Page 34 of Under His Protection

Nina wasn’t like other Mafia women. She wasn’t used to fineries and wealth. If I’d been looking for a materialistic girlfriend, Nina wasn’t it. After years of the same old, she was a refreshing change. I didn’t have to worry about what she’d try to get out of me, and that was a freedom I seldom faced.

“Forget it.”

She nodded but frowned as she watched me open the kit and find the antibiotic cream and bandages. “Oh. No. Dante, I can do that.”

I leaned closer, standing between her knees, and that approach had her flinching on the counter.

“Easy.”

She rubbed the back of her neck, reluctant to make eye contact all of a sudden. After the night she’d had, I wasn’t shocked that she was skittish. But it seemed like she was nervous around me, not that she was traumatized by those men.

“I’m sorry that this happened,” I said as I began to tend to the scrape on her chest. Having my fingers near her breasts messed with me. While there was nothing sexy about the motions of helping her with basic first aid, it felt intimate.

Being alone together. Granted the permission to touch her…

“It’s life,” she replied. “It’s not the first time I was groped or someone grabbed at me.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, hating that this was her reality. “Where?”

“Mainly at the Hound and Tea.”

“When you were working?”

She nodded, then held still as I smeared the cream on the small cut on her cheek. “I share that with you. Work. It was all I ever did. So, if men got handsy, it was just part of the job. Happens to women everywhere.”

I glanced into her blue eyes, holding her gaze for a few seconds. “Not anymore.”

“Well, yeah. Because I don’t work there right now. Since I’m here… With you.”

I loathed how temporary that sounded. It was becoming all too easy and natural to come home and know she would be here in my house.

“And because if another man ever touches you again, he’ll die at my hands, just like those two servers did.”

I watched her delicate throat flex with her struggle to swallow. Then meeting her eyes, I waited for a sign of horror or disgust. I saw none.

Instead, she sighed. “I figured as much.”

“Figured what?” I pressed the small bandages to her cuts.

“That you’d hurt them.”

I helped her down. “I killed them, Nina.” I didn’t need to tell her, but I wanted to. She was so damn different from me and what I was used to. She was new, ignorant about the ins and outs of the Mafia lifestyle. She was poor and inexperienced, not having lived through much yet in her life. Those contrasts between us only made me want her more, and I felt obligated to test her on this. To see if her knowing I killed someone—on her behalf—would make her feel repulsed by me.

Standing still, as I kept my hands on her hips, she nodded. “Yeah. I figured that.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

She licked her lips. “No? I have no control over you or what you say and do. You live by a different code, and it’s not my place to judge or expect anything otherwise.”

Urging her to leave the bathroom, I walked with her. “Is this your way of saying ‘you do you’?”

“Maybe?” She bit her lower lip and dropped her gaze. “I just don’t understand why you’d go to such lengths.”

I guided her toward the bed. Once we were there, I pulled the cover back and gestured for her to get in. I’d done what I came here to do. I checked on her. She seemed fine. I satisfied myself in tending to her cuts.

But I had to get the fuck out of here. She was skittish around me, not playful or flirty like she had been at the restaurant. I wanted her like that again, but I had no right to wish for it.

Not here. Not alone, with her trusting and open, following my lead and acting so submissive.

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