Her father said nothing, and his expression revealed even less. With that, she picked up her purse and left.
From his VIP table carefully placed in a high-set, dark corner of the club—so he could monitor his club without being seen—Giancarlo watched the group of women enter his club. Laughing and hollering at one another, they had obviously already shared more than a glass of wine between them. His cursory glance slid over the crowd, before halting abruptly.
One of the women was neither hollering nor laughing, but her bemused expression revealed she was enjoying her friends’ fun. Her dark, curly hair fell to the middle of her back, stylishly arranged around her beautiful face. She wore a vintage dress and carried a matching handbag. Her heels were perilously high, which might bring her up to his shoulders if she stretched. He couldn’t see from here, but from his memory, he could recall an image of her golden-brown eyes. High cheekbones. A flair for vintage style. And the perfect round ass.
Something inside him shivered with need.
Domenica Todaro.
He more than knew of her, he lusted after the Don’s daughter for years from afar. If he were honest with himself, he’d admit that for months, he would appear at functions and parties hoping to catch the slightest glimpse of her. Hell, he’d even stalked her Facebook page like a fucking teenager, studying her pictures far too closely, but again he never dared to approach her directly.
Doing more than lusting after her from afar meant almost certain conflict between their families, and Gian hadn’t quite been that stupid. Yet.
What was the Don’s daughter doing in his club? Not only in his club but unguarded by the Don’s men who tended to shadow her from a distance, no matter where she went.
Don Todaro’s idea? Unlikely. There was no reason for the Don to spy on him. A war was unlikely between their families—far too much rode on their cooperation in certain arenas. Neither Don Todaro nor Giancarlo’s father, Don Spadaro liked risking money needlessly. But to say that they were friends wouldn’t be true either. They tolerated one another, while carefully watching across boundary lines in their shared city, each Don hoping the other would show a weakness, so that the other could swoop in and take more for themselves.
The group of women sat at a large table near the dance floor, one that had been reserved, and he could still hear them laughing over the music. A tall order, even with his excellent hearing. Domenica was obviously the leader of the little group. She took care of ordering from the waitress, handing the young woman her credit card. Then she turned back to her group and spoke to them all. Whatever she said caused another round of laughter.
If not under her father’s orders, why was she here? The grapevine had a lot to say about the Don’s only daughter. That she wasn’t a proper Italian young woman. That she was stubborn and difficult to control. That she worried far more about running her own businesses than finding a suitable husband.
Intriguing.
He settled further into the shadows to watch her.
Radiant—no other word fit her quite so well. Beautiful and stylish. Outgoing yet not quite flashy. She would be fun to pursue.
He mentally shook his head. Going after Don Todaro’s only daughter—however fun—would be a pointless jab at his father’s rival. If he could actually fuck her, it might be worth the risk. But that wasn’t an option.
Frustration rolled through him, and unable to help himself, he got up from his table and moved in closer to Domenica and her friends. Obviously out for a night of fun, they drank two shots back to back. Domenica finally joined in the giggles, then she dragged one of her friends onto the dance floor.
The music drummed, and the women, perfectly on beat, thrummed along with it. Other men immediately closed in on the women—their dance so sexually charged and seductive it drew the men like moths to a flame. And Giancarlo couldn’t look away from Domenica.
He frowned. Approaching her made no sense, and yet he found himself unable to resist. Before he realized it, he was on the dance floor. Edging between her and her friend. Dancing with the daughter of his father's rival.
Interest flashed in her eyes, and she shot him a grin. Her dance never slowed, nor did she spare her friend an apologetic look. She seemed as unable to look away from him as he was from her. Then they moved together, a breathtaking, sensual dance. Closer. Closer. Until not even air could have slipped between them.
Her full breasts brushed against his chest, and his hands came down around her waist. They moved together in such a way he imagined it was like sex. Or how he thought real sex would be. Not one drink had passed his lips that night, yet suddenly his mind swam. He was drunk on her. Almost out of control.
Her scent touched his nose. A spicy mix of cinnamon and mint. Of woman and shampoo. He nuzzled her neck, and despite the music and dancers raging around them, they both slowed. Almost not moving at all except against each other.
In his pants, his cock came to life. Hardening suddenly and painfully. Shock reverberated through him, and he pulled her closer. His lips touched hers, seeming to find their own way. And she didn’t pull back. Instead, her arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled him closer. His tongue plunged between her lips, and she hungrily met him thrust for thrust.
Domenica practically climbed him, and he was so tempted to push up her skirt and take her right here on the dance floor that he had to physically stop himself from doing so. His fingers dug into her hips, and she moaned beneath him.
Shit. Can’t take her here. He pulled back, breaking their kiss. And she glared at him.
“Come with me to the back.” His words came out like an order, and a flash of anger touched her expression. But she didn’t fight him when he tugged her along with him.
Not once in his life had his dick come to life like that. When most teenage boys had been fighting directions at every turn, he’d felt nothing. He loved women. He’d made giving them orgasms something of art. But he’d yet to find one that could make him hard.
Until now.
Something about this woman was special.
He dragged her into the room that served as an office for him when he had need of it. Or was she dragging him? He couldn’t tell and couldn’t give a shit. They were both touching, groping, breathing in the other. He moved from her lips to kiss her neck down her collarbone. Her hand gripped his ass, and she rubbed herself against his hard cock. As if he was drunk, he felt out of control. Not something he normally would’ve enjoyed. But this—this was different.
Domenica was different.
He didn’t feel weaker for his lack of control. He was certain he could have moved a building to get at her right now.
Over her dress, he cupped her breast. Squeezing the full mound before sliding his hand down between her legs. He touched her there, boldly. Not asking for permission, demanding it. Mouth against his, she moaned and leaned into his touch.
He had to have her. Now.
2
God, she was so close. How the hell had this happened? One second she’d been dancing with Anna and enjoying a bit of pseudo-freedom while giving her dad the middle finger, and the next she felt like her body was on fire. And the man dancing with her—the stranger dancing with her—was the only one who could quench her flames.
And what a man he was.
Tall—ridiculously so—and dressed like a well-off gangster. His thick, dark hair reached his shoulders. And he looked like he could lift her with one arm without breaking a sweat.
And his eyes… Damn. A woman could get lost in their dark depths. Hell, a woman had.
A loud crash, the door from the club slamming against the wall. The mysterious man who seemed vaguely familiar reacted. He stepped out of her arms and pushed her behind him. He looked ready for a fight.
A large man stepped to the door. Bald and at least six foot six and made of pure muscle.
“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. She straightened her dress and smoothed her hair, then tried to push her way past the mysterious stran
ger who she’d been ready to fuck only a moment earlier, but he blocked her path with his arm.
He was nearly as large as the hulk coming through the door, but that hulk—Tony—was no threat to her. But he might very well be a threat to her mysterious stranger. And if he wasn’t, the man who followed him into the room definitely would be. Then, there he was. Passing by Tony while straightening his jacket.
“Domenica. Come here,” her father ordered. His knowing eyes scanned the room before locking firmly on the man she had just been about to fuck.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Outrage laced her tone, and she knew it would piss her father off, but she didn’t care. “I know you think you run my life. But you don’t run my sex life.”
A muscle in her father’s jaw twitched at the mention of her sex life. Like any father, he preferred to pretend she didn’t have one. Sadly, that was practically true lately. All the more reason she wished her father had never walked through that door.
“Unfortunately, you have made this…” He gestured toward them with just taste. “Situation my business.”
Another large frame entered the doorway, and Tony pulled his gun. The other man in the doorway held his ground. Eyes flashing dangerously across the room. “Sorry, boss.”
Her gaze moved to her date. His eyes were still locked on her father. Was the new man his bodyguard? It certainly seemed so. Which probably meant…
“This isn’t about my sex life, is it?” She pitched her voice low. Her father heard.
“This is about Giancarlo Spadaro getting far too close to my daughter.” The words he spat out with anger weren’t directed to her, even though he replied to her question. Her father looked like he wanted to take Giancarlo apart.
Giancarlo Spadaro. Holy shit. Her father’s biggest rival in the city, or given his age, the rival’s son
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Talk about stepping in it. “I didn’t know. I’m sure he didn’t know either. Look—”
“He knew.”
She recognized that dead look in her father’s eyes. This wouldn’t end well. She might pretend to not know what her father did, at least in the light of day. To not understand how he did it. But she knew. Most of the time it was okay. It was professional. Gangsters fighting fucking gangsters. But in this case…
Careful not to touch the hot Italian man who’d set her blood on fire, she walked around him. This time, he didn’t make a move to stop her. But his eyes flashed to hers when she joined her father on the other side of the room.
“You didn’t know, right? Tell him you didn’t know,” she said as she settled in behind her father.
Giancarlo abruptly relaxed, and he crossed his arms and gave her a lazy smile. “Of course, I knew. A man doesn’t forget a face like yours. A woman like you.” He winked.
Motherfucker. She wanted to wipe that sexy grin off his face. The arrogant son of a bitch was the son of a mobster. They bred that kind of arrogance.
And she had gravitated toward him like a moth to a flame.
Her gaze shifted frantically to her father, but he made no move to gesture for his man to shoot Giancarlo. Whether it was because he feared the man standing in the doorway behind them would draw his weapon, or because his daughter’s honor wasn’t worth starting a war with his main rival, she wasn’t sure.
“You will stay away from my daughter.” Her father’s words weren’t a question, nor a request. An order from a man who was quite used to giving them.
Her father turned from Giancarlo and headed toward the door.
Giancarlo nodded to his man at the door, and he stepped back, allowing her father through. Before Domenica could follow him, Giancarlo closed the distance between them in two long steps. He kissed her hard. And abruptly, the spark that had been snuffed out by her father’s arrival, flared to life again.
“I will find you. You won’t get away.” He uttered the words with such conviction, and she stared at him, dazed for a long moment.
“Domenica,” her father said from the door. His tone brooked no argument.
She turned on her heel and headed out the door toward her father. Behind her, her father’s man followed.
Unable to help herself, she touched her lips as she trailed her father through the club.
He said he’d find her. But she already knew that would be impossible. A relationship with one of her father’s rivals bordered on traitorous. And she was a lot of things, but she wasn’t disloyal to her family. She might push her father’s buttons, might wish hopelessly for more freedom. But she wouldn’t cause him to go to war for it. And she was certain Giancarlo would feel the same about his own family.
She’d hoped that her father would take her home. To her shiny little apartment where she could at least pretend that the choices she made in life were solely at her own discretion. But he didn’t, of course. Next to her in the back of the town car, he remained silent, his anger simmering beneath the surface. They arrived at her childhood home, and, still silent, they exited the car together. Tony walked ahead, then opened the front door for them. They stepped inside, and the door shut behind them. Tony remained outside.
This wouldn’t be good. Dread swirled in her stomach. Her father gestured, a quick nod to the side. And she followed him to his study.
“Do you have any idea what you did tonight? What you could have done?” Inside the study, her father poured himself a scotch, neat.
“I didn’t know who he—”
Her father made a slashing motion in the air, silencing her. “It does not matter. You are reckless. Foolish. Practically fucking a stranger in a club. Even if he hadn’t been a Spadaro, that action alone would’ve brought shame on our family. You know better.”
He turned to face her, his eyes hard.
Frustration rolled through her, and she wanted to throw something just to watch it break. “For crying out loud, I’m not a fucking teenager. I run my own businesses. I run my own life. And that includes my sex life.”
“You could have started a war tonight,” her father roared, his icy exterior finally cracking. “You have no idea how dangerous that Spadaro boy is. How dangerous to me. How dangerous to you.”
She flinched. Enraging her father was something of a talent of hers. But she’d never pushed him to this level before. She’d never done something so stupid. Guilt wracked her, swirling inside her chest to settle as a hard lump in her stomach.
She could have started a war.
People would’ve been killed. Good people.
“Is your freedom so important to you? That you will risk not only dishonoring your father but costing lives as well?”
“I—” She didn’t know what to say. Her hands clenched at her sides, and she searched for a way to try to explain herself in a way that this man would understand. Father and daughter, yet so different sometimes, she felt like she was trying to talk to an alien.
Maybe if her mother hadn’t died when she was so young. Maybe she could’ve bridged the distance between them. Domenica wasn’t sure, but somehow it felt like she would have more success trying to communicate with her dead mother than with the man standing in front of her.
“You will be leaving the city in the morning,” he said, rage draining from his voice, replaced by finality that chilled her to the bone.
“No,” she said, the word coming out more of a gasp then a real word.
“Yes.” Her father’s face was serious, brooked no argument. He’d made up his mind.
“But my life is here. My businesses—”
“You won’t be gone forever. Just long enough for this Spadaro boy to forget about you. Be happy I’m sending you on an extended vacation instead of confining you to your room like the petulant child you’re being.”
It was silly. She barely knew Giancarlo—okay, didn’t know him at all, really. And yet she felt like he wouldn’t forget her so easily. At least, she wasn’t sure she could forget him.
“Unless you want a war on your conscience,” her fath
er warned.
Desire and guilt twirled within her. She wanted freedom so badly she could taste it. And damn her if Giancarlo hadn’t tasted like freedom.
And yet… The hard lump of guilt in her stomach remained. She wasn’t selfless. But she wasn’t selfish enough to cause men to go to war on her behalf.
“Fine,” she said, forcing the word past her pursed lips.
Her father nodded, satisfied. “Good. You may retire to your room here for the night. Tony will take you to your apartment tomorrow to pack.” And with that pronouncement, he turned away from her and went to pour another scotch. She’d been dismissed.
Anger and frustration roiled through her as she walked into her old room and slipped into her childhood bed. The hours passed slowly, and she tossed and turned.
Giancarlo.
She could practically taste his name on her lips.
Sleep refused to come, and she stared into the darkness, picturing his face. He was good looking—okay, he was ridiculously sexy. But so many of the macho Italian men she was around on nearly a daily basis were. There was something else about him. Something that called to her. A deep place he touched that she hadn’t even known she had.
It wasn’t only freedom she’d tasted on his lips.
God, she was horny. Her whole body ached with need. Mere minutes she’d been held in the man’s arms, yet she could almost feel him, even now. Rough hands against her skin. Wet tongue slipping between her lips.
She groaned at the thought of what else might those lips have done.
She slipped a hand down into her underwear, pressing softly against her clit. Her hips arched.
She needed release. She imagined what it would feel like if his tongue slipped inside her. His teeth lightly scraped against her clit.
She bit back a gasp, as moisture pooled between her legs. Readying herself. For him.
He’d been hard against her, huge, thick against her stomach as he pulled her close. Their dance had been like sex, two bodies writhing in their own rhythm.
She rubbed her clit harder, then slipped a single, slender finger inside of her pussy. It was a poor substitute for the thick dick Giancarlo had rubbed against her, but it was all she had. She moaned in pleasure and frustration, a mix that said just as much about her life as it did about her sex life. Giancarlo had been forbidden. Just like the freedom she so craved.
Dragon Mob: A Powyrworld Urban Fantasy Romance (The Lost Dragon Princes Book 3) Page 2
