“I was just keeping her company,” I mutter. “Or, rather, I was just escaping the party, the same way she was.”
Gabriel nods, unsuspicious.
He trusts you. That’s why he doesn’t suspect you. You piece of shit.
“Never was one for parties, Dallas,” he says.
“No?” I say, and then immediately regret it.
What I should be doing is pushing any thought of Dallas from my mind, definitely not asking my consigliere for – for what? – for inside tips about his daughter.
Gabriel, tell me how to seduce your daughter, tell me all her quirks and character traits.
But Gabriel just takes it as a question between friends, because he has no reason not to. He has no reason to suspect this searing, compulsive need that’s burning through me like the wildest of forest fires, scorching everything up, my reason, my willpower, until all that’s left is her.
And she’s mine.
She fucking belongs to me.
“She’s always been the bookish type,” he says. “Every time she’d come to visit me as a kid – and you know how much Samantha resented letting her come down here – but anyway, she’d always just hole up with a book. Sometimes she’d sit there for twelve hours straight, picking up a new one when the old one was finished.”
“Hmm,” I mutter noncommittally, my eyes roaming over the party as I wish for this conversation to take a bullet to the head.
But then Gabriel laughs in a way I know well, a laugh of reminiscence. And Gabriel is one of those people who all but screams, Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m laughing about? I can feel him looking at me in this way, the same way he has for over two decades.
“What?” I ask reluctantly.
“It’s just she read this one book about three times one visit, just kept reading it over and over.”
“Oh?”
Please, somebody, help me stop being attracted to this man’s daughter.
But then that’s putting it mildly. Attraction is something that can be resisted. This is more like nuclear fusion like we’ve been blasted together with the hottest inferno imaginable, the heat of the sun, and now nothing can pry us apart, not loyalty, not even decency.
I need to taste her fucking juices.
No, what I need to do is get a grip on myself. I need to handle these desires the same way I handle business, uncompromisingly, with no consideration of my own feelings.
“What was it?” Gabriel mutters. “What’s the one with the lions and the witches?”
“I don’t know. Narnia?”
Gabriel nods eagerly, chuckling. “Yep, that was it. And it was a series of books. I remember now.”
I make to stand leave, to go somewhere – anywhere – else. But Gabriel still has that same wistful look on his face. From the way his cheeks are reddening, I can tell he’s been drinking a fair amount tonight.
“I hope she finds a good man, Dom,” he mutters.
“A good man,” I repeat.
Not a mob boss, then.
“A man who’ll treat her right. A man who’ll, I don’t know, encourage her. You know what it’s like with women these days, skip. If you’re not willing to support their dreams, they fuck off out west and take your daughter with them, and never mind that you did everything you could, worked your ass off, and it’s not like you ever said they couldn’t be an actress. And now what is she? A woman who goes to parties and won’t take a penny of my money because it’s beneath her.”
I sigh and then laugh grimly. “I think you might be drunk, Gabriel.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, maybe. You think this party was a success?”
I think about the balcony, the banter I never normally allow myself to engage in. I think about the nicknames.
Firecracker and Iceman.
It’s juvenile stuff, and yet it feels somehow significant. The way she laughed as she called me Iceman returns to me, capturing me in its anything-but-icy hands. I wonder what she’s doing in her bedroom now. I wonder if she’s changed into her pajamas. I wonder if she’s lying there, legs tucked underneath her, waiting to reveal her thighs to me and let me make them mine.
“Yes,” I say, clearing my throat. “You’ve done really well.”
“Good.” He smiles. “Yeah, it’s not too shabby, is it?”
Chapter Eight
Dallas
I return to my bedroom with a dozen insane thoughts flurrying around my mind.
I remember how close Domenico was to me on the balcony, the size of him, the evident strength, the scent of his cologne swirling around me, and, beneath it, the scent of him.
I lock my bedroom door and get Poppet settled in her bed in the corner. Overstuffed from the treats and the attention, she’s more than happy to lay her snout on her paws and let her eyes flutter closed.
In the bathroom, I lock the door again, my heart thumping so loudly I can barely hear the voice of reason in my mind.
He was just being friendly. He was just bonding with his best friend’s daughter. There’s nothing going on here because, in all likelihood, he would find that idea repulsive. He’s treating you as he’d treat any friend of the family.
But as I strip my clothes off and move toward the shower – careful not to look in the mirror – I can’t stop my mind from conjuring up impossibilities.
I can feel the railing of the balcony in my hands as I bend over, sticking my ass out, grinding it against Dom as he moves up behind me and frees his manhood with one smooth movement of his hand. In my fantasy, he hikes up my dress and tears down my panties like an animal.
“I need to take you hard,” he growls. “I need to dominate you. Back that pussy up right now. Right now.”
And
