more following. It’s weird, Angelo. Okay?”
“It was just a bet,” he said. “But fine, if you are going to throw a hissy fit about it …” He was smiling to let me know he was joking. “But Dani, if I didn’t ask him to follow you, you wouldn’t be here. And I think we’re both happy you’re here.”
He slid his hand further up my thigh. I let out a sighing breath that was both wordless and full of meaning.
I parted my legs ever so slightly, telling him with my body that I wanted more. I had to put my drink down when he pressed his fingertips against my clit. I leaned back in a delicious twist of pleasure and shock, grabbing onto his wrist.
“Softer,” I whispered, and he softened. Then I said, “No, harder, harder.”
He was sipping his beer as he did it, his dark eyes locked on me. There was something fucking irresistible about that, like I was his plaything, like he was driving me crazy without even giving me his full attention. The feminist in me had several choice words to say about that, but the dirty, horny part of me screamed out in ecstasy. I shifted my hips, finding his touch with firmer and firmer contact.
He fingered me faster, faster, and then it felt as though the whole apartment—no, the whole world—came crashing down. The orgasm tore through me with vicious and delicious speed. I opened my mouth wider, trying to let the moans loose, and then Angelo was nipping at my neck.
But then there was a loud knock at the door, three bang-bang-bangs.
“What is it?” he roared.
“I’m sorry, boss,” a man grunted. “But it’s your father.”
“What does he want?” Angelo called.
“It’s—uh—it’s sensitive, boss.”
Angelo growled something under his breath. He smoothed my hair from my forehead in a strangely gentle gesture. “It might be an emergency. I’ll have Felice drive you home.”
I forced myself not to look back as I went to the door. It was harder than it should have been.
I’m back at my apartment after the fruitless run, breathing heavily as I remember the feeling of his hand pressing against my sex.
This is a problem.
Because I’m actually starting to enjoy being with him way too much. It’s more than just a casual I-want-to-fuck-him-again vibe, though there’s a healthy heaping of that. It’s something else, too: the banter, the nicknames, the fact that he’s not intimidated by my feistiness and my career like so many other men are.
I go back up to the apartment and let myself in. Quinny is in the kitchen, pouring a bowl of cereal. She looks up with her eyes narrowed, taking in my sweaty body. “And where have you been?”
“Running. Early shift?”
“No rest for the weary, ain’t that right?”
“Quinny,” I say, leaning against the wall. “What would you say if I sort of, not had feelings for a guy, but thought that I might, like, develop feelings? And if I thought it was going to get in the way of my career and, you know, helping Wyatt and everything?”
“Do you want my honest answer?” Quinny asks.
I nod.
She smiles good-naturedly. “I’d say you’re making excuses, Dani.”
I want to tell her she’s wrong, but I can’t. Because I’m afraid she might be right.
13
Angelo
“You will have to excuse Romolo,” Giraldo says as we drive through Boston. He leans close to the steering wheel like an old lady, narrowing his eyes. When he sees me looking, he shrugs. “My eyesight is shit. Boston is not so sunny. But, as I was saying, Romolo—he is old-school. Those men, they expect the don himself to come. You understand.” He speaks in frantic, snappish bursts. I have to focus hard to keep up.
To answer him, I just grunt and nod. I know I need to calm down. But the rage has me in its teeth, as it so often does.
“Business good?” I ask to distract myself.
“Oh, very.” He smiles mysteriously. “That is what we are going to see. It’s good you being here, Angelo. Your father sent you to discuss splitting some sort of protection deal, correct?”
I nod gruffly. Fishing expedition. “Send a few of our men over here to help you as necessary. Do you need the numbers?”
Giraldo shakes his head. “Not right now. It’s peacetime.”
“Then where are we going?”
“Your father—excuse me, Angelo—but your father is old-school, too.”
“My father is a good man,” I say carefully, not sure exactly what Giraldo means when he says old-school. When he said it about Romolo, it was almost like a