24. Nina
24
NINA
Nina
D ante was on the phone on the drive back to his house. From what I could tell as I sat in the passenger seat and let the scenery out the window blur past me, he was checking in with many members of the Constella force. Stefan and those bikers had caused a huge uproar, and I had no doubt that follow-up would be needed.
“You can just drop me off,” I said when he wasn’t actively on a call. “If you’re needed to… do damage control and supervise…”
He shook his head. “No. Romeo and Franco can handle things for me.”
“But you don’t need to coddle me.”
Shooting me a stern look, he urged me to give up that argument. Maybe coddling wasn’t something a rough, tough man like him could do. “I don’t need special treatment.”
He didn’t reply, answering his phone yet again.
My warm, fuzzy feeling of intoxication was gone. I’d sobered up quickly with Dante’s demand to have sex the way we did, so riskily. I’d sobered up even more when I overheard men talking about kidnapping me. Seeing and hearing the gunfire and argument that Dante had with Stefan… well, that knocked me clear out of a buzz and right back into stone-cold reality.
It was a lot to take in. My brain felt too full. I had to compartmentalize all that happened, rationalize my way through all the big emotions. And then, I could feel sane and more like myself again.
Dante wasn’t ready to give me time or space to let anything sink in. Instead of leading me to the guest room I’d been staying in, he brought me to his private quarters. His room. I didn’t give myself a chance to look at the surroundings or slow down to appreciate the dark wood theme that centralized in his sanctuary.
He wanted to keep me close. That was evident in his rejection of Franco driving me home for him. I got the sense that Dante didn’t want me out of his sight at all after the gala. He kept my hand firmly in his, which I appreciated because it grounded me. He also refused to go to speak with his men and soldiers, prioritizing my presence.
And here, in his room for the first time, I felt like he wanted to trap me with him.
“I don’t need to be supervised,” I said as he set his jacket on a chair.
He lined his brow, watching me stand still near the door, too afraid to set another foot forward. “You’re not.”
I wasn’t making myself clear. After licking my lips and hurrying to figure out a better way to word it, I said, “I’m not some delicate weakling.” Lifting my chin bolstered my confidence. “I understand that you might perceive me as some young thing to shelter and protect, but I get it, Dante. If you have responsibilities to see to, I don’t need you to hover and keep a close eye on me.”
He huffed, striding toward me as he unbuttoned his shirt. The slow reveal of his taut, hairy chest stole my attention, and I frowned with how easily he could distract me.
“I don’t intend to hover.” He dropped his shirt a few feet before reaching me. “But I do want to keep a close eye on you.”
Before I could register his intention, he gripped the top of my dress and shoved it down. My breasts popped out, free and unrestrained. Yet, he maintained direct eye contact with me, proving his statement.
“I want to keep a close eye on you tonight.” He pushed my dress lower, stretching it as it reached my waist. “Tomorrow.” He leaned closer to shove my dress off completely. “And every day after that.”
I steadied my breath, overwhelmed by what he said. Without his gaze raking over me, he gave the impression that he wasn’t after sex. Not right now. He stared right back at me, confusing me as he removed his pants and boxers. We stood there, naked together, but I realized he was interested in a different kind of intimacy.
He hugged me close, and the flush contact of his hard body against mine felt so familiar and right. I closed my eyes as he kissed the top of my head.
“You intend to keep me?” I asked, thinking back to how defiantly and seriously he told the bikers and Stefan that he wouldn’t hand me over. Regardless of the fact that Ricky lost me in a bet. He didn’t want to, it seemed, but I wasn’t sure how to decipher that.
“I want you with me,” he said as he led me toward the bathroom. His fingers locked with mine, and I relished in how comforting his hold was.
“You don’t have to pretend here,” I reminded him.
“I’m not.” He shot me a serious look as he paused at the shower and turned the dual showerheads on. Steam lifted and filled the air quickly, and I shivered, both from the teasing warmth on my skin and the severity of his gaze.
I stepped under the water with him, distracted by his dick jutting out. He didn’t initiate anything sexual. After how roughly he took me on the balcony, I was curious about getting more, but I was intrigued about why he’d try to ignore his obvious arousal.
Instead, he hugged me close and began to shower with me. Water sluiced over his chest, heightening the rises and dips of his muscles. Callused and strong—but gentle—he lathered me up and rinsed me off. It was an intimate but peaceful experience that we shared, and I would never forget the tender consideration he showed me.
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. I was still trying to figure out what he meant. He wanted to keep me as a permanent placeholder, to make sure Vanessa didn’t bother him? Or did he plan to make this real between us?
Accepting this need to think and avoid speaking, I followed his lead. Once I was clean, I tended to him. Soaping him up was just another way to feel his rugged physique, but he broke his control as I did so.
Kissing me slowly and softly, he showed me how much he wanted me. Not only as a pussy to fuck, but a woman to be affectionate with.
After I rinsed him off, we exited the shower together. I stood still, smiling sleepily as he dried me off with a thick, fluffy towel. Tucking the edge of the bath sheet against my breasts, he sighed and stepped back. He grabbed a towel for himself and tipped his chin to indicate that I should leave the bathroom with him.
“Sore?”
I wasn’t sure how I could blush around him after he’d already seen all of me. I settled on a shrug. “Not terribly…”
He chuckled, watching me approach the bed. Finished with drying off, he tossed his towel aside and pulled back the covers. I didn’t need him to tell me to get in. I could follow a cue. I lowered my towel and crawled onto the mattress, excited and happy that he got in with me.
“I’m not pretending,” he told me once we were nestled together. On our sides, we gazed at each other. He picked up a remote and shut the lights off. My eyes adjusted quickly, and I fell in love with the quiet, simple comfort of lying with him and gazing into his eyes. He lifted his hand to stroke my cheek, brushing my hair back from my face.
“What does that mean?”
One side of his lips rose in the start of a sexy smirk. “Are you pretending anymore?”
I shook my head, then turned to kiss his palm as he framed my face. “I struggled to fake it from the beginning.”
Now he smiled fully, a self-satisfied, smug expression I wanted to see every day.
“But what does this mean?” I had to know. There was plenty I could assume, but I was too nervous to think he could be true, that he wasn’t too good to be true.
“You tell me. If we’re not pretending to date, then it’s real. We’re together—period. What do you want in a relationship with me?”
I raised my brows, thrilled that he was basically giving me a chance to voice my dreams. My fantasies could become reality, and that was a hell of a change to accept.
“What do you want out of your future?” he asked, tucking in closer.
“In general?” I asked.
He nodded, rubbing my back with this tighter embrace. The only distance remaining between us were the few inches so we could face each other for this conversation, but from chest down, we were plastered against each other, cocooned under the sheets and blanket with warmth.
“I’ve always wanted to go to college.” I felt sheepish to say that, since he was so much older and that was not something he could personally relate to. He’d already grown up past the academic years of youth, already had a career, multiple businesses, and great wealth. Every difference between us seemed like another reason we didn’t make sense, but I did my best to ignore that.
“For what?” He sounded intrigued, not peeved or irritated that I’d want something so far beneath his age.
“Children’s literacy. I’ve looked into education programs, but I don’t want to be a teacher in a classic sense, standing at the front of a classroom. I want to specialize in literacy, though.”
He kissed my forehead. “Something simple and good.” Then he chuckled. “I like that. It’s an ideal opposite to the complicated darkness that I deal with in my life.”
“I never had much of a chance to plan for college, let alone work toward it. Ricky took everything, and once Dad died and gave us money in his will, that idiot lost all that too.”
He exhaled a long, tired breath. “Henry wasn’t around to raise your brother any better.”
I nodded, hating that it was true. “And my grandma gave up. She provided shelter and the necessities the best she could, but she’d already raised a child. She already went through parenting and was too tired and unhealthy to want to embrace it again.”
“I’m sorry you suffered through your childhood.”
“It is what it is. For a long time, I hated that Dad couldn’t stay. He abandoned us. But I guess parenthood isn’t for everyone. I mean, my mom ran off sooner.”
“I think Alison probably realized what a military household looked like and wasn’t interested. That’s no excuse, but like you claim, it is what it is.”
None of us could change the past. I’d dismissed my mother long ago, never having the chance to know her or to remember her. Thinking about the time behind us, I wondered again how my dad, Dante, and Stefan could have ever been friends. More so, that they weren’t friends now or hadn’t been recently.
“Do you say that in terms of how you all drifted apart? You, my dad, and Stefan?”
“Yes. It’s like I told you earlier. We simply wanted different things. We weren’t pulled in the same direction.” He frowned. “Well, Stefan and I were. We both followed the expectations to take over our families. He became the head of the Giovanni name and I took over the Constella Family when my father died.”
“But you are rivals now.” I rubbed along his jaw, hoping he could see the gratitude in my eyes. “I appreciate your standing up to him—where I’m concerned.”
“Even if he hadn’t befriended those bikers, I would’ve said the same. No one is taking you from me, Nina. I mean it.”
Touched by his fierce words, I kissed him, pouring all my love into the press of my lips to his.
“Stefan has made himself my enemy, though. Not only in butting into my life and trying to get me to give you up, but also by siding with those bikers. He sided with the Domino Family before the MC tore them apart, and it’s just the most recent things in his pattern of making greedy and stupid choices.”
“Is that why Stefan is so eager for you to marry Vanessa? To link you to him somehow?” These Mafia politics would take a long time to figure out. “He seems so certain that you should be with her. Like… like an arranged marriage.”
He sighed. “Arranged marriages do happen in our world. It’s a common practice for combining Families and strengthening power. I was arranged to marry Grace, and she didn’t live two months after Romeo’s birth. Since I’m older, I would hope I could be exempt from that whole ordeal.” He smiled. “And since I’ve found you, I want you , no one else.”
My heart swelled with hope and love. It seemed far too soon to use the L-word with Dante.
“I’m too powerful as the established boss of the family to be tugged and manipulated into an arranged marriage.”
“But did Stefan ever think you had an old agreement or something? Did you talk about the future among the three of you that he’d get so hooked on the possibility of Vanessa marrying you?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. We didn’t talk about that back then.” With a wicked grin, he lowered his hand to my ass and pulled me closer to his naked body. “I imagine if Henry were alive and knew what I wanted to do to you, he’d kick my ass.”
I bit my lip, properly teased and giddy about Dante’s fantasies that might star me. “Oh, yeah? What do you want to do to me?”
The kiss he gave me was slow and seductive. “I’ll show you.”