Page 6 of Scorned Beauty

With tears in my eyes, I approached his flat-on-his-back form. He was cursing and grunting, but his struggles got him nowhere.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” I asked a coherent question in between fits of humorous exhalations.

His glare sliced me into ribbons. “I can’t believe you’re laughing. Help me up.”

I extended my arms and braced my legs while sucking in my spine. An instinct honed from years of hauling heavy things around, including people. That was why when I did my clinical hours, especially in assisted living homes, I was a favorite.

Dom gripped my hands, and I gave him a heave out of the bushes. Our bodies collided. I lost my breath and became very aware of the heat of his body plastered to me like I was besidea furnace. We’d never been this close. I kept my eyes level with his chest. A sassy reply refused to form. Words dried up in my throat. His arms swooped around me, his hands molding to my waist before sliding down my hips. I wasn’t sure if it was to steady himself, or he was copping a feel. A pulse of excitement made itself known below my belly.

Dammit. No. No.

His gaze was intent. He was breathing as hard as I was, and this close, I caught a whiff of breath mint. I attempted to pry myself away, but he hauled me back against the hard length of him.

I couldn’t do this.

I wasn’t going to get mixed up with Dom. I would patch him up and call him a ride if I had to.

I swallowed and tried to speak, but no words would come. A connection short-circuited between us, and he was aware of it, too. I wasn’t naïve. I was aware of my looks and he already said I made him hard in the van.

My amusement still hovered, making it hard to keep a straight face. It probably saved us from a point of no return. It was Dom who spoke first.

“Not a word,” he breathed. “That was embarrassing.”

I could only nod as a silent laugh shook my chest.

“I fell and could have had a concussion and you laughed at me,” he said in an exaggerated, wounded voice.

Bianca once said that Dom was a drama queen, a trait he inherited from the Moretti side of the family.

“Do you need help to walk now?” I tried to inject compassion into my voice.

A man exiting the building saved him from answering. It was Phil Harding, my neighbor who looked like he lived in the gym. He’d asked me out on a date once, but I declined. I hadn’t seen him in weeks. He said he was in sales.

“Everything all right?” he asked. “Saw you took a tumble into the bushes, man.”

Oh my God, he had to point it out.

Dom tightened his arms around me. An air of possessiveness fuming from his side.

“He had a bit too much to drink,” I put in hastily. “Can you hold the door open, Phil?”

“Sure, doll.”

Dom grunted as we passed my neighbor. He was still plastered to my side, but he didn’t say another word. I hoped he wasn’t plotting Phil’s demise. Working with the mob, I knew a few of them were on a trigger and the slightest provocation could mean death. But I also knew the De Luccis were of the more reasonable breed. I had no clue about the Moretti side of the family except Dom’s uncle, who, according to Bianca, had the violent streak of a sociopath.

Although someone once said to be in the mafia, you had to be part sociopath.

“I’m on the fifth floor,” I told Dom. “And I wouldn’t trust the elevators.”

Another grunt.

Okay, then.

We made our way up the staircase. I was on his right side. His uninjured side. He had one arm around me while the other was holding the banister. At around the third floor, his weight sagged in to me.

“Want to rest?”

A clipped “No” was his answer, so we soldiered on. As we neared my floor, I was wondering about my stupidity in taking Dom home with me. What if he coded in my apartment or died? I sure as hell wasn’t calling an ambulance or the police. Kolya’s face flashed through my head. Nope. I would have to call Sandro.Having a Rossi mediate between me and the De Luccis…that I was not responsible for Dom’s death.