18. Nina
18
NINA
Nina
I smiled at his choice. The long black gown didn’t hide much of my boobs, but it wasn’t overly provocative like the skimpier dress I’d worn to Escott’s. At this gala, we’d be surrounded by more people. I would trust Dante’s judgment. I'd trusted him to lead me to pleasure, and he’d exceeded my expectations there.
As he slipped out of me now, I watched a bit of blood smear against my inner thigh.
Most women likely lost their virginity under more modest terms. With the lights off. On a bed. Under the covers.
Not me.
I gave Dante my V card on his lap. With bright lights to better illuminate a garment choice in this fitting room.
“The black one?” I asked, biting back a wide smile. If he could say anything after fucking me senseless, that was the last thing I expected to hear—his pick of what gown to wear tomorrow night.
Right now, I didn’t want to wear anything but this loopy, sated smile and the remnants of our cum drying on my skin.
I almost couldn’t believe we’d done it. After the last three weeks of resisting each other—in the name of keeping it fake—we both caved.
“Yes.” He kissed my shoulder and prompted me to get off his lap.
I did, wincing slightly at the burn of strained muscles. Muscles I hadn’t even known I possessed.
“I like that one the best.” He stood behind me. With his pants down at his ankles, he grabbed my arms and waited for me to steady myself. “It’s the one I looked forward to taking off you the most.”
I turned, smirking at him. “You were grading the gowns based on the ease of taking them off after I wore them?”
“Not the ease.” He reached for a box of tissues on a small table and handed them to me to help me clean up. “But how much they prompted me to want to get them off.” As he wiped himself off then pulled his clothes back on, he shot me a smug look. “Now that I’ve finally seen all of you, I much prefer you naked.” He wrapped his arm around me and lowered his hand to help me clean up. His fingers lay over mine near my entrance, and even that turned me on even though I was still coming down from the high of that orgasm.
“I can’t walk around naked,” I teased back.
“Of course not.” He kissed me slow and sweet, almost tenderly. “Because I don’t intend to let anyone else see you like this.”
I sighed, overwhelmed by his affectionate words. They were possessive and controlling, but I liked it. He was my hero, and I doubted anything could change that.
Except maybe the fact that we’re supposed to be faking it all.
“I’ll handle the details with the attendant.” He looked me over, smiling like he was proud of his conquest with me. On his way toward the door, he picked up the black gown. “You take your time and come out front.”
I nodded, glad he was giving me a little space to adjust. I wanted him close. As soon as he left the room, I missed him, but I had to get my head back on straight. I needed the freedom to breathe and think.
After I tugged my clothes back on, I winced at the press of my shorts. I stuffed my damp thong in my pocket. They were slick with my juices from how aroused he'd made me. The stitches of my denim shorts rubbed against my sensitive flesh. While it wasn’t painful, it was different.
Before I left the fitting room, I felt a buzz in my pocket. I paused in my step, pulling my phone out to see that Tessa was calling.
I bet Dante wouldn’t be upset if I stalled for a moment or two.
“Hello?”
“Hey. You’re a hard lady to reach.”
I smiled and smoothed my hair away from my face. “How so?”
“I called you. Like, ten times in as many minutes!”
Yikes. “Sorry. I was, um. Busy.”
“Yeah? What could’ve been so important that you didn’t answer the phone?”
She wasn’t whining. Tessa was too chill to actually be this demanding of me. But the rule of thumb between us was that if we called consecutively more than three times, it was urgent.
“Well…” I dragged my toes over the plush carpet.
“What?” She laughed lightly. “You sound funny.”
“Probably because I just had sex with Dante.”
“You what ?” She screeched it, shouting so loudly that I pulled the phone from my ear and winced for a second or two. “You slept with him?”
I scanned the fitting room, glancing at all the discarded dresses. I settled my gaze on the chair Dante sat in to push me to come so hard.
“No sleeping… We were, uh, trying to find a dress for a gala tomorrow, and one thing led to another.”
“Nina!” she gasped. “Seriously?”
I bit my lip and nodded even though she couldn’t see. “In a fitting room.” I didn’t know why I whispered. No one could possibly hear me in here. Or if they could, the loud cries and shouts would’ve given away what we were doing.
“That’s wicked, girl.”
“I feel so naughty, but it was bound to happen. I mean, just yesterday, he tried to say that we were ‘practicing’ kissing and?—”
“Okay. You can give me the details later.”
I furrowed my brow at her abrupt cut off. Then I recalled that she’d contacted me. Ten times with no answer. “Yeah. I can. What’s wrong?”
“Everything!” She groaned loudly. “My parents are getting ridiculous.”
They always have been ridiculous.
“They keep pressuring me to get onboard with the idea of marrying Elliot.”
I cringed, hanging up the dresses on the racks while I listened to her worries. Mr. and Mrs. West had made it clear that they wanted Tessa, their only child, to marry the son of a family friend. If Elliot were a decent man, I supposed Tessa wouldn’t be so adamant to avoid the future her parents envisioned for her. But he wasn’t. Elliot was a creepy, sleazy, and weird man. For all his faults, he had something the Wests valued greatly—money. Elliot was a successful but likely corrupt lawyer. Tessa had been telling them no, that she wanted to choose someone of her own picking to marry, but they wouldn’t listen.
Listening to her rant about how pushy her mom was, encouraging her to contact Elliot more often, then how her father would lecture her almost nightly, I tidied up the fitting room.
She didn’t let me get a word in edgewise, but that was fine with me. After I set her call to speaker, I saw that Dante had texted me.
Dante: Are you all right?
Nina: Yeah. Got a call from my friend. She seems to need a moment of girl talk.
Dante: So you’re the sort of woman to kiss and tell?
I smirked, twisting my lips at his playfulness. He was such a badass, hardcore Mafia boss all the time. With me, in private, he loosened up.
Nina: Correct my memory, but I don’t recall having the privilege of kissing you very much in this fitting room.
Dante: Next time, then.
Nina: Next time we share a fitting room?
It wasn’t supposed to be this fun, teasing him. This banter wasn’t fake. Neither was riding his dick. I rubbed my face, torn by how far off the path we’d gotten. I wouldn’t take a second of it back, but I wanted to know when a “next time” would come.
Dante: Next time I fill your tight pussy with my dick.
I pulled my lips in and fought back a grin. Oh, boy. I had a hunch this was what he was referring to when he told me to be careful what I wished for. I’d told him to act like he was with me, and he sure was up to that challenge. Deep down, I suspected he hadn’t been acting at all today. Not with those so-called practice kisses, nor with the torrid quickie we’d shared in here.
“Nina?”
I jolted at Tessa’s sharper use of my name.
“Are you even listening?”
I winced. “I am.” No. Not really. Dante was so good at derailing me and making me lose my concentration.
“Damn, he really fried a little bit of your brain, huh?”
I smiled, wishing I could laugh along with her joke.
“Was it all that you imagined it could be?” she asked. Like me, she was too busy to ever date much. Tessa was a virgin—unless she was keeping secrets from me.
“No? I’m not sure how to compare it to anything I could’ve dreamed up.” I sighed, almost feeling shy and ashamed about how easily I caved. Dante and I weren’t in a relationship, or we weren’t supposed to be in one. “It just sort of happened.”
“And quickly. I mean, yeah, you recognized him as someone you knew a long time ago, but you only ran into him at the Hound and Tea a couple of weeks ago.”
“Three weeks,” I corrected.
“Which doesn’t mean anything bad. Sleeping with a dude on the first date isn’t anything to be humiliated about. It’s not like I have firsthand expertise on the subject, but casual sex isn’t a crime.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the phantom tingle of his lips on it. “It didn’t feel casual.”
“Hmm. It seems like you’re blurring the lines between faking it and falling for your Mafia man.”
“The lines are definitely blurred.”
“But in a good way, right?” she checked. I could always count on her to worry about me.
“Yes.” The slight burn down there, a physical reminder that he’d stretched me, was very good. I wanted him to fill me again. Soon. Just thinking about his touches and carnal looks revved me up to a lusty mess.
“Wow. You replied pretty quickly there.”
I smiled. “I guess I’m that confident about how I feel.”
“About him? Or about having sex with him?”
Both? “About the sex.”
She laughed harder. “One time and you’re sold on it?”
I nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’m sold.”
She huffed. “Here I am, terrified of marrying someone, and you sound eager to make it official to bang the rest of your life away.”
I licked my lips, enjoying this silly talk. I hated that she felt stuck with her situation, but it didn’t put a damper on my enthusiasm about Dante now that we’d crossed the lines to have sex. “Yeah. I’d marry Dante in a heartbeat.”
Although we laughed together, as I left the fitting room, I realized that while I’d said it in jest, I meant it. One hundred percent.
Dante could very well represent a solid, fulfilling future, but it felt too much like wishful thinking, nonsense to giggle about, than a reality in the making.
I disconnected the call with her and walked out to Dante’s car. He leaned against the hood, looking at his phone, and I smiled to myself.
Calling that hunk of a sex god mine—for real—felt like a fantasy.
But the next buzz of my cell in my pocket yanked me away from daydreaming and planted me back in reality.
Ricky: Nina. You have to come home. Now!
I furrowed my brow, bothered that this first summons from him came in the form of a demand.
Because he’s still expecting to hand me over to those bikers. A car backfired in the parking garage, and its throaty engine resembled the growl of a motorcycle. It was nothing more than a coincidence, this sound reaching my ears right when I had to be reminded of how I was due to go to a dirty MC gang.
I flinched, and just like that, I gave up with this silliness about staying with Dante forever. He’d never said anything about keeping me forever. This was all supposed to be an act, anyway. We'd lapsed, having sex like that, but it really didn’t change anything about our arrangement.
He was keeping me close so I could continue to escape a future with the bikers. I still didn’t know what his reasons were for wanting to pretend I was his, but as I walked toward him, I wondered if that Vanessa woman stopping over yesterday played a part in his decision.
It’s not real, Nina. Remember that. I refused to let the magical afterglow of sex make me stupid.
Too much was at stake for that.
“Ready?” Dante smiled up at me, sensing my approach.
I smiled the best I could, hating that real life was tarnishing the good feelings that filled me after I came with him. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
Not.
I wouldn’t feel ready until I had an idea of what would be coming at me next.