Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

ALYSSA

“ W ell, how did it go?” I ask Brynne, toying with my Apple Pencil on the desk back and forth aimlessly as I wait for her answer over the phone. They returned to Florida to finalize getting the estate up for sale and meet her mom after getting us settled in New York.

I swore she said others were going to handle that, but she likely just needed more time alone with Slate with all that’s happening. And who can blame them?

“Mom was not thrilled to learn I was dating Ardesia Ricci and not Lucio Ricci,” she says, and I smirk.

“Why not? The Grim Reaper of New York is every mother’s dream husband for their daughter, is he not?”

She chuckles. “Oh, yeah. Slate is Mom’s dream man come true.”

“Oh well, I’ve seen you two together; even if she doesn’t like it, she’ll get behind it once she sees what everyone sees.”

“She came around by the end of the meeting. After she met him.”

I grin. Of course, she did. Even as intimidating as Slate is, he’s a fucking sucker for Brynne, and he’d bend over backward for her, even die for her. It’s plain in the way he looks at her. Moves when she moves. Breathes when she breathes. Their love is palpable to everyone around them at all times, like a living microbe dancing in the air.

“So, you’ll be back soon, right? I’m going stir-crazy with all these men here,” I tell her.

She sighs. “Yes, we’re nearly done here, and we have to get back for the merger meeting. Which, we all know that’s going to be a shit show. It’s got Slate so on edge.”

It’s got everyone on edge. It’s all well and good to talk about bringing the two families together, but doing it seems like an uphill battle.

“No weapons, right? We discussed that before,” I remind her.

She chuckles softly, and I don’t know if it’s what I said or if Slate is prodding her while she’s trying to finish our conversation. “Absolutely no weapons.”

I let some tension flow out of my shoulders. “Good.”

The silence on the phone feels a bit heavy for a moment before she says, “So, how are you doing, Lyss? After everything? The plane ride home wasn’t too awkward, right? I’d have sent you home on another flight, but you didn’t want Slate knowing, and I didn’t want to send up red flags by booking you separately.”

“No, it was fine. Not too awkward, I promise,” I lie. The weight of the lie has my teeth aching a bit, too, like I stuffed my mouth full of sugar water and swished it around a few times over sensitive cavities.

“And you’re sure you don’t want to try and flesh something out with Dante?” Her question floats in the gray matter of my brain for too long, causing an ache to settle in.

I rub my temples. “No. You know me, B. I don’t want to cause strife as you’re trying to merge the families, nor do I want a messy breakup with a mafia boyfriend.”

“I’ve never seen you date anyone, Lyss. I worry about you sometimes, you know? I can’t help it. I love you.”

“I love you, too, B. I’ll be fine. Maybe one day, someone will sweep me off my feet. Until then, I’m a Lone Ranger.”

She sighs again. “Alright. Well, if you need me, I’m here. Don’t forget that, at least.”

“So, I’ll see you…” I trail off, waiting for her to insert her arrival time and date at any moment.

“Tomorrow,” I hear Slate say, and my heart rattles in my chest quicker.

“Tomorrow,” Brynne echoes. I hear her shift closer to the phone, and she whispers, “He wasn’t here until now.”

My nerves calm some. I don’t know why it makes me anxious to have Slate know that I’ve fucked his enforcer twice, but it does.

I’m sure he doesn’t want his man distracted right now, and I won’t be the one who is doing the distracting.

“Goodnight, B. I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Safe travels,” I tell her, and she returns the sentiment.

I stand and stretch my back out, looking out the window of Slate and Brynne’s apartment that Lorenzo had dropped me at and then posted up at the door once I was inside. The streets below are busy, even at this late hour, and I watch people milling around, looking like ants from this height.

Brynne said that when she gets back, I’ll be moved into my own place, but I don’t know what that will entail or where I’ll be moved. Coming from a small waterside town in central Florida, the city seems like a massive place to be alone.

A knock at the door pulls me back to reality, and I sigh and spin. I walk over to it and look in the peephole—well, I try to.

I can’t see out of the damned thing, almost like something’s over the other side.

When I open the door, I understand why I couldn’t see out of it when Dante drops his fucking hand away from the hole.

“Good evening,” he says, smirking.

“No.” I try to close the door, and he slips his foot in the jamb to stop it.

I growl under my breath, trying to kick it backward, but my bare feet are no match for his dress shoes, which seem to be made of impenetrable steel.

“What do you want, Dante?” I groan, moving away from the door and retreating toward the island in the kitchen.

“I’m your guard tonight. Just wanted to let you know.” He lets himself inside and shuts the door behind him.

“Great. Cool. Don’t you usually guard from outside of the door? That’s what Lorenzo does.”

He smiles brightly. “I’m a hands-on kind of man, myself. I’m not knocking Lorenzo’s approach, but I like to keep my eyes on my target.”

“As long as your hands remain to yourself, whatever. Knock yourself out. I’m going to shower and get in bed. Have a good night.”

Before I make ten steps, he slides across the floor, landing before me. “Did I do something wrong?”

What is he talking about? The way he’s acting is in direct contrast to the curt mafioso I fucked on Slate’s private jet only two days ago. Sure, he still looks the part, but he’s back in his element now, in his city, and it has him a little laxer than I’ve seen him before.

“What do you mean?” I ask, exasperated, my tone denoting that emotion.

“That,” he points out, finger flying in my face. “That tone. The way you seem overly annoyed with my mere presence.”

“Well,” I start, sidestepping around him to walk to the guest room I’ve been staying in, “I’m not used to one-night-stands constantly popping up after I’ve explained to them that it was only one night.”

There’s a moment where a bit of hurt waves like the finest silk blowing in the wind across his face, which I’ve been worried about since this started between us.

Not started, I tell myself. He and I are nothing.

No more than what’s already happened.

Fuck, what a mess.

He follows me into the room. “Well, I get that. You and I are stuck with one another, however. So, you have to find a way to overcome your aversion to me.”

Aversion to him? All I want to do is wrap up beside him, breathe him in, and have his hands on me for the rest of my fucking life. What doesn’t he get about that?

My brain reasons, reminding me he can’t understand what I haven’t told him. And I won’t tell him that. Admitting he’s the one who’s single-handedly been taking my wall down brick by brick with each interaction he has with me is like redefining my entire existence. For as long as I can remember, I didn’t want to end up in a relationship. I don’t want to be hurt like my mother was.

Ever.

I erected my walls as well as I could to keep men out. To keep anyone out. The only one I ever let in was Brynne, and that’s because she was there before the walls had to be built. She helped me make them.

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!”

The more we wrestle, the more annoyed I get and the harder he gets between my legs.

Finally, he flips me over. “That’s it. You don’t want to stop wiggling and listen. You’ll learn how to behave yourself when you’re told.”

“Like fucking hell I will,” I squeal as he tugs my leggings down and bares my ass to the cold air in the room.

“Dante Ricci, I swear to God, if you…”

I don’t get to finish my threat because his hand connects with my ass, cracking pain left in its wake as he keeps it in place, letting the sting settle in before he rears back to do it again.

“Dante!”