Page 28 of The Mob and his Messenger

“I need to take you on a date,” I whisper, voice carnal. “Perhaps this is a mess. Fine. But you deserve to be wined and dined like the queen you are. And then treated like the sexy goddess you are afterward, too. I want to forget about the world for one night, Dallas.”

She hugs close to me. I can feel her nipples pebbling through her T-shirt as I slide my hand down her body to her hip. I grab onto her side, away from her ass cheek lest I lose control and maul her out here in the garden.

“Why are you suddenly so romantic, hmm?” she asks.

I bare my teeth, predator-like, in the closest thing I have to a smile and not a smirk.

Maybe she can teach me one day.

“Because I’ve never told anyone about my parents before. Gabriel knows the details, but only from the other men. I’ve never talked about it. It’s just a myth that surrounds me. Perhaps some of the men think it’s just a story. I thought it might scare you away.”

“Listen,” she says, a glimmer of seriousness in her expression. “Would I have put ‘Killed a man’ on my requirements on a dating website? No, I guess not. But there’s a connection between us that goes, hell, Dom, it feels like it goes really deep. It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life to feel something like this. I don’t want to sound clingy, or like one of those girls—”

“You never have to explain yourself with me,” I growl, giving her side a supportive squeeze that has my manhood solid as stone.

“But knowing that you feel comfortable being honest with me, well, it makes me feel closer to you. And if someone ever tried to hurt somebody I cared about, I’d like to think I’d try to defend them too.”

“But I didn’t,” I whisper. “I only reacted afterward. I froze. And that’s the day I learned never to hesitate, to always trust my instincts. Right now my instincts are telling me to book us a five-star hotel suite out of the city. Because otherwise, I might end up losing control and taking you bareback and hard right here in the garden.”

The lust thrums through us both.

But then, for the second time today, Gabriel’s phone call interrupts us. The absurd thought that he’s doing it on purpose occurs to me, as though he knows what’s going on between his daughter and me.

“Yes?” I say, forcing myself to take a step back from Dallas.

She blows me a kiss and then walks barefoot onto the lawn, toward the fountain where Poppet is leaping lithely around, water spraying into the air and glistening like little pebbles of frozen gold in the sunlight.

“We got them,” Gabriel says. “It was clean. What’d you want us to do with them?”

“Take them to the warehouse out of town,” I tell him. “You know the one.”

“Yeah, I do. And you?”

“I’ll fly a chopper over and join you. It’s time we showed Patty what happens when he crosses us.”

“What are we going to do, Skip?” Gabriel asks.

“Kill them,” I snarl. “Gabriel, I’m going to fucking kill them.”

Just like I knew it would, it gives Gabriel pause.Chapter SixteenDallasI stand at the end of the garden feeling faintly ridiculous, as though I’m living inside a Victorian novel and I’m about to have a tête-à-tête.

I stand on the stone pathway with the world painted black, under the statue of the flying harpist just as Domenico instructed me to.

It all came in the form of a letter sealed in a velvet box, the precise details on what time I should bring myself here, the dog sitter who would care for Poppet, and who has won awards for her dog-sitting.

That was the hardest part about getting ready tonight, being apart from Poppet. I haven’t spent a moment away from her since the bomb, and I was nervous she’d be skittish and needy.

But when the dog sitter arrived, she calmed and even seemed to be nosing at me to go meet Domenico.

Come on, silly, she seemed to be chastising. Maybe things are complicated and maybe you’re shy but that’s the man of your dreams out there waiting for you.

I smile now, hugging my arms around myself, wearing the dress that Domenico selected for me. I knew that if I told him I wanted to choose my own clothes, of course, he wouldn’t have any concerns with that, but I wanted to wear what he chose.

I wanted – want, need – to please him.

Dad still doesn’t know, hence the secrecy, secrecy Dom wants to end.

Let’s just tell him.

I asked for a little more time, my anxiety flurrying every time I think about the inevitable showdown.

Mom will freak because it’s Domenico DeLuca, the criminal, and no daughter of hers is going to be attached to a criminal, no matter how wealthy he is, no matter how the daughter feels about him.

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