Giving the audience a good view of her rounded bottom, Suri reached out and twined her fingers through her customer’s hands. Lifting them to her chest, she gave an exaggerated response to his hands barely skimming the curve of her breasts.
Dante grabbed Jericho’s bicep before he could leap forward to intervene. “It’s just for show.”
“I know. It’s just—I’ve never—it’s the most provocative dance anyone’s ever given down here.” Jericho couldn’t tear his gaze away from Suri’s body as she grabbed the pole behind her back and enjoyed the pantomimed public fondling.
“That’s why they love it. Usually you have to be on Level Three or Four to see something that hot.”
Suri left her guest, twirling away to make a circuit of the stage. She stopped several times to swing her hips and set the bells shivering just before she’d bend over and scoop up the bills covering the stage in layers.
“It’s money.” Jericho finally realized what drove her, turning to Dante to get his reaction.
“Something happened. She’s never been this uninhibited. I’d have heard about it.”
Jericho glanced at his watch. “Her shift is done in an hour. You think she’ll come upstairs?”
Dante moved his hand to Jericho’s shoulder. “We’ll wait and see, I guess. I’m going to head up. I’m starting to realize how much I appreciate a private show as opposed to a public one.”
Jericho watched Dante disappear through a door tucked behind a copse of leafy potted plants. He wanted to follow, but his gut wouldn’t let him leave Suri alone. Terrence could handle a lot, but if the press of customers overwhelmed him, Jericho wanted to be on hand. Sometimes being head of security meant protecting the ones he loved from their own choices.
Chapter Fourteen
Dante mixed paint on the edge of the palette, inhaling the soothingly familiar scent of oil and turpentine. He wanted the color just right, the blend of spun gold and pale corn silk that matched Suri’s hair.
The coffered ceiling stretched over his head like a colorful canopy. Nearly ten years ago, he’d started painting scenes from Arabian Nights. He’d just left his identity behind, and it had begun as a bit of irony meant to mock his own Persian heritage. It hadn’t taken long for him to realize that, as Scheherazade had intended, the stories were applicable to life.
He had already finished Ali Baba. Now he carefully rendered Suri in the role of Morgiana dancing with the sword, ready to protect her master.
The scaffold shifted, and Dante balanced carefully on the plank stretched between the metal bars. The apparatus was usually stored in a closet, but he’d dragged it out after coming upstairs to wait for Jericho and Suri. Sometimes there was nothing to do but immerse himself in something distracting.
He traced the contour of her body with the tip of the brush. Long legs, rounded bottom, flat belly, and pert breasts—Suri’s features were almost as familiar to him as the face he saw in the mirror every morning.
The door swung wide open with considerable force. “I just came to say good-bye before I—oh!” Suri’s voice trailed off as she gazed from the scaffolding to his work. “You painted all of this?”
Dante forced himself to focus on the scene he was painting. Anything to keep him from reacting to the obvious brush-off she was about to give him. Give them. “A man has to have a hobby, right?”
“It’s so beautiful.” The awe in her voice made his heart swell. “That first night I was staring at it, trying to pick out all the parts from the Arabian Nights.”
“I add the scenes as I think of them or as they happen in my life.” He chanced a look down, noting the massive duffel slung over her shoulder. Was she carrying a week’s worth of clothing in there? “Do you know which one this is?”
She dumped the bag to the thick rug, angling for a better view. “It’s Ali Baba watching Morgiana dance.”
“Do you remember why she danced?” Dante focused on the paint instead of his emotions. He mixed gray with metallic silver for the dagger Morgiana would brandish above her head.
“She was protecting him.”
“And then?” Dante cast a gaze at the empty space to his left, thinking of the wedding scene that came next in the story. He’d never considered adding it before. Lately, he had been rethinking everything, thanks to the little muse who was now worrying her lower lip between her teeth.
“She was rewarded with freedom and a home of her own.”
“She had to wait a long time before her cleverness was rewarded and she could slay her enemies for good.” Dante began to paint bits and pieces of the crowd, realizing he’d rendered himself and Jericho watching from the back as they had been earlier.
“I came to say good-bye.”
His heart slammed against his ribs. “Are you quitting?”
“No, but I think we should go back to the way it was before.”
His painted image was leaning into Jericho’s, trying to get closer for comfort. Was that how he truly felt? As if he wanted to let Jericho be the strong one forever? “And you think it’s possible to go back?”
“It was just one crazy night. One of those insane things you do that you wish you hadn’t.” He couldn’t get a read on her expression. Normally it came second nature, but he couldn’t be objective when it came to Suri.
“And you wish you hadn’t let Jericho and me fuck you.” He tore his gaze away from his painting to meet hers, but she refused to lift her chin. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Yes! And no, but the two of you are perfect together anyway. You don’t even need me.” She was hugging herself as if she were about to come apart at the seams.
“I don’t know what happened between earlier today, when you agreed that we needed to have a nice long talk, and tonight. But it was apparently enough to make you walk away from us.” The painting couldn’t subdue his emotions any longer. He was too angry.
He leaped lightly to the floor, his bare feet sinking into the thick nap of the rug. Not bothering to clean the palette, he set it aside on a table. He picked up a rag and wiped his hands. What could he say to get through to her? Did she really think he and Jericho would be better off as a couple? That was bullshit.
Dante didn’t know why, but the urge to come completely clean was staggering. Maybe honesty would save what secrets kept tearing apart. Did he really have anything else to lose? “You wanted to know how I got this scar.”
Her brows drew together in confusion. “You didn’t want to say. I get it. I have stuff I don’t talk about too.”
“Like how your father is Senator Liam O’Callaghan? And that while he’s known about you since the day you were born, he chose his political career over his responsibility to his family?”
“How did you know that?”
Dante didn’t like the hurt in her voice, but she needed to understand that he grasped far more than she gave him credit for. “I deal in secrets, princess. I can spot one a mile away. He wasn’t surprised that you exist; he was surprised to see you there and then stunned to hear that your mother was ill.”
“I never knew what was worse. That he chose to save his own ass, or that my ma decided to take his side.” She gave a bitter chuckle.
“My name isn’t Dante Torres.”
She looked more surprised than he’d thought she would be.
“It’s Darios Kadjar. I’m one in a long line of exiled descendants of the house of Kadjar from Iran. Our family dynasty was the second-to-last line of Persian shahs. We’ve been hiding all over the world since about 1925. I was born in France and emigrated here with my mother and sisters when I was ten.”
“Why change your name?” She was inching closer, as if she was drawn to him despite herself.
He tried to condense an entire culture’s history into a short synopsis. Not an easy task. “Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, exiled Persians with ties to any shah dynasty aren’t exactly popular. My mother had extravagant tastes. She made some bad choices, and we were—discovered, for
lack of a better word—here in Boston. As the only living male in our family branch, I was the most valuable.”
“She sold you out.” She was so close now. Standing directly before him, gazing up into his face, at his scar. She lifted her fingers and brushed them over the line of thick skin that marred his face.
“I was only twenty-four and arrogant as hell. I was determined to go down insulting them, I think. They cut me, and then Jericho was there. We had an instant bond that night. Having him at my back was so natural, it was like breathing.”
“You changed your identity afterward, and now here you are.” She continued touching him, skating over his jaw, back over his lips, across his nose and eyebrows, until he was breathless with the anticipation of each touch.
“All these years, I’ve always known Jericho is there for me, as I am for him, but we could never take that step to be together—in that way—until you came along.” He wanted her to understand. He needed it.
“So then I’ve done my part by bringing the two of you together.”
“No.” He caught her hand, holding on as tight as he dared. “You’re the catalyst, the missing part of our bond. There’s nothing without you, Suri. I told you that sexuality has nothing to do with gender. It’s about connection. You’re the connection. My connection, Jericho’s connection—and we’re yours.”
There were tears in her blue eyes. Brimming over, rolling down her cheeks until he leaned forward and kissed them away. She didn’t pull back from his touch. She leaned against him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“What happened, princess?”
Jericho moved on silent feet through the doorway on the opposite side of the suite. So used to his friend’s soundless comings and goings, Dante felt more than heard him. Now Jericho stood like an angel of mercy half a dozen steps away. “It isn’t hard to guess the basics, Suri. But I want to know what I can do to help.”
Dante was afraid she might rebuff Jericho’s intrusive statement, but she reached out to him instead. Dante caught his friend’s eye and nodded at the bed. If they could make her see how safe and secure she was with them, she might be more comfortable with sharing a confidence.
Jericho didn’t waste any time. He swept Suri off her feet and into his arms. She snuggled up against his chest while Dante pulled the duvet back and got comfortable against a pile of pillows.
“I need to get out of these monkey clothes.” Jericho put Suri on the bed and began stripping out of his slacks and dress shirt. Dante couldn’t stop staring at the bulge in his friend’s fitted boxer briefs. It was an enticing distraction.
“Now”—Jericho sandwiched her between his body and Dante’s—“tell us what happened.”
“It’s pretty simple.” She used a crumpled tissue from her pocket to swipe at her eyes. “My sister has an unquenchable thirst for assholes. She and her current asshole of the month just flew out of Logan on their way to some kind of MMA tournament which will supposedly skyrocket them both to stardom.”
Dante would have done anything to wipe her troubles away. This was a small enough issue to fix with one or two phone calls. “I’ll get your sister home, if that’s what you want.”
She looked at Jericho and rolled her eyes. “Is he always like this?”
“Most of the time. Dante has resources and knows how to manipulate them.”
“Well, Prince Dante, it’s time to let my sister wallow in her own stupidity. I think I’ve become more of an enabler than a help to her. I just worry about her.”
Jericho looked up in surprise when she made such an obvious poke at the word prince.
Dante offered a subtle nod to let his friend know that he’d divulged more to Suri than he had to anyone other than Jericho. Odd. That didn’t bother him in the least, though he’d just given her an incredible amount of power over him.
SURI HELD BACK the rest of the story. She’d folded enough as it was. The plan had been to come to Dante’s quarters and put things back the way they were before all the complicated relationship stuff. That way, she would be free to contact Congressman Flaherty and set up a private party that would pay off the balance of her mother’s bills. How pathetic that she couldn’t even get through one conversation without winding up in bed with her lovers.
“Are you worried about taking care of your mother now that your sister has split?” Dante’s probing gaze was fixed on Suri. She could feel him stripping back the layers of truth. “I didn’t get a chance to tell Jericho everything that happened today. Do you mind if I fill him in?”
Suri shook her head. The truth was burning on her tongue. It was hard not to let it all spill out. On the other hand, if they wanted to think Kim had been helping with their mother’s expenses all these years, better that than the truth—that Suri was so broke she intended to call Flaherty and set up something on the side just to pull herself out of a desperate situation. No matter how she spun it, it sounded sneaky.
“Her mother has been in a nursing facility for the last ten years. She has Parkinson’s.” Dante’s hot gaze left Suri to rest on Jericho.
Jericho threaded his fingers through hers and lifted them to his lips. “Suri, let us help you.”
Guilt gnawed her insides. “I’ve got it under control. There’s nothing to worry about. Besides, accepting money from the two of you would be wrong. It would change—I don’t know—it would just change all of this.” She pulled her hand from Jericho’s and sat up, burying her face in her hands. “This is all so weird anyway. I mean, how does this happen? Really?”
“You said that first night that you have a friend in a committed relationship with two men. How did it work for them?” There was a lot of real curiosity in Dante’s voice.
“Well, I’ve never asked her about the mechanics of it.” Suri lifted her face and shot him a cheeky grin. She’d never thought to grill Leslie on the details of sleeping with two guys. “And I suppose it seemed like a simple transition for her guys. They’d been living together and sharing women for years. This isn’t like that at all. This is—what is this anyway?”
Surprisingly, Jericho was the first to answer. “Fuck if I know. I find both of you in here three sheets to the wind, and the next thing I know, I’ve got the two sexiest people I’ve ever met sucking my cock.”
Suri wasn’t sure if she felt embarrassed or turned on by the reminder. “And you’re okay with that?”
Jericho leaned down and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “I don’t know if it’s about being all right with it anymore. It just is. It happened. It wasn’t something I expected. I sure as hell don’t know how to explain it to my family or if I even will. But now that I’ve experienced what the three of us have, I don’t want to walk away from it either.”
“And that’s why I can’t just take your money,” she whispered. “This was supposed to be a fling. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Taking charity would make it cheap. And it should never be that.”
“So how can we help?” Dante was so matter-of-fact. She could almost imagine him whipping out a checkbook and taking over. But that would have been wrong in so many ways.
If they were giving her money, how would she ever know why she was in the relationship? How could there be balance or equality if they were taking care of her like something they’d picked up at the animal shelter? It sounded so good—too good. But she wasn’t the kind of woman who needed a man to take care of her. She wanted to be with them because she wanted them, not for the security and money they could provide. She wasn’t like one of Flaherty’s bimbos.
“You already help.” Suri wished she had pretty words to describe what she felt when the three of them were together. But that wasn’t really her style. Instead, she laid her cheek against Jericho’s chest. “You make me feel safe. I trust you.”
“Princess, I have never seen anyone make Jericho melt the way you do.” Dante’s husky voice gave her chills. “That man will never be able to say no to you.”
Jericho actually looked sheepish. “Oh, a
nd you can?”
“Do you mind if I stay here tonight?” Suri felt like the ultimate sellout asking such a thing, but she wanted one more chance to feel like she belonged to them. Once they found out she’d set up a party with Flaherty, she was going to lose everything. Her heart began to throb at the thought. How could she put all this on the line for money? These two wonderful men and a relationship that was starting to feel like home.
Ma’s more important than my getting laid.
“I told you earlier it was going to be all three of us in this bed tonight,” Dante reminded her.
Suri wished it could be all three of them in the bed forever. “At the moment, what I could really use is a shower.”
Dante shared a glance with Jericho. “Why don’t you use the shower in my bathroom, and Jericho and I will go wrap things up for the night.”
“Will the two of you be long?” Suri didn’t want to waste a moment of what little time she had left with them.
Dante leaned down and pulled her full lower lip into his mouth. He gave it a nip before he kissed her deeply. “If you fall asleep, we’ll wake you. Promise.”
Chapter Fifteen
Suri wondered how long she could play with matches before her hair caught fire. Figuratively speaking. There was a great big whopping portion of her brain that said she was an absolute moron for not being honest with Dante and Jericho about her financial situation. It had been so tempting to let it all tumble out. But how would she have ever been able to look at herself in the mirror after doing such a thing? Ma had raised Suri to stand on her own two feet. Mellie Robertson had always made her own way in the world. So would her daughter.
The water was warm, the soothing shower from an overhead sprayer thrumming against her skin. She sighed in pleasure, letting rivulets stream over her shoulders and back until they dribbled to the tile floor and down the drain. If only her troubles could do that. After giving her hair a final rinse, she turned the water off.
Boston Avant-Garde 4: Encore Page 12
