Page 11 of Under His Protection

Ever so slightly, he urged me to step closer to his warm body, so fine in that tailored suit. “Would you like to get out of here and catch up?”

I locked onto the promise in his words. Get out of here. That was all I wanted. In a trance, cautious in thinking his sudden appearance was too good to be true when my life was coming apart, I nodded. “Yes.”

I had to escape. I needed to get away from those bikers until I could figure out a logical step in stopping this disaster of an arrangement from happening.

He lowered his hands from my arms, and I boldly hurried to hold one before I’d lose him in the crowds.

As he glanced down at my fingers linking with his, I swallowed and tried not to sound like I was begging. “Yes, please. I’d love to catch up.”

5

DANTE

Dante

Catch up?

Talking was the last thing on my mind.

Something about the intensity of her grip on my hand bothered me. She wasn’t clinging—all right, she was. But it wasn’t with the same cloying impatience that Vanessa showed me.

I seldom welcomed women to come on to me. I preferred the chase. The challenge. All the ups and downs of suspense and working for what I wanted to better enjoy the spoils and rewards.

Henry’s daughter clutched my hand desperately, boldly, but with a degree of determination that brokered on fear.

Before I led her through the room, I scanned my surroundings. Giving up on looking for Romeo, I noticed Franco dealing with some men. Then other capos in charge. All was well here. Franco could handle that MC idiot who was cheating.

As the boss, I could come and go as I pleased, and right now, I wanted to get the hell out of here with Nina.

“Let’s go,” I told her, firming my hand around hers. She was dainty, small, and delicate, but I felt the rawness of worn skin on her fingertips.

She didn’t reply, and as I guided her through the room, towing her with me, she offered up no sign of resistance to how speedily I ushered her away.

Catch up?

With her hand in mine, I was electrified with a strange, instant zing of lust. If the mere sensation of this minimal contact, her hand in mine, could wake me up like this, I imagined a fuller, more bare touch of her against me would be even better.

Catching up with her was a lie. I’d never really known her before. I congratulated Henry and his ex, Alison, when Nina was born. A couple of times when Henry was home between tours, we visited and I had passing glances of the quiet, bookish girl Nina was then.

I didn’t know her. Not back then as she grew up. And I wouldn’t assume to know a single damn thing about her now other than recognizing her as Henry’s daughter. Reconciling the girl I barely remembered with the exquisite young woman she was now… I couldn’t. It was impossible.

“This way,” I offered when she seemed to hustle right behind me.

It hadn’t left my notice that she was eagerly agreeable to this sham of “catching up”. I doubted she recalled anything about me, other than the fact that her father once knew me, yet here she was, ready to go along with leaving with me.

“Where—” She cleared her shaky voice, and I was immediately on edge with how uneasy she sounded. “Where are we going?”

Her common sense prevailed, but perhaps too late. We were already outside, striding toward my car.

I shrugged. “Want to cruise around for a while?”

She lifted her face toward mine. Illuminated in the streetlamps behind the Hound and Tea building, she was cast in shadows and faint golden light. And fucking gorgeous. I caught the wariness in her eyes, and I didn’t know how to interpret it. She was willing to escape those crowded rooms with me, but she had her guard up.

Is she mad that I didn’t go to her father’s funeral?

That was the only recent thing she could possibly hold against me. We didn’t know each other. We’d known of each other, indirectly.

And I wanted to change that in the worst way as I slowed near my car.

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