Time sure flew by when you were entertaining two drunk old ladies. I actually really enjoyed myself, and even allowed myself to have two whole margaritas and had to admit, Gerta had been right. Her margaritas were a lifetime work of art. They went down tangy, yet smooth, then exploded ten minutes later like napalm when I stood up to use the restroom and realized that someone had tilted the room about thirty degrees from where it had been.

Jolene called me “Stumbles” for the rest of the night. I couldn’t even be mad at her for it. They were a joy to be around, each woman telling me stories of husbands, former lovers, and tons of stories about Toledo. Those women knew everyone, holy crap. They were like a little elderly information network, it was amazing. I learned all about the tattoo shop where Gerta got her work done, which happened to be the same place where Angel had gotten hers. I remembered hearing about the barbershop baby fiasco, and it was just as funny hearing Jolene tell the story as it was when I heard it from Angel. I learned about the old lady that owned the best Italian restaurant in town, and how her only son had turned out to be such a waste of space, but she had a family she was proud of, regardless. And how the bar next door to the tattoo shop had almost fallen into ruin until the handsome young son of the owner came into town and picked it up out of the ashes of fiscal failure.

I also learned that Gary in the apartment below me had been courting Gerta, who hadn’t yet moved on from the death of her fifth husband a few years back. She thought it had been long enough, and maybe she would let Gary take her out since he had been so earnest. “He’s a lovely man,” she’d said, while Jolene snorted into her margarita glass and mumbled something under her breath about “gonna break a hip if you don’t slow it down.” I didn’t ask her to repeat herself, old ladies having a more exuberant sex life than I did, which was just a notch over nothing, was too pathetic to say out loud. Good for them though.

After I said goodnight to the ladies and heard the two different apartment doors shut downstairs, I was truly alone for the first time. The silence in the small apartment was deafening, and I wondered what the hell I was going to do with myself. I wasn’t tired yet, and I was in an unfamiliar place. A hot bath would be calming, but it was an apartment bathtub, and I didn’t think I would be very comfortable trying to get a good hot soak in a tub the size of a washbin, so I opted for a shower instead. There’s something to be said about beauty rituals, shaving legs, applying body lotion, brushing my hair until it lay glossy against my shoulders – it was calming. And when I slipped into the new adorable and - so Angel like - shorts and cami set I felt like a new woman.

There was no way, even if he didn’t believe Dino that Jeanette Clary was not Gabriella Hensley that David would sniff out my hiding place. Not tonight anyway. Tomorrow was a different day, and a different situation. I was strong now, I had spent the last six years training my body like a weapon. And even if he did somehow manage to get me alone, all I had to do was fight until help came, because I was not alone. Other people knew. Other people believed me.

I didn’t have to be afraid anymore.

It still scared the shit out of me though, when the entire apartment blazed with light, until I realized it was a car pulling up to the front of a building. Angel’s apartment faced the street and was located on the corner, so any traffic coming from the opposite direction shone their headlights directly into the windows if the curtains were parted at all. No wonder those old ladies kept an eye on who was coming and going, it was better than a damn doorbell.

I peeked out the window from behind one of the thin billowy curtains, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw who got out of the taxi. He had his back to me as he paid the driver through the open passenger side window, but I recognized those shoulders and back. I’d stared at them as he walked away from me enough to know who it was, swaying a bit as he walked up the sidewalk to the apartment and hit the buzzer on the front door.

Holy shit it was Dino - and was he drunk?

The buzzer beeped to the apartment and I prayed to whatever God was listening that it was only loud in this apartment and not the whole building. I pushed the button by the door that would unlock the downstairs and looked around frantically, at what I wasn’t sure. I was in a tiny pair of shorts and a cami top with no bra. He had seen me naked already once that day, but for some reason I felt so much more vulnerable in these sweet feminine pajamas than I did previously. I needed something else to wear, some armor or chain mail or even a fucking hoodie would work.

It was a very unfamiliar apartment, I was reminded of that as I was running to the back bedroom to get something to throw on and stubbed my toe on the part where the kitchen linoleum changed to the carpet. I launched myself across the floor, cracking my knee on the same damned end table that Gerta had put her pitcher on earlier that afternoon.

Stars exploded behind my eyes at the same time I heard a loud knocking on the apartment door. Shit! Double Shit! If he kept pounding on the door like that he was going to wake up the whole building. As it was I wasn’t all the way sure Gerta and Jolene wouldn’t be standing behind him in the hallway. Limping my way to the door I swung it open, nervous about what to even say to him after I had apparently insulted him this afternoon.

Hot damn he was delicious. He’d traded his button-down look for another pair of dark wash jeans with a tight black V-neck shirt. The kind that looked like it had been painted on with a brush, but in reality was probably super soft and comfortable. I wanted to touch it. Shit. I hadn’t even said “Hello” or “Come in” or even moved from the doorway yet. I was frozen, tongue glued to the roof of my mouth and I was afraid if I did try to speak all I would be able to say was “Please.” Because I was two breaths away from begging him to touch me like he did earlier, all from looking at those golden-brown eyes. Those eyes that had gone from slightly unfocused and tipsy when I opened the door, to laser sharp and angry as he looked me up and down.

“Why the fuck are you bleeding?”

What? Bleeding? What the hell was he talking about? I looked down and saw a thin trail of blood trickling down from a small, but ugly looking scrape right above my knee. Oh, I must have just done that. My breath hitched on the inhale as I looked at the angry red cut. It never hurts until you look at it. Now it stung like a bitch.

I was barely able to muffle the screech as I was swooped up in Dino’s arms and plunked softly on the couch, the door shutting loudly behind him. I cringed at the noise, but Dino just moved about the apartment wordlessly, ripping off a paper towel in the kitchen and running cool water over it, then returning to the living room to kneel in front of my and dab gently at my leg.

“It’s not so bad, I just fell because I’m not used to this apartment in the dark.”

“Should have turned on the light,” he murmured as he went about his nursing duties, gently poking at the small cut and blotting away with the wet towel. Satisfied that he had cleaned it properly, and that it really was just a small cut and nothing major, he looked up at me, still kneeling on the floor while I sat on the couch.

He was clearly under the influence. I could smell the light odor of whiskey in the air around him. He didn’t reek of it, and it wasn’t even an unpleasant smell, but it was enough for me to know that he had been drinking. I shouldn’t be so turned on by him kneeling on the floor, especially when he was doing something as clinical as tending my superficial wound, but it wasn’t fair that he leaned in super close, pressed his lips softly against that tiny cut above my knee, and like a cat, licked it. Instead of being sandpaper and rough, his tongue was smooth and firm and I couldn’t stop the low moan that escaped at the memory of just what that tongue had done to me not more than a few hours before.

“Jesus, Dino,” I said breathlessly. “Only animals do that.”

“We’re all animals, Jeanette.”

Then he crossed his arms over my thighs and rested his chin on them, and looking up at me with sad eyes filled with a million emotions he said, “I’ve had a hard day, Jeanette, and I could use a hug.”

Well that was unexpected. And surprisingly adorable. Drunk Dino was a bit like a child, and I thought maybe there was nothing else in the whole world I would rather do, than hug all his worries away. I patted the cushion next to me on the couch, expecting him to have a seat, but instead he laid his large body across all the cushions, and put his head in my lap. It wasn’t a sexual gesture, him lying down on the couch with one arm flung across his eyes. It was exhaustion. I ran my fingers through his hair absently, I almost didn’t realize I was doing it, but it seemed to comfort him because even though I couldn’t see his eyes, his lips curved into a small smile and he started breathing slow and evenly. Dino was relaxing. In my lap.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked after about five minutes of silence, with just the two of us on the couch breathing at each other.

“That’s the one thing I’m never allowed to do, Jeanette. I’m not supposed to tell anyone anything, but I really want to tell you. Can I show you, Jeanette? Can I tell you who I really am?” It was heartbreaking, somehow, this admission from Dino. The only response I could give was that one word I had to swallow when I opened the door.

“Please,” I whispered.

With his arm still over his eyes, as if he needed to keep them covered to tell his story, he began. “My name is Dino Affini, and my family owns Affini’s, the Italian restaurant next to Nasta’s where Angel plays once in a while.” Well that was certainly a surprise, and I don’t know why he would keep that a secret. But somehow, knowing Dino’s real last name made me feel special, and a warm glow started building in the center of my body – radiating out to my arms and legs. I lightly ran my fingertips over the arms covering his face, light tickling motions, casual touching. Urging him to continue wordlessly.

“I told you I had family here, but I didn’t grow up in Toledo. At least I didn’t live here. My dad knocked up my mom when they were just past twenty years old. He didn’t want to get married and they weren’t even dating. Apparently, they were a drunken one-night stand and my mom didn’t even really like him that much as a person. Imagine that. My grandmother though, to her family is everything. My grandfather had passed a few years before I was born, and she wasn’t going to let a child of Affini blood be brought up without knowing his family. So I got the Affini last name and court scheduled visitations even though I don’t think my mom or my dad was really into it. My Nonna though, she loved being a grandma, and I spent all my time when I visited my father with her.

“Dad couldn’t keep his dick in his pants though, and he knocked up another woman when I was five or six years old. He did marry this one, and I got a stepmom and a sister all in one go.” Dino sighed and moved his arm from his face, but only so he could turn on his side and snuggle in closer. His face was awfully close to my crotch, but what we were doing was not sexual in any way, so I tried not to be uncomfortable about it.

“He couldn’t pretend to be anything other than a piece of shit for long, and when he couldn’t take any more of the married life, he split. I don’t mean he filed for divorce. I mean one day he took off, cleaned out the checking account and ghosted the whole family. It didn’t mean much to me because I lived with my mom, but it had to have killed Vanessa and Shelly, my sister and stepmom.” Dino’s mouth grew into a thin hard line. “He took everything from them and left them with nothing. My Nonna took them in, Shelly ended up helping with the restaurant for a few years while she went to school and got a degree. Nonna helped raise Vanessa and was happy to do it. Partly because family was so important, but also, I think she felt responsible somehow, for raising such a piece of shit for a son. He was her only child, and she expected better.

“I didn’t have the best relationship with Shelly and Vanessa,” Dino admitted sadly. “But it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Shelly got stuck in a situation where she had a stepson that she never asked for, whose dad wasn’t even around anymore, and Vanessa… I think Vanessa has issues with men in general because of it. I don’t think she doesn’t like me, per se. I think she hates my gender altogether. Dad did that. If I ever see that guy I am going to punch him in the dick.”

Abruptly Dino rolled over in my lap until he was staring straight up at me. “It’s a mystery how I turned out so normal, really,” he said, dead serious. Then he laughed, and it was a glorious sound and I couldn’t help but mimic him. We both laughed on the couch for a moment, because the reality was, Dino was just as fucked up as everyone else. The difference was that he knew it and worked with it the best that he could.

“I hadn’t been home in a few years because of work. You know how it is,” he said, motioning into the air as if to explain himself. I did know what he meant though. He worked for the government, or at least he did before he quit and became Chaz Malone’s sidekick. Dino’s job was to be undercover. To be someone else at all times. Spooks don’t have families, it didn’t fit their profile.

“I’d just finished an eighteen-month job infiltrating a drug ring in Chicago, which is why you and Gabe hadn’t heard from me in a while, and I didn’t even know you guys had moved. I thought you were still out West working out of the Vegas office.”

The Vegas office was Gabe’s home base. It wasn’t really much of an office, more of just a place where I took calls and filed paperwork for all of Gabe’s assignments he took. It was fun being the PA for a bodyguard. Private investigator. Mercenary, or whatever job he decided he wanted to take. Gabe was good at a lot of things. But when his dad died, he had dropped everything to come home as soon as he could. He missed the funeral and would always regret it, but he dropped his life and took over the family business, because he wanted to make life easier for his mom. Family was important to Gabe, too. I could appreciate it, but I would never understand it because I had never had a family. Something I’d long gotten over wishing for.

“I’d called Nonna to tell her I wanted to come visit, but instead I got Vanessa, who told me they had been having problems with Chaz’s boys. Real weird stuff, but persistent. Shit like harassing employees and making them quit, all the way up to property damage and vandalism. Things that are really difficult for a business to deal with, but not quite serious for a busy police department to get involved with and handle. It was starting to scare customers away, and with the lowered revenue being brought in, it was difficult to pay the super high insurance premiums, especially with all the damages they were incurring from Chaz and his street junkies. It was weird because Gallery B is right across the street from the restaurant, and right next door to Nasta’s, but those two places never had any crime or issues. Just Affini’s. It was pretty personal. So I took another job, this one to find out what the fuck Chaz Malone has against my family. The only way to do that was to become someone else again, but I’m so tired, Jeanette. I’m tired of sleeping in a shitty hotel. I’m tired of not being able to see my family. I’m tired of pretending.”

My hand stilled in his hair, and I was briefly overcome with emotion. Dino was like me. Even though our situations were different, inside we were the same. Pretending to be someone else out of necessity, but desperate for someone to accept us as we were anyway. I’d never felt closer to another human being than I did right then at that moment, with Dino slung across my lap and my hand in his hair. Our hearts were connected, and I could almost feel the rhythm of his beating with mine.

“That night at the auction,” Dino continued through a jaw-cracking yawn, “that woman you met was my sister Vanessa. And five minutes after you left I had to watch them auction off my grandmother’s antique engagement and wedding set. That was an heirloom that would have been passed down to Vanessa when Nonna died. There was no way it would have been sold unless they needed that money for the restaurant. That is Chaz Malone’s fault. He did that. I’m going to find out why he hates my family, Jeanette, and then I’m going to make sure he can’t hurt them anymore.”

Dino looked me in the eyes this time, reached up and curled a lock of my long hair around his finger and tugged gently. “That’s me, Dino Affini. That’s all there is to me. Thanks for listening, can I have my hug now?” The twinkle in his caramel brown eyes was my undoing, and instead of a hug, I leaned down and kissed him, a gentle press of my lips on his.

“I love you, Dino Affini,” I whispered into his mouth.

Wait. What the fuck did I just say?

I hadn’t meant to do it, the words just popped out. We were having a moment and even though they slipped out as an accident, I probably really did mean them. But I screwed up. I tried to pull back, to think of something, anything to erase what I had just said but I couldn’t. Instead of letting go, Dino snuck one arm up behind my head and held me there, immobile while he took my gentle little kiss and turned it into something deeper – naughtier. He licked around the outside of my closed lips with his tongue, and when I had my small gasp of surprise at the words I had just uttered he took advantage of the opportunity and plundered.

And I let him.

I should have stopped him. Things were too weird between us and who knew what tomorrow would bring. It would be smart to stop before we began. Instead I bit his lower lip and sucked it into my mouth while my hand found the bottom hem of his tight as sin black t-shirt and slid underneath it, feeling that smooth hard body below. I felt his abdomen flex under my hand and felt his breath hitch against my mouth.

Dino liked me touching him. Well I like touching Dino.

I still tasted the spearmint and sugar, but underneath it all was the warm amber taste of whatever whiskey he had been drinking tonight, and the combination was divine. I wanted to drink him in, savor the flavor of Dino and keep it bottled up inside of me. My head was buzzing with a thousand thoughts, all incoherent except for one. I needed Dino, and tonight he’d made it clear that Dino needed me.

Whatever had happened in the past and whatever would happen tomorrow, none of it had anything to do with our time now, and as I slid my fingertips over the top of a hard, flat nipple and felt Dino’s fingers tighten in my hair, I knew he would give me what I wanted tonight.

Or not.

I slipped my hand out from under Dino’s shirt, and lower, resting on the zipper of his jeans. I ached to hold him, hard and heavy in my hand. To have him at my mercy, like earlier, which had been over with too fast. But he wouldn’t let me. He gently grabbed my hand and pulled it away from his zipper. Breaking away from our kiss he softly moaned into my ear, his breath puffing against my hair, “No.”

Oh mercy please don’t tell me no.

Uncertainty filled my head and my chest - what had I done wrong? Was it what I said? I frowned, and it was on the tip of my tongue to apologize, for what I wasn’t certain, but Dino had said no and no means no, right?

“Too fast.”

Oh. Too fast? Not fast enough for my taste. I mean, I could feel his dick reaching for me through his jeans, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t interested. I must have let some of my confusion show on my face because Dino grinned and kissed the side of my neck again, sucking the skin in and giving it a nibble before letting go. It liquefied me, and I couldn’t put up a fight as he sat up, and in one fluid motion plucked me straight off the couch and carried me the ten steps to the small bedroom at the back of the apartment.

He laid me down on the bed, but instead of pulling back he followed me down, hands on either side of my shoulders and knees on either side of my legs. He kept them there, knees pinning my legs closed when all I wanted to do was wrap them around his waist and bring us as close together as humanly possible.

“Dino,” I demanded, grumpy that he wouldn’t let me have my way. “I want.”

“Me too,” he grinned down at me, and those full sensual lips took my breath away. I wanted to feel them against mine again. I wanted to put my hands on his body again. I wanted to feel him inside me again.

But he was being a difficult pain in the ass.

“Jeanette, don’t be in a hurry. I’ve been thinking about you all day. I’ve waited years to touch those perky tits, and I want to take my time.”

Okay, Dino wants, Dino gets, and I reached for the hem of my cami to pull it over my head.

“No.” Dino stopped my hands with his and held them down.

“Oh, God, why?” And I couldn’t even keep the frustration out of my voice now.

“You are not the boss right now. I’m on top, I’m the boss.”

Okay so maybe that sounded interesting. “If I’m on top then does that mean I’m the boss?”

“Yes.” I couldn’t hear Dino laughing, but I could feel the rumble from his chest as it was pressed against mine.

“Dibs on top next time.” I wasn’t being funny when I said it, but Dino did laugh out loud then, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him. My giggles cut out abruptly though, when he let go of my hands, massaged my breasts lightly through the soft fabric and then pinched both nipples at the same time, hard enough for me to arch my back off the bed.

God yes more of that.

I wanted to grab him by the head and bring his mouth down to where he hands were, to feel his hot mouth on my skin, but I was good. I curled my hands into fists on the blanket, but I didn’t move.

“Dino, please.”

“Jeanette,” Dino said, and all traces of laughter were gone as I heard the metallic sound of the zipper teeth sliding apart. “You need to relax. I waited a long time, and now I want to play.”

Play mind games? Play my body like a musical instrument? What the hell, Dino, this is torture! Dino’s idea of playing was torturous foreplay, where he took his time touching, pinching and licking on every part of my body while letting his naked cock bounce against my skin lazily as he moved. Everywhere except for where I wanted him. Completely unconcerned with my rising need to touch him, to bring him into my body, to grind against him with that delicious friction that would make us both so very happy if he would just play fair.

“I can’t take much more of this, Dino,” I panted against his neck and bit him there as punishment. My thighs ached to have him between them, but he refused to touch me below the waist, spending all of his time sucking on first one nipple and then the other. “I’m so damn mad at you right now.”

“Does that mean you want to stop?” Dino asked as he let go of my body and sat up on the bed.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” I narrowed my eyes and reached for him, this time my hands landing on exactly what I wanted. He didn’t pull away this time, conceding the fight and letting me stroke his hard length like I wanted. He closed his hand over mine and I thought maybe he was going to try to get me to stop again, and I was prepared to fight over it, but he didn’t. He just adjusted my grip to show me what he liked, how fast he liked it. It was a massive turn-on, and I adjusted quickly, eager to hear his breathing change, feel his fingers tightening in the blankets.

Turnabout is fair play.

Except for Dino was even more impatient than I was when the shoe was on the other foot. He groaned then, and before I could blink he was in front of me again, my knees pushed up almost to my chest and…oh God, he didn’t even take my shorts off, just pushed my soaked panties to the side and slid right inside of me, all the way in one stroke. I’d never felt anything as remotely sensual in my entire life and the shudders started racking my body almost immediately. There was no time for deep hard pumping, he went right to shallow strokes because we had both played too long. The feel of him, sliding in and out against the silk of my clothing was too much to endure and I came apart silently, too overcome with feeling to even say his name, although I was chanting it inside my head.

Dino, I love you.

This time I had the good grace not to say it out loud. He pulled out again, like he did before. I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to do that, but then I would have to tell him why, and I didn’t want to bring a black curtain down on our post-coital bliss. And I was blissed out. Exhausted, drained after having had my body completely loved by Dino Affini, I couldn’t think of a better way to wear myself out at the end of such a wretched day.

We took turns cleaning up, first him and then me. He was laying on his side in the bed when I pulled back the covers on the other side and slid in. There was a small moment of confusion when I first laid down. Should I reach for him? Should I stay on my side? How did he like to sleep? Those worries were unfounded though, because drunk Dino, who may or may not have actually been completely sober by then, was a massive cuddler. One arm burrowed under my body and slid me the rest of the way across the bed while one leg trapped me underneath him. I wouldn’t be moving for a while.

I wiggled a little bit to get more comfortable, my hand squeezing gently on the arm that had me pulled tightly to his side. “Good night, Dino,” I said into the darkness of the room. There wasn’t any answer though, he was already sleeping. It had been six years since I had slept in the same bed with a man, and even longer than that since I had slept next to a man without fear. I wondered if I would even be able to get any sleep at all. Turned out, it was much easier than I thought.