Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ALYSSA

W e got pizza, beer, and cinnamon bread for dessert. Maneuvering the pizza slices onto plates was a feat in itself in the Range Rover, but now we’ve moved on to questions and beer as we watch the warehouse head for any signs of life.

Dante told me we’ll be here until someone shows, which could be a while.

“Favorite color?” The question is shot at me rapid-fire, and I hope he’s not going to play this game like this the entire time. I hate being put on the spot.

“Red,” I shoot back.

He chuckles. “Makes complete sense.”

I furrow my brows at him. Even though I told the truth that red is my favorite color, I feel defensive about my choice now. “Why does that make sense?”

He shrugs, lifting his beer to his lips. I don’t know that we should be partaking, but I’m glad he hadn’t shot the idea down because it’s calming my nerves, usually frayed around him.

“Because when I look at you, think about you. If you were to be a color, red would be the one. You’re just…saucy.”

“And the sauce is red?”

He grins. “The best ones are, yes.”

I smile as I drop my face and bring the glass bottle to my lips, letting the dark lager we’d chosen fill my mouth and harden my nerves.

“What’s your favorite color?” I ask him.

“Depends.”

“Not fair! I gave you my honest answer and chose only one color!”

“Well, if you’d have asked me first, I would’ve said black.” It makes sense; the marble in his house is black, and everything in every room plays off the same palette.

“But now that you have to answer after me? Not that it should make a difference,” I add.

He smiles, lifting his hand to tuck some of my hair that’s fallen free from the messy bun around my ear. “Now, I’d say red.”

It does something to my insides, and I clear my throat and drop my eyes.

“Your turn to ask a question,” he points out, dropping his touch away.

“So it is.” I think of everything I don’t know about him and ask the one thing that seems most essential—the most mundane.

“Are your parents still together?”

His eyes flick to the steering wheel as his left hand runs over its stitching. It’s a deep mahogany color that has to be beautiful in the daylight. “They would be if they were still alive.”

Fuck.

“I’m sorry. I put my foot in my mouth sometimes.”

He sighs. “No, I wanted to play this game to get to know you. It’s only fair if you have the same rights.”

“They were together from high school on. My father was a Ricci, Slate’s father’s brother. They were thick as thieves, always into some scheme or another to move the family onward and upward.”

I grin. “And now you’re one of the top families in New York,” I point out.

He nods. “That we are. It doesn’t feel like much when you’re in the family. Desensitized to it, I guess.”

“I can see that happening.”

I want to ask how they died, but I don’t want to be insensitive.

“My father was gunned down when I was little— a deal gone bad. Not one for the family , however. He was a gambler. My mother always said it was his downfall. She grieved herself to death not long after. I grew up with Slate’s parents as my own until they were killed.”

So much pain in such formative years.

“God, that’s awful. I’m sorry, Dante.”

“I don’t know any other life. I try to be optimistic, even through dark times. What about you? Are your folks still together?”

There it is, the question I wanted to avoid answering. I knew he would bat it back at me, so I don’t know why I asked him in the first place.

“No. They’re still alive, but they’re not together. It was a messy divorce when I was young. It got nasty.”

I hang my head, toying my finger over the rim of my beer bottle.

I can still hear the screaming all these years later.

His hand comes down on my left thigh, squeezing a bit. “That also makes so much sense.”

I laugh awkwardly. “Oh yeah? How?”

“Because of the massive walls you’ve erected to keep yourself safe—to remain single and unattainable to men.”

I swallow. Somehow, he’s figured me out.

I know how, too. I let him get too close for too long, and he’s looked through the window, keeping him out of my soul and glimpsing what’s beyond. I hadn’t meant to, it’s only he’s so fucking magnetic.

“That easy to read, huh?” I toss back at him.

He scoffs. “You? I fucking wish. If you were easy to read, I’d have you wanting to marry me already, tesoro. You’re the most difficult pain in the ass woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

I smile. “Then why are you bothering?”

“Because you’re worth bothering with, Alyssa. You’re worth every moment I have to wait for you to let the walls come down.”

I swallow, unable to think of a single smart-ass thing to say. So I don’t.

“Come on, let’s get more comfortable,” he says, opening the door and sliding out.

I do the same, following him around to the back of the car as he opens the back door.

He lays the back seat down, tossing pillows up toward the back of the front seats and laying down a comforter.

“Hop in.”

“Did you do all this?” I ask.

“Not technically. I had Pauly get some things for us and set them in here, but it was my idea. Why?”

As I get in, it strikes me that even though this isn’t a date, it’s the best date I’ve ever been on.

“No reason. It’s just sweet, is all.”

He gets in behind me, grunting as he weasels his massive body in and shuts the door behind him. The car is still running, the air conditioning filling the space with a low hum and cool breeze.

“Did you always want to be in this life?” I ask him, knowing it’s not my turn.

“It’s the only life I know. Did I ever wonder what else is out there? No, not really. I’ve seen some fucked up things, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve also seen a lot of amazing things and been a part of some of them.”

“Shouldn’t we be paying attention to the building?” I ask when he tugs me into him.

I shift onto my side and lay my head on his chest.

“Well, I wasn’t sincere when I said it was just me and you on this stakeout.”

“Hmm? Are we not alone?”

“Not really. Marco is a few cars down on the opposite side of the street. Just in case.”

I laugh, lifting off his chest. “Oh, that confident your little ruse was going to go well, huh?”

His smile is sinful, and it makes my stomach flip with butterflies. “No. I was hopeful, was all. Then you came out of the bedroom in that infernal onesie, and my plans went to shit.”

I can’t help my laugh that flies free. “This onesie is timeless.”

“It’s something, alright.”

Silence falls over us, but it’s comfortable and soothing, like a lazy day at home when the blankets are warm and soft, and there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do. We just lay there, holding one another, existing.

He breaks the silence, “Where would you be right now if you could go anywhere.”

I roll my eyes. “That’s a leading question.”

“How so?” He pulls his head back to look down at me.

“Because if I say there's nowhere I'd rather be than here, you get me to drop a brick or two off my wall. You gain something, but I lose something. You’re leading me into a trap Mr. Ricci.”

“Well, is that the true answer?”

I look up at him, hearing the soft patter of rain starting on the roof as I nod. “Yes. That’s the true answer. No matter how much I want to run away because of the principles I’ve lived by since my parents’ divorce, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

He leans in slowly, hesitantly. I love that he questions every move with me; it means he cares, and I’ve never had that before.

Ever.

Even when guys try to convince me to be with them, no one’s ever been like Dante.

No one ever will be.

I nearly stop breathing as he hovers over my lips, questioning.

I eat up the space between us, colliding with him like pool balls during the break but never separating.

His tongue parts my lips, pressing against mine with urgency. I swallow his moan, letting it feed the buzz in my veins as I shove my hand into his hair.

We haven’t completed all the questions yet, but I don’t want to return to talking. Fuck talking.

Especially when he feels this good.

I knew I was fucked that first time in the bathroom with him in Florida. He’s a storm that’s come to shore and decided to stay, and I’m the land he’s chosen to haunt.

He rolls us over, me beneath him as he rubs his stiff cock over my throbbing center.

“Dante,” I breathe as he reaches up and unzips my onesie.

It takes a fuckton of shifting and kicking to get the damned thing off, and by the end of my contrition act, he’s growling.

“See what I was worried about with that thing?”

I smile. “Well, I don’t think I should be so exposed anyhow. Anyone could walk by and look in and see me.”

He locks his eyes on mine. “I’ll fucking shoot them.”

I gasp when he slides two fingers inside me, not giving me a second to answer.

“You can’t do that…” I moan, arching my back.

“God, you’re so fucking beautiful, tesoro. Look at you.”

My breathing is drowned out by the rain falling from the skies in heavy sheets.

“Dante, more. I need more.”

His answering smirk is wicked. “Tell me what you need.”

“I need you to shove your big, pierced cock inside me and fuck me hard.”

He whistles, pulling his fingers out of me and shoving them into my mouth, gagging me as he sinks them into my throat, watching them disappear.

My eyes water and I fight to let him down as deeply as possible.

“Fuck, tesoro. Suck them clean.”

I do as I’m told, twirling my tongue over his fingers to get every last morsel of my arousal off them.

“One of these days, I’m going to tie you up and fuck you any way that I want to,” he says, freeing his cock, the metal of his piercings glinting in the low lights of the street lamps beyond the windows.

“Oh yeah?” I tease, opening my legs wider for him to fit his big body between. “What will you do to me when I’m tied up?”

“Take away that smart fucking mouth for one.”

“Mm, now I’m gagged and tied up? Sounds like a good fucking ti—” He cuts my words off by shoving inside me, taking my breath away with the fullness.

“Hell,” I moan, latching onto him as he kisses me frantically.

The first few thrusts are overwhelming as he stretches me and presses into me deeper and deeper with each one.

I’m already about to come, and I don’t understand how it’s this way with him.

The Range Rover is rocking on its tires the faster he fucks me, and I wrap around him as he reaches between us and cuts off my air.

His lips leave mine, and his feral eyes watch as he takes me to the very edge to let me tip over it.

My body burns and aches the closer I get to coming, and my mouth hangs open, no air passing through.

“I love watching you. It’s becoming a fucking addiction, you know that? Watching you gag on me. Watching your cunt swallow up my cock like a greedy whore. Watching you come with my fucking name on your lips. I’m becoming addicted to you, tesoro. And I fear there’s no goddamned cure.”

My body breaks, bending to him like he’s its master. My walls clench and dance over him, and he doesn’t let up on my throat for me to remind him not to come in me. Even if my walls are slowly coming down brick by brick; I can’t give him that.

My eyes grow frantic as my lungs burn for air.

Dante, however, stays true to his sweet nature and lets go of my throat as he pulls out of me, hurrying over my body to jack his cock over my face.

I press up, covering the tip of him with my mouth as I watch him buckle, one hand on the roof, one hand fisting his dick like he’s in a race with death.

“Fuck, Lyss. Fuckkkk. Get it all. Swallow every drop, baby,” he mutters, voice strained as his cock erupts, ropes of cum battering the back of my throat.

I fight to swallow it down.

“Good girl, tesoro. Jesus, good fucking girl.”

I clean him off, licking the tip of him clean and relishing in the shudder that rushes through him before he lays beside me, cock still semi-hard, jutting up his stomach.

We’re both covered in sweat, and our breathing has yet to calm.

“What question were we on?”

I laugh, tossing my arm over my eyes. “Fuck if I know.”

A radio from somewhere up front sounds off, and I startle.

“Dante, we have movement on the South side of the building.”

“Fuck,” Dante says, grabbing the pants he’d kicked off and shoving back into them. I find my onesie, and he helps me get it back on before we get out and slink back to the front of the Range Rover.

“I need you to stay here,” he tells me, grabbing his gun and checking the mag.

I nod.

He tells Marco he’s heading to him and grabs the door handle. Before I think about what I’m doing, I tug his shirt and pull him back to me, sealing his lips with mine in a heated kiss that has blood racing through my veins again in a flash.

I break away from his mouth, resting my forehead against his. We breathe heavily, seeming to breathe in sync.

“Be safe.”

Instead of a smart-ass remark, he says, “Yes, ma’am.”

Then he’s gone, and I’m chewing my nails with anxiety as I lock the door, get my gun, and ensure that it’s ready to fire if need be.

Because if I’m going to stay in this life, I need to be ready for whatever might step in my path. Like Dante Russo himself once said.