Page 49 of Under His Protection

I winced. “I am.” No. Not really. Dante was so good at derailing me and making me lose my concentration.

“Damn, he really fried a little bit of your brain, huh?”

I smiled, wishing I could laugh along with her joke.

“Was it all that you imagined it could be?” she asked. Like me, she was too busy to ever date much. Tessa was a virgin—unless she was keeping secrets from me.

“No? I’m not sure how to compare it to anything I could’ve dreamed up.” I sighed, almost feeling shy and ashamed about how easily I caved. Dante and I weren’t in a relationship, or we weren’t supposed to be in one. “It just sort of happened.”

“And quickly. I mean, yeah, you recognized him as someone you knew a long time ago, but you only ran into him at the Hound and Tea a couple of weeks ago.”

“Three weeks,” I corrected.

“Which doesn’t mean anything bad. Sleeping with a dude on the first date isn’t anything to be humiliated about. It’s not like I have firsthand expertise on the subject, but casual sex isn’t a crime.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the phantom tingle of his lips on it. “It didn’t feel casual.”

“Hmm. It seems like you’re blurring the lines between faking it and falling for your Mafia man.”

“The lines are definitely blurred.”

“But in a good way, right?” she checked. I could always count on her to worry about me.

“Yes.” The slight burn down there, a physical reminder that he’d stretched me, was very good. I wanted him to fill me again. Soon. Just thinking about his touches and carnal looks revved me up to a lusty mess.

“Wow. You replied pretty quickly there.”

I smiled. “I guess I’m that confident about how I feel.”

“About him? Or about having sex with him?”

Both? “About the sex.”

She laughed harder. “One time and you’re sold on it?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’m sold.”

She huffed. “Here I am, terrified of marrying someone, and you sound eager to make it official to bang the rest of your life away.”

I licked my lips, enjoying this silly talk. I hated that she felt stuck with her situation, but it didn’t put a damper on my enthusiasm about Dante now that we’d crossed the lines to have sex. “Yeah. I’d marry Dante in a heartbeat.”

Although we laughed together, as I left the fitting room, I realized that while I’d said it in jest, I meant it. One hundred percent.

Dante could very well represent a solid, fulfilling future, but it felt too much like wishful thinking, nonsense to giggle about, than a reality in the making.

I disconnected the call with her and walked out to Dante’s car. He leaned against the hood, looking at his phone, and I smiled to myself.

Calling that hunk of a sex god mine—for real—felt like a fantasy.

But the next buzz of my cell in my pocket yanked me away from daydreaming and planted me back in reality.

Ricky: Nina. You have to come home. Now!

I furrowed my brow, bothered that this first summons from him came in the form of a demand.

Because he’s still expecting to hand me over to those bikers. A car backfired in the parking garage, and its throaty engine resembled the growl of a motorcycle. It was nothing more than a coincidence, this sound reaching my ears right when I had to be reminded of how I was due to go to a dirty MC gang.

I flinched, and just like that, I gave up with this silliness about staying with Dante forever. He’d never said anything about keeping me forever. This was all supposed to be an act, anyway. We'd lapsed, having sex like that, but it really didn’t change anything about our arrangement.

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