13. Dante
13
DANTE
Dante
T orturing the two servers didn’t take long. The faster I killed them at the building my soldiers took them to, it was that much sooner that I could go home and check on Nina.
As I beat them to bloody pulps before shooting them, I realized the first mistake I’d made.
One of two crucial mistakes.
By asking Nina to pretend to be my girlfriend, I’d made her a target. Any significant other of a Mafia leader would be targeted for an attack, kidnapping, or rape. Aside from the Devil’s Brothers MC looking for her, any of my enemies could also try to reach her and hurt her. Fake or not, once people realized Nina was “mine”, she could be taken or hurt.
These two servers weren’t operating from a rival family. They were merely that stupid, commoners who wanted to rape a woman by herself.
It was wrong of me to ever let her get near danger, and I loathed that she had been touched at all.
“I will do better, Nina,” I said as I drove myself home after leaving my men to dispose of the bodies. “I will.” She deserved the best, and if it meant managing a better balance between my business expectations and seeing to her comfort, I would do it.
While I killed those men, though, I recognized my other error. It was a fool’s errand thinking Nina and I could make this fake relationship believable without it impacting us.
I wanted her. I wanted to make her feel safe and secure just the same as I longed to pleasure her and push her to bliss.
All of it. I desired her more than I should, and as I arrived at the house and hurried to find her, I wondered how long I could deny myself—and her.
“Nina?” I knocked but didn’t wait for her reply before opening her door. She never locked it, and I took it as another sign of her innocence and willingness to accommodate me here. She was a guest but felt like so much more.
“Nina? I—” I stopped short, finding her in the bathroom attached to her guest suite.
There she was, wearing a top and short shorts as her body shook at the large vanity. Scrubbing something lying on the long counter, she mumbled to herself quietly, oblivious that I’d come in.
“Nina.”
She startled, turning around partly with a gasp. “Oh! Dante.”
I huffed a little laugh. Expecting someone else?
I didn’t miss how she glanced at my hands, likely expecting them to be bloody.
“Are you all right?”
Her reply was a shrug. She turned back to the counter and resumed scrubbing. “Yeah, sure. They didn’t actually…”
“Don’t downplay it,” I warned her as I walked up to her.
“I’m not. I’m just saying they didn’t really touch me or do anything. Romeo walked by before they could. And you.” She frowned, soaking a small cloth again.
Wet smears showed on the fabric, and with the redder spots in the middle of the area, it was clear that she was trying to remove a blood stain.
Whose?
I laid my hand on hers, ceasing her frantic attempt to clean the material. She slowly lifted her gaze to me, and with that move, she turned toward me. It gave me a chance to see her torso. The tank top she’d put on was cut low enough that I saw the small scrape on her chest. A faint mark showed on her cheek, too, and the visuals of her in any kind of pain renewed the anger that had started to dissipate when I killed the men who’d touched her.
“It’s not bad,” she said.
“I told you.” I lowered my fingers to tip her chin up, taking in the full, clear sight of her scrapes. She didn’t flinch or shy away, letting me see. “Any mark on you is a crime.”
She’d showered. The steam hung in the air yet, and her hair was still damp, lying in a sexy mess over her shoulders and down her back. The cuts were cleaned, but I wished they could be erased altogether.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. This isn’t your fault.”
I cleared my throat and shoved the dress aside. Before she could reach for it, I picked her up and set her on the edge of the counter.
“Wait.” She stretched her hand out toward it, but I didn’t let her take it. “I can clean that out and sew the strap and it’ll be as good as new.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, determined not to humor her with a smile. This adorable woman. She wanted to repair the damn gown and make sure it still had value?
“Why?”
“Well, I could resell it for a lot of money. It’s a waste to just throw it away.”
I sighed, sliding the first-aid kit closer. She must have set it out but had prioritized cleaning and salvaging the dress over seeing to her wounds. I knew she wasn’t materialistic, but her words and scrappiness endeared her to me.
Nina wasn’t like other Mafia women. She wasn’t used to fineries and wealth. If I’d been looking for a materialistic girlfriend, Nina wasn’t it. After years of the same old, she was a refreshing change. I didn’t have to worry about what she’d try to get out of me, and that was a freedom I seldom faced.
“Forget it.”
She nodded but frowned as she watched me open the kit and find the antibiotic cream and bandages. “Oh. No. Dante, I can do that.”
I leaned closer, standing between her knees, and that approach had her flinching on the counter.
“Easy.”
She rubbed the back of her neck, reluctant to make eye contact all of a sudden. After the night she’d had, I wasn’t shocked that she was skittish. But it seemed like she was nervous around me, not that she was traumatized by those men.
“I’m sorry that this happened,” I said as I began to tend to the scrape on her chest. Having my fingers near her breasts messed with me. While there was nothing sexy about the motions of helping her with basic first aid, it felt intimate.
Being alone together. Granted the permission to touch her…
“It’s life,” she replied. “It’s not the first time I was groped or someone grabbed at me.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, hating that this was her reality. “Where?”
“Mainly at the Hound and Tea.”
“When you were working?”
She nodded, then held still as I smeared the cream on the small cut on her cheek. “I share that with you. Work. It was all I ever did. So, if men got handsy, it was just part of the job. Happens to women everywhere.”
I glanced into her blue eyes, holding her gaze for a few seconds. “Not anymore.”
“Well, yeah. Because I don’t work there right now. Since I’m here… With you.”
I loathed how temporary that sounded. It was becoming all too easy and natural to come home and know she would be here in my house.
“And because if another man ever touches you again, he’ll die at my hands, just like those two servers did.”
I watched her delicate throat flex with her struggle to swallow. Then meeting her eyes, I waited for a sign of horror or disgust. I saw none.
Instead, she sighed. “I figured as much.”
“Figured what?” I pressed the small bandages to her cuts.
“That you’d hurt them.”
I helped her down. “I killed them, Nina.” I didn’t need to tell her, but I wanted to. She was so damn different from me and what I was used to. She was new, ignorant about the ins and outs of the Mafia lifestyle. She was poor and inexperienced, not having lived through much yet in her life. Those contrasts between us only made me want her more, and I felt obligated to test her on this. To see if her knowing I killed someone—on her behalf—would make her feel repulsed by me.
Standing still, as I kept my hands on her hips, she nodded. “Yeah. I figured that.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
She licked her lips. “No? I have no control over you or what you say and do. You live by a different code, and it’s not my place to judge or expect anything otherwise.”
Urging her to leave the bathroom, I walked with her. “Is this your way of saying ‘you do you’?”
“Maybe?” She bit her lower lip and dropped her gaze. “I just don’t understand why you’d go to such lengths.”
I guided her toward the bed. Once we were there, I pulled the cover back and gestured for her to get in. I’d done what I came here to do. I checked on her. She seemed fine. I satisfied myself in tending to her cuts.
But I had to get the fuck out of here. She was skittish around me, not playful or flirty like she had been at the restaurant. I wanted her like that again, but I had no right to wish for it.
Not here. Not alone, with her trusting and open, following my lead and acting so submissive.
I’d fuck her—all night, every way possible. But that was so far from “faking it” that it couldn’t happen.
“I’m not… yours,” she said as she climbed onto the bed and gazed up at me.
“Everyone is supposed to think that, though.”
“So you avenged me because of our fake connection?” She arched one brow, putting me on the spot.
If she was fishing, if she was testing the waters to see if I’d tell her that she mattered for real, she’d be waiting a long time. I was doing my best to keep myself in check, and I would last longer yet.
I couldn’t cave to her. At least not yet. She looked to me for protection. If she were really my woman, she’d be in a bigger world of danger, targeted as collateral. And I hated the possibility of her ever being hurt again.
“I will always do everything in my power to make sure you are safe, Nina.”
She sighed again, but it morphed into a yawn. “I’m sorry. For not holding up my end of the bargain very well.”
I scowled at her sexy, relaxed position on the bed. Even though we spoke slowly, calmly, and quietly, my heart raced and my dick hardened. This was a gentler moment that we shared here, but dammit, did I want to join her on this bed and really make her forget about what happened earlier.
“How can you say that? How are you not holding up your end well? All those men knew that you were with me. That was the whole point.”
“I know. But…” She shrugged and smiled so faintly and quickly that I knew she was holding back on replying with what was really on her mind. “Forget it. Never mind.” Ever so slightly, she gave me a doe-eyed, submissive expression that tempted me. Like she wanted to tell me without a single word that she desired me.
Oh, Nina… I want to.
Her sexy, seductive gaze was a plea, a desperate beg for me to join her in this bed. Maybe she was too timid. Perhaps she didn’t know how to ask for it and hoped I’d read the message on her expressive, beautiful face.
I did. But I resisted.
Instead, I tested my patience and control. Dipping in closer, I kissed her brow then retreated before I could dare to lay my lips on her anywhere else.
“Good night.”
The disappointment in her eyes irked me, but I knew I couldn’t cave. It wouldn’t help either of us. “Good night, Mr. Constella,” she remarked cheekily, but sleepily.
I smirked, standing straight before turning to leave.
As soon as I exited her room, I hesitated in the hallway. I adjusted my erection beneath my pants, growling lightly at how hard she’d made me.
One glance at her closed door taunted me. It was unlocked. It was always unlocked. She lay in there, gazing up at me with such openness and trust. All I would have to do would be to walk back in and have my way with her.
Though it wasn’t easy, I resisted my desire and strode away before I could act on this damning, hexing connection that had yet to fade.
I’d killed for her.
Reaching my room and knowing I’d need to shower and jerk off to a fantasy of her, I knew I’d do anything for the woman I was supposed to pretend was mine.