10. Kat
Kat
M y fingers twitch and my skin itches as I pull the covers up over my shoulders and focus on the TV.
It’s a little after ten, but I am not going downstairs to the kitchen.
I am not playing into Dante’s hands. So what if he told me he wants to fuck me.
It would probably be incredible given how skilled those fingers of his are, but unlike him, I’m not driven by my baser desires.
I’ve gone over two years without sex. I don’t need it.
I certainly don’t need it with a man I can barely stand. My kidnapper at that.
So why am I still thinking about whether he is downstairs wondering if I’m going to show?
I groan out loud and pick up the TV remote before flicking through the channels until I find a romantic comedy.
I settle back against the pillows and smile.
This is the only kind of romance I need in my life, right?
The movie is almost over when there is a loud knocking at my bedroom door. My heart rate kicks up a few gears, and I instinctively pull the covers up to my neck. But it’s not Dante.
“Kat?” Maximo shouts. “Are you awake? We need your help. Someone has been shot.”
Throwing the covers back, I jump out of bed. “I’ll be right there,” I say as I rummage through my dresser drawer and pull out a pair of sweatpants. Tugging them on as fast as I can, I run to the door and open it to see Maximo waiting for me.
“Is it Dante? Is he okay?” I ask.
“Dante’s fine. He’s on his way back now,” he says as he starts to head down the hallway with me on his heels. “But Mitch took a bullet to the shoulder. Doesn’t look like it hit anything important, but the bullet didn’t pass right through. I’d dig it out myself, but you’d do a better job.”
“You’ve done that before?” I ask with a grimace, imagining Maximo literally digging around in someone’s bullet hole cavity with his giant hands.
“Plenty,” he says with a shrug. “The doc’s not always available and we have to act quickly. And now that he’s dead, we have you instead.”
“The doctor whose things are in the room downstairs? He’s dead?” I gasp.
“Relax, it was a heart attack. And it’s not really his stuff. Dante bought it for him, so that we wouldn’t have to take our guys to the hospital, but yeah, it was supposed to be his room. I guess it’s yours now,” he says, turning his head and smiling at me.
“I guess it is.”
In the room, Mitch is sitting up on the hospital bed, clutching his shoulder.
Blood oozes through his fingers and trickles down his bare chest. I notice his shirt hanging from his arm because someone has already cut it from him.
He’s grimacing at the pain, but he is stoic and he doesn’t make a sound when Maximo and I enter the room.
“Hey, Mitch, how are you doing?” I ask as I pull on a pair of latex gloves and remove his fingers from his wound so I can examine him.
“Like I got run over by a truck, doc,” he grits out the words.
“I’m a nurse, not a doctor,” I tell him. “But I can take care of this for you, I promise.”
“I gave him some whiskey for the pain, doc,” a voice says from behind me. I notice there’s another man with a bloodstained shirt in the corner of the room. “Sorry, nurse,” he quickly corrects himself.
“Here you go, doc,” Maximo says with a grin as he hands me a pair of metal forceps.
I open my mouth to remind him that I’m not a doctor, but he says, “Nurse just doesn’t have the same ring to it. It’s like a term of affection rather than a title.”
“Or we could call you Nurse Ratched.” Mitch laughs and then groans with the pain of his effort, his face turning purple.
“How about you just stay still and let me find this bullet, huh?” I say to him.
“Whatever you say, doc.”
“Can you get me some morphine for the pain, Maximo?” I ask my new assistant.
“No. Don’t want none,” Mitch insists. “Just get it out and stitch me up.”
“But it would be easier for you if I just give you a quick shot.”
“I fucking hate needles.”
I roll my eyes. “Let me know if you change your mind, okay?”
“Okay,” he grunts.
“Are you hurt?” I look at the guy in the corner with the crimson stains all over his shirt.
“No, doc. It’s all Mitch’s blood.”
“And I want it all back too, Bud. Every last drop,” Mitch hisses as I slide the forceps into the hole in his shoulder.
“You’re a mean old bastard.” Bud laughs loudly, and even Maximo chuckles beside me.
Then both of them go on teasing Mitch good-naturedly while I remove the bullet from his shoulder.
Working keeps me focused, so that I’m almost too busy to worry about where Dante is and why one of his men was shot tonight.
I’m just finishing patching Mitch up while he’s drinking a glass of whiskey by the time Dante returns. He walks into the room wearing just his suit pants and one of his crisp white shirts, except that it’s no longer white but a deep crimson color. He also has a small cut above his eye.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, my voice a little higher than normal as my heart starts to race a little faster.
“I’m fine, kitten,” he says with a smug smile. “None of it belongs to me. I do need something for this though,” he says, pointing to his eye as he blinks away a trickle of blood.
“There’s some alcohol in the cabinet and some plaster strips. I can take a look at it if you give me a few minutes.”
“I can take care of it,” he says dismissively as he goes to the cabinet.
He dabs his eye with some alcohol-soaked cotton wool without as much as a flicker of discomfort. Then he disappears out of the room again without another word. By the time he returns, Maximo and Bud are helping a fully sewn up and pretty wasted Mitch out of the room.
“I’ll take these guys home,” Maximo says to Dante, who nods his appreciation.
And then there is just the two of us in the room. Dante has stripped off his blood soaked clothes and stands a few feet away from me in just his tight black boxer shorts. My eyes are drawn like a magnet to the outline of his cock.
“You enjoying yourself, kitten?” he asks with a dark chuckle, making my cheeks flame with heat.
I avert my gaze a little too quickly, making it even more obvious that I was just staring at him.
“You don’t need to be embarrassed. If you were standing here in only your underwear, I’d be staring at you too.”
“I wasn’t… I’m sorry,” I say with a shake of my head. I need out of here.
He crosses the room and stands right in front of me.
A solid wall of muscle, ink, and sex. It’s as though he has some kind of magnetic field around him.
His presence is inescapable. Once I’m in his orbit, I can’t seem to think straight.
I act like somebody I don’t even recognize.
My pussy develops a mind of her own. He is so full of potent, raw sexuality and masculinity.
Everything about him screams run away, but my body is drawn to him anyway.
“Who am I kidding,” he says, his voice low and deep, as he bends his head and brings his mouth closer to my ear. “I stare at you no matter what you’re wearing.”
Oh, dear God! “Stop,” I whisper.
We can’t do this. I cannot let this man get a hold on me, because I know he was right last night.
We would be so good together. For whatever reason, we have insane chemistry, and I can’t let him take this any further.
I can’t allow myself to have any feelings for him.
The moment he tires of me, he’ll toss me away like trash.
I am dispensable. And the sooner I let him fuck me, the sooner I’ll become useless to him.
“I can’t stop, Kat,” he says, his voice dropping another octave. He places a hand on my hip, and my skin blooms with heat. “Believe me, I’ve tried. I need to fuck you more than I have ever needed anything in my life.”
“We can’t,” I protest, but my voice is so quiet it’s barely audible.
“We can.” His other hand is on my other hip now, and he pulls me closer to him until our bodies are almost touching.
“Look at me,” he commands.
And I do it. Just like that, because he told me to. Because my body obeys him and I don’t even know when that started to happen.
I blink as I stare up at him. His pupils are so wide, they make his brown eyes appear black. They are full of longing and fire and need. “It wouldn’t work. It would be a huge mistake,” I offer feebly.
He shakes his head. “No, it wouldn’t, and you know it. Let me take you to my bed and I’ll show you exactly how much of a mistake it wouldn’t be.”
I open my mouth but no words come out. All I can focus on are his strong fingers flexing on my hips. How good they felt two nights ago when he touched me. How much I wanted him to carry on before he stopped.
My core contracts, flooding my pussy with heat and making me suck in a stuttered breath.
Dante narrows his eyes at me. “Okay, kitten. I’ll make you a deal.”
“What deal?” I breathe out the words.
“Look at the clock on the wall behind me, and if I can’t make you come in two minutes, then you can go to your own bed and I’ll go to mine. But if I do make you come , then you spend the night with me. What do you say?”
I lick my lips, staring at him. I’m already wet. But under two minutes? There’s no way he could pull that off. I’ve never had anyone make me come that easily. Not even guys I was really into. And I don’t even like Dante, so I can hold out, right?
Besides, every cell in my body is vibrating with sexual energy. I want his hands on me. I want his fingers inside me. Just this once. Just to relieve this constant aching need in my pussy. Just once.
“Okay, but when you don’t get the job done in two minutes, you don’t get to leave me hanging,” I say with a tilt of my head.
He smirks, full of confidence and arrogance. “I’ll make you come no matter how long it takes. I promise.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
What the hell are you doing, Kat?
“Eyes on the clock, kitten,” he orders. “I trust you’ll be honest about the time.”
“Of course,” I insist, my eyes now trained on the clock behind him, watching the second hand tick around.