Page 6 of The Mob and his Messenger

“Do you think I need help to take a piss?” I snap.

“No, just … paranoid. Sorry.”

I sigh. “No, you’re right to be.”

I open the door and walk out in my suit, feeling a little like my usual self.

“Tell the boys to get ready,” I say. “We’re going to give this city a little fireworks show tonight.”

Gabriel blinks. “You’re coming?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

Because it’s easier than fantasizing about your daughter.

“Because I need to be there to make sure we do this right. If Patty thinks we’re weak, we’ll show him, Gabriel.”

“Just like the old days,” he says, eyes bright with reminiscence.

“Not quite,” I grin wolfishly. “But pretty damn close.”

We leave.Chapter FourDallasI lie in bed with my arms wrapped around Poppet, hugging her to my chest like I used to when she was a puppy. She cuddles against me, maybe sensing how tense my body is.

A war of tension runs through me, tearing me right down the middle.

On the one side, there’s the explosion, its reverberations causing me to shiver every time I remember it. I close my eyes and sense, more than see, the explosive light that lit up the alleyway. I feel the tremor in my bones. I feel my teeth chatter together.

But mostly, insanely, I feel Domenico’s body pressed against mine. I feel the muscles pushing through his shirt and his solid forearm wrapped across my middle.

The protective shield he turned his body into, it returns to me in white-hot moments, teasing me.

In my frantic writer’s mind, I see the explosion tear away his clothes and leaving him standing there naked, the flames dancing in his eyes as he stares firmly at me.

It’s wrong.

He is dad’s best friend and, also, he’s The Domenico DeLuca, which basically means he’d never be interested in a twenty year old nobody like me in a million years.

I roll over and end up nose to nose with Poppet. Her eyes are bright and knowing as she stares at me. She gives me a lick on the nose and then leans back, watching to see what I’ll do.

“I’m not obsessing over him,” I tell her.

She makes a huffing noise and lays her snout on her crossed forepaws, as though she’s had enough of my lies. I tickle her behind the ear and lie back, the room still undecorated, my boxes stacked all around me, and various pieces of clothes scattered here and there. I’ve been using the boxes as and when I need them. A paperback sits on my otherwise-bare bedside table.

I close my eyes and then snap them open again because apparently even closing my eyes now is dangerous.

The moment my eyelids fall shut, they become a screen projecting all kinds of lust-filled movies.

We’re on the hood of Domenico’s jet-black Mustang and I’m sitting on him, sitting right down on his manhood, and I’m not nervous, or unsure, or any of that. I’m confident. I’m filled with conquer-the-freaking-world energy. I drive down with my hips and he gasps, groaning for more, as his manhood fills me, seeming to freaking swell inside of me, stretching my tight soaking wet hole and then I …

I bite down.

Hard.

I cut my lip and then sit up, letting out a shiver.

Am I really going to let myself get that close to pleasuring myself with Poppet in bed with me?

No way.

I stand up and walk an aimless circuit around the room. The sun has risen and outside the distant sounds of the city call up to me, all the way up here in Dad’s penthouse apartment.

I peel back the curtain and look down at the sun-bathed city, a shadow of a cloud moving like a giant crawling beast across the park. Then I turn and walk toward my dresser, where I’ve stowed the clothes I’ve unpacked and washed. Basically, any clothes I’ve needed in the past two weeks since moving here.

“It’s all so silly, Poppet,” I say, searching for a T-shirt and some sweatpants.

But with nothing else to do but hang around the apartment, I don’t see the need to get dressed properly. Perhaps this will give me the motivation I need to get to work on my book again because these past two weeks have been so crazy I’ve sort of let that slip.

Letting my ambition slip. What a cliché of a writer.

I stand there in my pajama shorts and a tank top, no bra, glad that Domenico isn’t here to see me.

Every time I think about the way he winced when he saw my body, something in me seizes. I’ll try not to think about it, I decide.

Because ignoring things always makes them better.

After getting dressed I see that Poppet’s head is cocked, most likely listening to a sound deeper in the building. She springs from the bed like a flurry of snow and pads languidly across the room. A moment later, I hear the front door open and the sound of my dad’s footsteps.

---