It takes longer than I had hoped to track down a coworker who was not only awake to answer their texts but also had Gavin’s phone number.
I should’ve known that Georgia would come through for me. She’s probably slept with the stripper.
Instead of texting Gavin, I call him. It takes three attempts going to his voicemail before he finally answers.
“I don’t know who you are and don’t care. Just stop calling me!” he shouts into the phone.
“Gavin, wait!” I beg before he hangs up.
“Vanessa?”
“Yeah, it’s me. How…how are you? Can you walk? Is anything, you know, broken?” I ask.
He makes a grumbling sound. “I’ve been better, but nothing is broken.”
“I’m so sorry, Gavin. I had no idea Dante would erupt like that in public or take it out on you. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved…”
“It’s fine. I don’t blame you.”
“You should. It was stupid of me to provoke him while I’m stuck in this…agreement with him.”
“You’re still staying with him?” Gavin asks with a scoff, like he’s surprised by that.
“Well, yeah. I have to.”
“You don’t have to do anything, Van!”
“Trust me, Gavin, if I could leave here I would.”
“Has he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Well, he probably will. He’s fucking demented. Him and the psycho who tormented me the entire night!”
“Eli? He tormented you? What did he do?”
Sighing, he says, “It’s done and over with. Now I just want to forget it happened. I still want to see you.”
“What? No, Gavin,” I reply in a rush. Is he crazy? “You should stay away. Seriously. I’m not worth the trouble, and I feel guilty enough about last night.”
“I’ll be in the lounge tonight like usual,” he tells me.
“Well, I won’t. I can’t. I’m sorry about everything, okay?”
“Vanessa, wait!” he shouts but I hang up on him.
Is he insane? Whatever was done to him last night wasn’t enough to deter him, which is confusing as hell.
And one thing is clear from our conversation, Dante held up his side of our bargain. Which means one day, in the not-so-distant future, I’ll have to let Dante put his mouth on me, endure having his fingers inside of me.
Both of those things are terrifying because I know I’ll enjoy it, no matter how much my head tries not to like it.
I don’t see Dante again until late that night, after I’ve had dinner alone again. Not that I missed him or was waiting up for him.
“What did you do today?” he questions me as he removes his jacket.
“Ah, I had a spa day. Got a deep tissue massage, a mud wrap, and had some waxing done.” I didn’t like using the facilities here on his dime, but after last night, I think I deserved a little indulgence.
“Waxing, huh? Where did you…”
“Nope. That’s none of your business,” I stop him. “Where have you been all day?”
“Working,” he says as he begins undressing at the foot of the bed facing me, first removing his jacket then gun holster. Just like last night, he’s doing it on purpose, making me watch him get naked while forcing me to simultaneously hold a conversation with him.
“Working?” I repeat.
Undoing his buttondown, he holds my gaze. “The guard who was unharmed in the warehouse raid was brought in this morning.”
“Oh. So…you were, um, questioning him?”
Arching an eyebrow as he shrugs off the shirt, baring his broad, tattooed chest and stomach he says, “Torturing the information out of him. No point sugar coating it, butterfly.”
“Right. How did it go?”
“He confessed, gave me a lead, so I guess you could say it went well.” He adds that last part like he doesn’t really consider it a win. I would guess not since two of his employees are still dead and all his product, likely millions in illegal drugs, are gone.
For the first time since I’ve been staying here with him, I realize how difficult it must be for Dante to not be able to trust anyone in his life. In the mafia world I’m guessing you could be friends with someone one day and enemies the next. Nothing is ever free. Everyone likely has ulterior motives. Even I’m sitting here in his bed out of obligation, not choice.
As Dante shoves his gray suit pants down his muscular thighs, I try to think about anything other than his package in his snug sky-blue boxer briefs. He put on white ones this morning. I saw him after his shower when I was pretending to sleep. Before I can help myself, I blurt out, “That’s not the…suit you were wearing when you left earlier.” I barely catch myself from saying underwear. But the suit this morning was also darker.
“No, it’s not,” Dante responds while reaching down to remove his socks.
He changed during the day. Which means he either got dirty…rolling around in bed with someone or…“You got blood on the other suit?” I guess.
“It got a little dirty. Why?”
I hate that I’m relieved to hear he gets dirty torturing and not whoring around. Although, he could be lying and did both.
“Why not do what it is that you do in something other than expensive suits?” I ask him.
Dante’s hand lowers to scratch the fuzzier part of his lower belly, right above the waistband of his underwear as if intentionally drawing my attention to it.
“Who would you be more afraid of if you ran into them on the street? A homeless guy in dirty sweats you’re certain doesn’t have a dollar to his name or a man in a pristine suit who could have enough money, enough power to kill you without consequences?”
“Ah, fine. I get it, the intimidation factor. Do you at least take your jacket off?”
His shoulders slump slightly, as if he’s mentally and physically exhausted from the long day. “Sometimes. Not always. It depends on how urgent the situation arises. Why are you playing the gangster version of twenty-questions with me? You going to write my biography when you leave here, butterfly?”
I shrug. “I’m just curious. And it’s not like I have anything else to do since you won’t let me work. Maybe I’ll take up writing.” It’s not that I miss waiting tables, but having something productive to do every day is better than being alone and bored.
“What do you want to do besides serve drinks to assholes all night?” Dante asks, his hands now gripping his hips.
“I don’t know. I’ve never really had any free time to think about it. I’m always either working or sleeping.”
“That is just fucking sad.”
“I know. I realized the same thing earlier,” I reply quietly. “What about you? What do you usually do after your gangster and businessman obligations are done for the day?” I ask.
“Fuck.”
“Ah.” Should’ve known.
“I fuck away all the shit I had to do during the day, the shit I don’t want to think about for a few hours.”
One part of that confession is hard to believe and makes me roll my eyes. “Hours? Really?”
“I have incredible stamina,” he says. “And I love eating pussy. That kind of foreplay takes time and is usually a prerequisite before a woman can enjoy my cock.”
My eyes unintentionally lower to the growing bulge in his underwear. “Because you’re…big. Got it.”
When his tattooed hand slides under the band, fisting himself under the cotton, it causes an unfortunate throbbing to begin between my legs.
“Vanessa, do you remember that part of our agreement about no additional compensation unless otherwise specifically stated?” he asks while his hand moves up and down just out of sight.
I swallow hard. “Yes. What about it?”
“I’ll give you ten grand right now if you’ll use your hand to get me off.”
My jaw drops in utter disbelief. Did he just ask me… When I recover, I answer him with a resounding, “No!”
“Fifty thousand?”
He would actually pay me fifty grand for a hand job, which is insane.
“Still a no.” I hate that my rejection takes a little longer to come out of my mouth.
“A hundred grand?”
Now I scoff, but I stupidly, desperately, consider stroking his dick before finally shaking my head to decline and clear those thoughts from it. “No. I’m not now, or ever will be, your paid whore!”
