He ate noodles with chopsticks out of the container but stopped when he saw her. “I didn’t know what you’d like. You’re so weird about food.”
“None of it.” She winced as she watched him eat. “Chinese is the worst. I don’t know how you and Carina eat as much of it as you do and stay so perfect. It should be physically impossible. Do you know how much MSG is in this?”
“I made sure none of it has MSG.”
“That has MSG,” she said as she pointed to his container. “I know it does.”
“This is mine,” he reminded her with a look. “’Cause I like it. MSG rocks my world.”
Brianna sat up and then started opening folded white boxes and plastic containers. She found steamed vegetables and pulled the lid off a container of brown rice while Tino unwrapped her chopsticks. He even got the splinters off for her, breaking them apart and rubbing them together several times before he handed them to her.
She took a bite of the broccoli and nodded.
“Good?” Tino asked hopefully.
“Yeah,” she decided as she looked in the rest of the boxes. “There’s not any good protein, though.”
“I bought at least five things with protein.”
“It’s all got sugar in it. Look at this.” She held up a box of sweet-and-sour chicken. “There’s like five thousand calories in that. I’ll feel that for a week.”
“Oh, that one’s mine too.” He took it back and put it in a white container pile of food sins next to him.
“You should not be able to eat like this,” she mumbled, because he was about as physically perfect as a man could be, sitting there in only jeans, with those rock-hard abs on display and the edges of his Omertà tattoo showing. “This is totally unfair.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” Tino leaned over and kissed her. “I’ll enjoy it for both of us.” He dug into the sweet-and-sour chicken and dipped it into a container of red sauce that was basically a pool of artificially colored sugar, because like Carina, Tino seemed to gravitate toward anything sweet. He looked up when she just sat there watching him. “Am I not supposed to eat this? Am I supposed to only eat broccoli and brown rice and unseasoned chicken now?”
“I season it,” she said defensively.
“Okay.” Tino soaked another sweet-and-sour chicken in the red sauce but then glanced back at her before he put it in his mouth. “I’ll stop eating it. I’d eat brown rice for you. Even though I fucking hate brown rice. I’ll eat it every day.”
“No, it’s okay.” She shrugged. “I live with Carina. I’m used to it. It just defies the laws of physics. You don’t feel it when you’re at the dojo the next day? Even when you’re training really hard?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I feel great at the dojo. I’m a god of the dojo.”
“You don’t feel it at work?”
“Nope.” Tino shook his head again. “I’m a god there too. Carlo just sits in the car now and uses my cell phone to talk to Lola. That’s all he cares about. Protein shakes and Lola and triceps. That’s it. And cars.”
“With spinning rims,” Brianna added.
“Motherfucker loves those three-thousand-dollar spinning rims.” Tino sighed. “I cannot be related to these guidos.”
“Do the rims cost that much?” Brianna asked in horror.
“Yeah. They cost that much. Easy. Sometimes a lot more.”
“So, he should spend it on sheets.” She picked up a green bean with her chopsticks, smiling as she took a bite. “How much did these sheets cost, Tino?”
He winced.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “You probably shouldn’t be throwing stones.”
“I can argue the benefits of designer sheets over spinning rims.” Tino didn’t even sound apologetic about it. “I kept a beautiful woman here all day happily ’cause of these sheets. What the fuck are rims ever gonna do for me?”
“It wasn’t for the sheets,” she said as she let her gaze run over him.
Tino lowered his chopsticks and leaned into her. “You wanna taste some of my MSG?”
“Yeah.” She nodded and bent forward to steal a kiss.
He tasted sugary sweet, like an indulgence, and she forgot about the food. It was easy for her—she didn’t live for it like he did—but Tino forgot about his too, which said a lot. Instead he let her push him down against his designer sheets and taste more of him.
Taste him like he tasted her earlier.
Until she was pulling at the button to his jeans and then licking at the dark lines of his tattoo with the same worship he’d shown her.
“Cazzo.” He groaned and arched into her hand when she pulled his cock free from his jeans, but still he said, “You don’t have to,” as he held her face with both hands, watching her with hooded dark eyes.
She licked him rather than argue.
Keeping her gaze locked with his, she dragged her tongue up the length of his cock, and then she sucked on the head, making Tino moan and toss his head back against the bed like it was the greatest thing in the world.