least get a car now. If I have to put some cash
    with it to get a reliable car, let me do that.”
    “No,