Page 19 of Enforcer

She was already on the other side of them with me.

“Dante, please, just leave it. I told you I’m not good with this shit. I’m not like other women, alright?”

“You’ve been hurt,” he realizes, stepping closer to me, and I try to back away but can’t. The bed hits the back of my thighs, stopping my backward motion.

My heart races, my feet itching for me to run as a bead of sweat slides down my spine, causing my body to react, a shiver working its fingers through my bones.

“I haven’t,” I tell him, jutting my chin up confidently.

He looks down at me, searching my eyes for something. Anything. The barest tell that’ll help him investigate the mystery of me.

“You’ve seen hurt, though. Something made you box your heart in. Something has you disillusioned to anything that could be more than sex.”

I hate this feeling.

He’s read me like a fucking book with ease, and I’m two seconds away from crying and running to hide in the closet. Like I did as a kid when my parents would scream at one another.

Seeing the turmoil in my demeanor, he reaches for me, and I cringe away from him.

“Even if we can’t be more, we can be friends, piccola minaccia.”

I cross my arms over my chest in defense. “Mm, friends with a menace? That’s how you spend your time?”

Even if I don’t know what the new word he’d added before menace means, I know it can’t be anything good. It’s Dante, after all.

He grins, and the fucking thing lights up the dark room we’re standing in.

The only light spilling in is doing so from the living room down the hall.

“You found out what it meant, hm? I wondered when you would and what you’d do to me once you knew.”

“Yeah? What did you land on for your punishment?”

“I thought you’d throw a shoe at my head, but since your feet are bare, I guess I’m safe.”

Things are easy with him. It would be too simple to laugh and banter back and forth, just like he’s Brynne, like he’s a friend.

“Well, that can be arranged,” I say, trying to get around him to get a shoe from the closet, thinking maybe that would be the thing to chase him back out into the hall, but he grabs me around the middle, tossing me onto the bed as I scream, and he laughs.

“Not tonight, piccola minaccia. Plus, we’re going to be friends, remember? Friends don’t throw shoes at one another.”

I crawl to the opposite side of the bed, meaning to hit the ground running toward the closet, but Dante is too quick. He gets onto the bed, grabbing my hips and tugging me backward. This time, I do laugh.

My body feels light, my soul even lighter as he flips me over and snuggles between my legs. There’s a smile splayed on his beautiful face and an airy amusement in his eyes. “I just said you have to be nice to me because I’m your friend now, and you try to get a shoe anyhow?”

He tsks three times, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “What am I to do with you, piccola minaccia?”

“Punish me?” It’s out of my mouth before I can think of the repercussions.

If friends don’t throw shoes, I’m confident they also don’t spank one another, though it’s the only imagery my brain chooses to latch onto now.

“Piccola minaccia,” he grumbles as I fight to get away from him, and he has to use force to keep me beneath him.

“I’m not a fucking menace!” I grit out, fighting his big body with all my might.

“Currently, you are,” he replies, his gravely tone having lost all amusement, and I can’t fight the way the octave raked its way through my body.

“Dante,” I shout. “Let me go!”

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