Page 19 of Scorned Beauty
“Probably. However, a virgin is not on the list of my requirements.”
Though this was not news to me, especially with the more progressive crime families, I couldn’t help being a little more curious. “Why aren’t you married, Dom?”
His jaw hardened, and I thought he wasn’t going to answer me until he said, “I thought we were not letting our personal life get mixed up.”
“Wait, if you’re engaged—” My heart clenched painfully at the thought.
“I’m not,” he snapped. “I’m not with anyone. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have propositioned you.”
Hmm, he was sensitive to my question. Maybe he was recently jilted. That would explain using me as a rebound. Not that I minded. He could totally use me as a rebound as long as he gave me all the orgasms I wanted.
“Good,” I said as the Escalade found parking near my apartment. “Let’s see if your ego is writing checks your cock can’t cash.”
Dom’s chest shook with silent laughter before a suppressed chuckle escaped past his mouth. “Sweetheart, you know I’ve been hard all day and each word out of your mouth has me imagining ways to make you beg.”
I clenched my thighs.Here we go. This man was fun to rile up.
He glanced behind us. “What are we going to do about that pussy?”
Chapter
Six
Sloane
Ginger solved our problem.She took herself out of the equation. Dom had bought several trays of the premium canned tuna. Now I wasn’t sure if it was a bribe, but it certainly sounded like it. He personally opened the can and dumped it in Ginger’s bowl, stood back, and crossed his arms.
He wasn’t sold on cats yet and made no attempt to pet her.
In return, Ginger eyed him suspiciously, but the aroma of the gourmet feline food was too much to resist. She snuck to her food bowl and started gobbling.
Dom shot me a triumphant look.
I rolled my eyes. “You must have had help. Ginger is very picky.”
“My uncle loves cats. I called him when I was at the pet store and he told me what to buy.”
“Wait…your uncle…the Chicago boss.”
“Yep.”
“That sounds oddly domesticated.” And oddly disconcerting.
“Luca likes cats more than people.”
“I like him already,” I murmured, then remembered something from past conversations with Bianca. In the early days of her captivity when she was forced into a marriage with the Rossis, she was cursing Dom’s uncle, Luca Moretti, for facilitating Sandro’s acceptance into the made man sanctum. “He’s your uncle who’s still looking for his wife, right?”
Dom shifted uncomfortably and moved away from me to go through the grocery bags to put the items away. My pantry and fridge were sparse of contents to begin with, so he had free rein on how to arrange them.
I didn’t push him to answer, and Ginger distracted me. She finished eating and jumped on the window ledge and proceeded to groom herself. I knew her well enough that she was going to demand to be let out. She enjoyed traversing the fire escape ladder to the rooftop after she ate.
I opened the window. Since it was November, a chilly breeze swept through. It was two weeks before Thanksgiving, which reminded me I hadn’t checked on Delphine’s holiday schedule yet. Harriet moved in this year, but if I remembered right, next weekend would be the residents’ Thanksgiving dinner. Nursing school didn’t assign us a rotation on Thanksgiving Day itself, so I was looking forward to a break. Our supervisor said we could expect plenty of missed holidays when we became licensed nurses.
After a while, Ginger was done, and without another meow or purr, she left my apartment.
“So, she just left you with a stranger after you went through the trouble of rescuing her from a shelter.”
Dom leaned nonchalantly against the counter and was watching me. The cold draft sent goose bumps racing across my skin, but a furnace heated somewhere below my belly.
