CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Dante

I LICKED MY lips, tasting her there, craving more.

I pulled up my pants.

She tugged down her skirt.

And I kissed her again like a greedy bastard.

She let me, hooking her legs around me yet again.

“Shit.” Our foreheads knocked together softly. “At this rate we’ll never get back to dinner.”

“You think they’ll know?” she asked in a small voice. I eyed her mussed hair, swollen lips, and fuck-me gaze.

I looked away. “Not at all.”

She smacked me on the arm. “You didn’t look at me.”

“Because I’m lying.” I cupped her face and gave her one more kiss, sucking her bottom lip so hard that it made a popping noise before I pulled away. “Just… act normal.”

“Normal.” She chewed that same bottom lip.

I groaned and ran my hands over my head and face. “I’ll go first.”

She gave me a jerky nod.

I quickly left the room and shut the door behind me, then took my time walking down the hall, arrogant as fuck because my dick was still pulsing with the aftershock of being inside her.

The kitchen was loud as usual.

But the minute I took my seat.

Silence enveloped me.

I reached for my water and locked eyes with Chris. A smug expression crossed my face before I could stop myself. My entire body was gloating from the way I could feel my muscles straining against my clothes, my lips swollen from her kisses, my hair mussed from her hands. My shirt wrinkled from her constant tugging.

Eat your heart out, Chris. Mine.

“So,” Chase spoke first. “You just skipped dinner and went straight for dessert huh?”

He winced, someone must have kicked him under the table.

I shrugged. “What can I say? You know I have a sweet tooth.”

“Man loves his cookies.” Chase nodded.

“Nothing better than a soft, warm,” I grinned at Chris. “Cookie.”

His eyes narrowed.

El walked swiftly back into the room, her hands were fidgety as she patted down her hair and took her seat next to Chris.

The best part? She didn’t look like she’d just been screwed against a desk — she looked like she’d just been loved.

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips were a cherry red, and her eyes, they kept darting over to me even though I could tell she was trying not to look at me.

“What about you?” Chris turned to her. “You eat desert too?”

Everyone watched, with rapt attention.

“Dante buys her cookies,” Chase said cheerfully. “So she probably licked some of his — wouldn’t be the first time.”

I jabbed him hard in the ribs.

Chris shoved his chair back and eyed Nixon. “A word?”

Nixon glared at me before nodding at Chris, they left, the door to Nixon’s study slammed shut.

And utter chaos ensued.

“HOLY SHIT!” Chase tossed his napkin on the table. “We could hear you! Nixon said he left the TV on, but c’mon man! No TV makes that kinda noise unless it’s two a.m. on Starz!”

El covered her face with her hands.

Tex clapped slowly. “Didn’t think you had it in you.” He lifted his glass in my direction while Phoenix and Sergio exchanged money.

“Wait!” I stood and pointed. “What the hell! You guys took bets?”

Phoenix didn’t even look guilty. “Entertaining as hell watching you try to do the noble thing.”

“One word,” Sergio put his arm around Val who refused to make eye contact with me, for obvious reasons. “Mafia.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked the table.

“It means,” Chase chuckled. “That sometimes our moral compass is a bit… skewed, I was almost afraid yours was broken, what guy would walk away from that.”

“Stare at her like that again and I fight you,” I growled.

Chase held up his hands. “I rest my case.”

“Bastards all of you,” I grumbled.

And then Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill and slid it toward Phoenix too.

“You too?” I roared. “Frank, man that’s low, was anyone on my side?”

Blank stares.

I think El wanted to crawl under the table and hide by the time Nixon and Chris returned.

Chris looked at El, then at me, then back at El and said, “You’re letting the better man walk away, I hope you know that.”

I don’t remember throwing my chair back, I don’t even know how I made it to his side of the room so fast. I lifted him up against the wall, and pressed a knife to his throat. “Say it again, I dare you.”

The room was quiet again.

“Say it!” I roared.

Nobody was stopping me. The anger was over powering, I shook with it, shook with the need to cut out his throat for saying something so — true in front of El.

I knew I was the lesser man.

“Don’t you fucking think,” I said in a low voice, “I know she deserves more than this.” I pulled the knife away and shook my head. “Get out.”

He hesitated.

“Wrong choice.” I gripped him by the shirt and shoved him toward the door. He turned around, gave me a disgusted look and left.

Adrenaline coursed through me as I turned back to the dinner table.

Everyone acted like nothing happened.

Everyone except Mil.

She locked eyes with me, then narrowed them at El, like I’d somehow just complicated her life in a big way.

Chase took one look at my expression and followed my eyes. Mil looked down and then excused herself from the table.

Ten minutes later.

And she was pulling her car out of the driveway.

Chase saw, we all saw.

“If she’s hiding something she’s doing it in plain sight,” Nixon said as we cleaned dishes. “Which means only one thing.”

I handed him a towel. “What’s that?”

“Damage control.”

“On her end?”

He nodded. “She knows we know. She has nothing left to lose, and a desperate person is not someone I want to fight.”

“Because they don’t fight fair?” I guessed.

“Because they have nothing left to lose.” He hung his head. “And we have everything.”

The timing couldn’t have been worse, El walked in the room holding Nixon’s baby girl, Trace laughed at something El said.

Nixon’s massive body shuddered like he’d just been hit with something.

“I’ve got this,” I reassured him. “I’ve been tailing her every day, we’ll figure something out.”

He sighed. “El doesn’t want Chris, she wants you.”

My body heated at the thought of being with her again. “Even if I’m bad for her.”

“Let her be the judge of that.”

Once El approached, Nixon kissed his girl on the head and motioned to both of us. “My office, now.”

I grabbed El’s hand, needing to touch her for reassurance. It was going to be fine. I’d protect her until my dying breath.

Funny how I never wanted to be put in that position, it made me so angry I couldn’t see straight.

But now I saw the anger for the farce it was.

I wasn’t angry.

I was terrified.