Page 5

Chapter 5

SALVATORE

I circle Dante’s block twice, looking for anything suspicious, any cars or people who are out of place. His apartment lights are on the first time I drive past, but dark the second time. I can’t decide whether that’s a good sign or a bad sign, or if it means any-damn-thing at all. The muscles in my jaw twitch and the unease I’ve been feeling since he called hours ago tightens in my shoulders and up the back of my neck. Maybe I’m paranoid, but considering my job, I think it’s warranted. Once you’ve seen the worst of humanity, it’s hard to look at the world through any other lens. Besides, anyone who’s been paying close enough attention might have seen Dante being friendly with us at Wild most nights and figured he would be an easy in to get at us in one way or another.

Not knowing whether this is some kind of trap or hostage situation, a sting where the feds have him wearing a wire, or a booty call would be funny if it didn’t have my blood pressure so damn high. I take a breath and grip the steering wheel a little tighter as I make another right turn onto his street. This time Dante is outside his building, wearing a jacket with his hands stuffed into the pockets and looking up and down the street. His usual guarded scowl is in place on his face, and I can’t see anyone else hovering nearby. The weight of my pistol strapped to my chest, hidden under my suit jacket, is the comfort I need as I slow to a stop and roll my window down.

“Angioletto,” I murmur the word like a growl, full of the hungry desire I’m doing my damnedest to keep tightly restrained.

He’s not dressed for work. No skimpy shorts, see-through material, or tight leather in sight. He’s no less tantalizing in jeans that hug his legs, begging to be peeled off slowly, and a black t-shirt under his jacket with a plunging neckline that shows off the olive branch tattoos across his collarbone and the butterfly between his pecs. The barbells through his nipples make their own distinct shapes in the fabric too, and I can see them clear as day thanks to the streetlamp directly overhead. I’m well aware that I’m staring at him without an ounce of subtlety, but instead of the snarky tongue lashing I’m expecting, he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and looks at me through his eyelashes.

The look draws me up short. It’s sweet as hell, calling on every instinct I have to leap out of the car and protect him from any and all dangers that might dare to lurk anywhere near my little angel. The problem is, sweet and Dante don’t belong in the same sentence.

“Get in.” The words are sharp, and I glance around again as he rounds the car without argument to climb in on the passenger side. Getting him somewhere else will at least help me rule out the possibility that this is a trap. Unless Dante is the one with the plan to get violent with me. I can’t imagine I’d be that lucky.

I entertain a brief fantasy of the two of us grappling, beautiful rage burning in Dante’s eyes as he flails and snaps, more foreplay than any actual attempt to do either of us any harm, begging for me to tame him and make him feel safe for the first time in his life. My cock swells and Dante clicks his seat belt into place. I rev the engine and he licks his lips, leaving them glistening with dampness I’m aching to taste.

“Thanks for coming,” he says hoarsely as I pull away from the curb.

“Are you going to tell me why you called?” I split my attention between him and the road, trying to find any sign that someone put their hands on him, hurt him, forced him into this situation in some way, while keeping an eye out for anyone following us.

“Is it a crime for a guy to want a little company, Sal?” He chuckles but the sound is off, too tight, and turns his head to look out his window. We’re already out of his neighborhood, heading through the heart of the city on our way towards the highway. He doesn’t ask though.

“I’m supposed to believe you called me for a fuck out of nowhere?” I arch an eyebrow even though he’s not looking at me and take the ramp to get us out of the city. “Did the city run out of pretty subs willing to pretend all your bratting is proper Domination?”

Without even looking over at him, I can feel his mood shifting, my taunt finding its mark perfectly. He sits up straighter in his seat.

“Fuck you,” he huffs, exactly like the brat he is, whether he wants to admit it or not.

“That’s what we’re discussing, Angioletto,” I purr, glancing at the city lights in my rearview and noting with satisfaction that there’s no one tailing us. “You’re saying you called me to fuck, and I’m just not sure I believe that.”

Dante huffs again, but this one sounds a lot more like a laugh.

“I didn’t think you were hurting for self-esteem.” His hand lands on my arm unexpectedly, and he trails his fingertips over the expensive, silky fabric of my jacket—black for a change, but with embroidered details. I opted for all black tonight, from my suit to the undershirt to my tie, even the corset vest. “You’re well-dressed, powerful, charming…”

The sultry tease in his voice licks at my skin and makes me resent the layers of fabric keeping me from feeling the actual warmth of his fingers.

“My self-esteem is just fine,” I assure him. “And my brain works even better. As much as I’d love to believe that you were hit with the sudden, irresistible urge to ride my cock, it doesn’t add up.”

The roads get darker the farther we get from the city, and the turn-off I need to take is hard to spot even in the daylight, so I keep my focus on the road, which isn’t hard now that Dante has gone quiet. The traffic is sparse out here, leaving us with just the hum of the engine and our own thoughts for a few dozen miles. I could turn on music, but then how would I be able to hear the steady rhythm of his breathing or the quiet creak of him shifting against the leather seats every so often?

“Where are we going?” he asks, a hitch of worry creeping into his voice that he immediately tries to hide with his usual sharp tongue and bared teeth. “I swear to fuck if you’re taking me out into the middle of nowhere to murder me and dump my body, I will rip your dick off and shove it down your throat.”

A warm chuckle rumbles in my chest. “You’re the one who called me,” I remind him. I turn down the gravel road to our destination, wincing at each thunk of a rock or stick ricocheting off my Jaguar and no doubt scratching the paint. “And we’re just going somewhere quiet where we can talk without being interrupted.” A smirk twitches on my lips. “Or fuck, if you were serious about that.”

Another irritated, heavy exhale, and then he bites out, “Fine.”

Trees start to close in around us, blocking out the light of the moon. This wouldn’t be a bad place to get a jump on someone, out in the middle of bumfuck where it wouldn’t matter how loud they try to scream. But Xaviaro and Sparrow love to come out into these woods to play chase and fuck like animals in the dirt, and if any of us started offing guys out here, he would get all pissy about bad energy and shit. Besides, there’s no shortage of places in Wildcliff where no one gives a fuck about hearing gunshots and screaming anyway, so why waste the gas?

I slow to a stop in a clearing at the top of the hill, with Wildcliff spread out in the valley in the distance, lighting up the night sky and looking every bit a dream instead of the nightmare she is more often than not. I turn off the engine, then undo my seat belt and turn towards Dante.

“Why did you call me?” I try again.

He shrugs and reaches into his jacket pocket. I tense and follow the movement. He pulls out a flask. “I’ve had an unbelievably shitty week and, believe it or not, my radiant personality doesn’t earn me a whole lot of friends. I thought we could have a drink and shoot the shit, that’s all.”

There’s still something he’s not telling me. I can see it written all over his carefully neutral expression.

“Get out,” I say coolly, already reaching for the handle on my own door. The echo of our doors closing and the crunch of gravel under our feet is a reminder of how quiet it is out here, how far away we are from everyone else in the world.

Dante is still holding the flask, his arms crossed and his head held high as we meet at the front of the car. There’s wary defiance dancing in his eyes. If it were up to me, I would replace it with trust and submission, but that takes a hell of a lot of time. Right now, I think I’ll have to settle for reigniting my favorite spark of rage.

“I need to check you for a wire. And you’re either going to let me do it without attempting to break any of my fingers or I’m going to drive you back home now without another word out of my mouth.”

He stares me down silently and, just as I expected, the worry in his eyes sparks and sizzles, burning away until there’s nothing left but the defiance and the heat of his fury that I can almost convince myself is passion if I try hard enough.

“Fine,” he growls again, setting the flask down on the hood of my Jag, not bothering to be careful with the paint at all. He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over the hood next to the flask, then spreads his arms wide in invitation. “Check me for a wire.”

DANTE

The quiver deep down in my gut has nothing to do with how close Salvatore is standing or the fact that he’s about to strip me down and put his hands all over me—in one of the least fun ways imaginable—and everything to do with the fact that I’ve been on edge all damn day and there are still a dozen ways this could go wrong before I manage to pull it off. It can’t go wrong. If it goes wrong, I’m dead. Hours of thinking about those photos and the threat behind them and that’s the realization I arrived at. He wants revenge and simply fucking with me won’t be enough. He’s not going to stop until one of us is dead. But he has no idea how far I’m willing to go to make sure he’s the one who ends up in the ground.

“I hope you’re not expecting a show, honey, because I don’t do those for free,” I snark, grabbing the bottom of my t-shirt and pulling it up over my head without any of the flair or theatrics I pride myself in when I’m onstage. I toss it on top of my jacket and hold my arms out to show him there are no microphones taped to my chest or tucked under my armpits.

Salvatore’s perusal of my bare chest is much slower than necessary, lingering on every square inch of bare skin as if he hasn’t watched me take my clothes off for a hundred horny idiots every night for years. I have to admit, being naked in private hits different. On stage with hot lights glaring in my eyes, men whistling and scrambling to throw money at me, my bare body is my power. It’s my weapon, my freedom and defiance. But all alone, just the two of us, I feel exposed. It feels… vulnerable.

My skin prickles with unexpected heat and my nipples tighten, the nubs throbbing around the warm metal of the barbells. His words from earlier echo in my mind again. “ Did the city run out of pretty subs willing to pretend that all your bratting is proper Domination? ” His assessment of me is so dead wrong that it’s laughable. He thinks I’m a brat in denial, just waiting for some big, strong Dom to come along and make me feel safe enough to submit? I’ll admit, I’ve probably pushed it a little too far on occasion, putting him in his place in front of his friends, curious to see where his pride draws the line, to see just how much mouthy disrespect he can take before his true colors show. Does he think I was doing that in the hope that he would put me over his knee and spank me? If I’m such a brat, I would have to struggle, cuss at him, and fight until the hard sting of his hand connects with my ass cheek for the first time, blunted by my shorts but still enough to make me gasp and go still with shock that he would dare to punish me like an unruly child while his friends look on.

I swallow hard, ignoring the electric feeling snaking through my veins and the growing throb in my cock. That sounds more like his fantasy than mine. Besides, if I were a real brat, I wouldn’t be able to resist running my mouth now either.

“Are you staring so hard at my nipples because you think one of the barbells has been replaced with the world’s smallest listening device? Maybe you should whisper a little secret into it just to be sure.” That barely counts as running my mouth. It’s not my fault I can’t stand awkward silences.

His lips twitch and his hands land on my hips with a warm, firm grip, his fingers sinking into the skin right above the waistband of my jeans. A gasp catches in my throat as he spins me around without warning, making me stumble. I catch myself with my hands on the hood of his car, still warm from the engine, another little tremor running through me that I hope Salvatore doesn’t see. I don’t know what would be worse, if he thought I was afraid of him or if he mistakenly believed this half-assed Mafia foreplay was getting me hot.

He strokes his fingers slowly down the length of my spine and I grit my teeth as goose bumps rise to meet his light touch. Whatever he’s doing, it’s a trick. He’s lulling me into a false sense of security, hoping I’ll be naive enough to believe he’s a good, gentle man who only wants to worship my body instead of one who will leave me bruised and broken. A few soft touches aren’t enough to erase a lifetime of experience. Besides, I’m counting on him being every bit the violent, possessive monster I need him to be. If you have a rat problem, sometimes the easiest solution is to get a cat. What happens to the cat when the rats are all gone? Well, I’ll figure that part out later. One step at a time.

“I have to check the rest of you too.” His deep voice comes from right next to my ear, his warm breath dancing over my earlobe and cascading down the slope of my bare neck.

Salvatore slides his hand around to my front, bringing it to rest on the button of my jeans. I bat it away before he can notice the swell of my cock straining against my zipper.

“If there’s one thing I can do, it’s undress myself,” I mutter, keeping one hand braced on the car while I pop the button and lower my zipper with the other. “You know, if this is how you treat all of your friends, I can understand why the only people you spend time with are a bunch of criminals.”

He barks out a laugh. “Weren’t you the one so desperate for friends you called me ?”

I wiggle my pants and underwear down around my ankles and return both my hands to the hood of the Jag, feeling every bit like a criminal being strip searched and cursing at my stiff, drooling cock for finding anything fucking erotic about this.

“Yeah, well, something tells me I won’t make that mistake again,” I grit out between my teeth.

Salvatore repeats the process of his soft, careful touch, ghosting his hands over my bare ass cheeks and tugging them apart. I choke on a gasp and instinctually clench. My cock twitches and I squeeze my eyes closed, my muscles all coiling and my adrenaline spiking, readying me to fight if I need to. He moves on though and I sag with a relieved breath as he drags his hands down the backs of my thighs before taking a step back.

“Almost done. Turn around, Angioletto.” He sounds just as even and unruffled as always, except that air of confident authority is back, the same one he used to run that guy off in the club last week after I broke his nose. Did he have to practice that voice, or does it come naturally? I’m almost embarrassed to admit how long I worked on my Dom voice, and it still doesn’t hold that level of unquestionable authority his does.

I push myself off the car and slowly turn to face him, careful not to trip on my pants still around my ankles. I hold my breath, waiting for his hands again. But instead, his gaze lingers on my unmistakably hard cock for a moment before he rakes it all the way up my body to meet my eyes.

“No wire,” he says, and I nod, my heart leaping with another burst of relief even though I already knew I wasn’t hiding anything. Well, not a recording device, anyway.

“Can I put my clothes back on now?” I ask, putting as much vitriol into my glare as I can manage.

“If you want to.” He smirks, then stands there and watches as I pull myself back together, like it’s just as exciting to see me put my clothes back on as it is to watch them come off.

I snatch the flask off the hood of the car again and steel my nerves. I cleared most of the hurdles; I got Salvatore alone, I’ve gained his trust, now I just have to hope this next part will work as well as I need it to.

“You’re not married, are you?” I plant my ass on the hood of his car, right where my handprints are still smudged, and unscrew the cap of the flask.

He chuckles. “No. Not seeing anyone either. Are we back to pretending you called me tonight for sex?”

I hum noncommittally and bring the flask to my lips, turning my head slightly so he won’t see the way I press my lips together and only pretend to take a sip. I hesitate for just a second. This isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever done, it’s not even that bad, all things considered. Salvatore will be fine, and more importantly, so will I.

I hand him the flask and he doesn’t hesitate, lifting it to his lips, tilting his head back, and taking a generous gulp. I watch his throat bob as he swallows, my heart thundering so loudly I can barely hear anything else.

“You’re a good man.” I’m not sure what makes me say it, but I think I’m mostly right. As good as a career criminal can be, anyway. In a fucked up way, the fact that he’s a Moretti makes me trust him more than I trust most people. At least I have a good idea of what his deep, dark secrets are. “I bet you keep your promises, don’t you?”

He frowns and passes the flask to me. I pretend to take another sip and hand it back again.

“What promises, Angioletto? Is something going on? Do you need help?” The threatening growl in his voice is all the reassurance I need that I’m making the right call. I’ll explain everything later and he’ll understand. Maybe he would have even agreed to it the easy way, but it’s too late to find out now.

He takes another hearty drink and then sways on his feet.

“Shit,” he slurs. “Something’s wrong.”

I nod and push off the hood of the car, hurrying over so he can brace his hands on me before he falls. He might forgive me for drugging him, but I think grass stains on his fancy suit would earn me one between the eyes.

“It’s okay. Let’s get you back in the car.”

He stumbles, trusting most of his weight to my shoulders as I ease him around the car towards the passenger side.

“What the fuck?” he mumbles, blinking slowly and shaking his head like he’s hoping that will be enough to get rid of the dizziness and blurred vision, or maybe hoping it will keep him awake. I manage to get him into the seat and lean over to buckle him in. His eyes focus on me for just a second, full of clarity and confusion. “You drugged me.”