Chapter 7 #3
Ace considered Dana for a moment.
She held no fire in her eyes, only lust and Ace felt no pull to her the way he had the woman at the roof. But she’d do.
He crooked a finger to beckon her over and her feet began moving instantly.
Sweat slicked Ace’s body as the headboard thudded against the wall. Dana’s face was buried in the pillow, her muffled cries filling the room as he drove into her in relentless, punishing strokes.
She tightened around him and her moans grew louder. He felt her tremble beneath him, another orgasm ripping through her as her fingers clawed at the sheets.
Ace kept moving, eyes unfocused.
He’d been at it for forty minutes, getting lost in Dana’s body to outrun his mind.
When the tell-tale tingle finally surged up his spine, Ace didn’t bother holding it back. With a rough exhale, he pulled out and released himself into the condom. His knees buckling from the prolonged orgasm, he fell back onto the mattress, chest heaving.
The only sound in the room was their breathing and the traffic from below.
After catching his breath, he opened his eyes to see Dana still laid across his bed and frowned. “You good?” he asked flatly.
She smiled up at him, her stark white veneers damn near blinding him. “I’m perfect,” she purred, stretching languidly across the sheets like a cat.
Ace’s frown deepened. “Aight,” he said, sitting up. “You can go then. ‘Preciate you.”
He didn’t miss the way her face dropped and despite her efforts to recover it, Ace saw her smile slip, but he ignored it.
Dana was a nice enough woman and if his mother had it her way, they’d be married, but the bedroom was where their chemistry began and ended.
They’d agreed that their arrangement would go no further than that and good pussy and sad eyes wouldn’t change that.
“Oh okay… Maybe I can-.” Whatever she was getting ready to suggest died on her lips with the withering glare from Ace. He’d tried to be nice but his dick was soft and his patience was thin. Though he hadn’t opened his mouth or moved a muscle, Dana flinched.
She snapped her mouth shut, cowering away from him, and stood, disappearing into the bathroom.
A few minutes later she came back out fully dressed, hair smoothed back into place. She looked like she was coming from a dinner party rather than getting her back blown out.
Ace stared down at Dana a moment, waiting for that same tightness in his chest from the rooftop.
Nothing.
She was beautiful in the way that women in his world usually were. They were caricatures of the perfect mafia wife: quiet, willing, and without a visible flaw.
He kept looking at her like something would suddenly call to him.
It never did. As usual, Ace felt nothing.
Ace could see in her eyes that the woman before him thought she was special.
She thought her perfectly white and straight smile, pressed hair, pedigree, and breasts spilling from the low neckline of her top would make Ace give her something he’d never given anyone else.
Something that, if he didn’t feel it thudding in his chest when in the presence of the beauty on the roof, he was sure he didn’t have to give.
“Your car is downstairs,” Ace said, holding the door to his condo open.
Dana smiled up at him. “Bye Ace,” she said, trailing a hand down his bare chest as she passed him.
He didn’t react.
The door shut behind her with a soft click and his condo was once again bathed in silence. An eerie stillness settled back over the place.
Ace walked back into his bedroom and entered the en suite bathroom. He turned the water on as hot as he could stand it and stepped in after shedding himself of the boxers he’d put on.
He winced slightly at the temperature but relaxed as the steady stream of hot water beat down on him, soothing his tight muscles. He braced both hands on the shower wall and dipped his head with a sigh.
For a moment, Ace considered calling Dana back but quickly dismissed that idea.
He didn’t want company for the sake of it and not for a lack of trying, he didn’t enjoy Dana.
He didn’t enjoy any of the women he entertained.
There was no connection or desire. There was plenty of mutual lust and fear and respect on their end but nothing more.
The feelings that his father and grandfather described when meeting their other halves have never come for Ace, not even close.
Her face pushed its way into his mind again like she’d been summoned.
Like she belonged there.
Images of thick thighs and angry eyes flashed in his mind before disappearing just as she had. Ace chuckled into the steam, certain he was losing his mind.
This shit is getting ridiculous, he thought, roughly scrubbing a hand down his face.
One conversation and she had him twisted in knots.
Ace never claimed to be the perfect man. Hell, not even a good man. He’d done all the shit he was accused of plus some. He earned every nickname they gave him and carried each one without remorse.
As he laid in bed alone, he considered that maybe things were best as they were.