Boston Avant-Garde 4: Encore

by Kaitlin Maitland

  Jericho groaned, his cock pulsing as he came in hot spurts. He thrust hard and let go in a rush.

  “Look at him,” Dante murmured in her ear. “So beautiful.”

  Seconds later, he came in her ass, the thick length of his cock making one last push into her tight hole as he poured his seed into her body. Though she’d thought she was done, Suri came again, the stimulation of their joint climaxes spurring her into an orgasm that had stars dancing behind her closed lids.

  If someone had told her that she’d died and gone to heaven, she would have been perfectly satisfied to stay there forever.

  Chapter Ten

  “You’re late!”

  Suri bit back a sarcastic response that would only draw more attention to her tardy entrance through one of the State Room’s back doors. Guests were already arriving for the fund-raiser luncheon. They mingled in the airy space overlooking a panoramic view of the Custom House Tower’s brilliant clock face.

  Niles drew his bow across his viola strings. “Drop it, Leslie. Tune up and start playing, and I promise nobody will notice.”

  Suri hurriedly unpacked her cello while Leslie lifted her violin and began to tune with Niles. She settled herself in the folding chair and adjusted the music stand. Picking up her bow, she made sure the full skirt of her black dress wasn’t hung up on the sides of the instrument nestled between her legs.

  When she finally played a long, steady note and started to fine-tune her cello’s sound, the day’s stress faded into the background.

  The architecture of the State Room was the only thing making it possible for their music to be heard over the 300 guests murmuring among themselves in the venue’s courtyard atmosphere. The trio’s subtle melodies underscored the political pandering going on around the room.

  Suri was glad to be part of the backdrop. These were the people who populated Congressman Flaherty’s world, and she knew beyond a doubt she wanted nothing to do with their convoluted value system.

  Minutes spun past as Suri, Leslie, and Niles played through the first set in the program Leslie had planned for the luncheon. When the last selection drew to a long close, Leslie lowered her violin, and Suri sighed with regret. Life would be so much easier if the music never stopped.

  A robust man in a custom-tailored suit stepped to the front of the room where a microphone waited. Suri didn’t follow politics—not because she didn’t care but because, like most average people, she was consumed with the daily necessities of living. About all she knew was that the guy holding the fund-raiser was running for reelection at the end of next week. A wide, welcoming smile lit his face. It was the kind of grin that could put anyone at ease. The unsettling sensation of déjà vu began to slide down her spine, giving her chills.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Leslie nudged her with the toe of one dress shoe.

  “Who is this guy again?”

  Leslie carefully settled her violin in her lap. “Senator Liam O’Callaghan. Josh did his prenup a while back when he got remarried. You’ve probably seen him on TV.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Nope, she hadn’t seen him on TV. Between school, the trio’s bookings, and Asylum, Suri barely watched TV. But she knew the senator, or knew of him anyway. Her mother had a few pictures of him in a scrapbook. She’d kept them to show Suri what her father looked like.

  DANTE TRIED NOT to look as bored as he felt. He hated attending political fund-raisers. He had no trouble blending into the crowd in his custom suit and seven-hundred-dollar Italian shoes, but the man inside the clothing didn’t belong with a bunch of blue-blooded Boston snobs.

  He caught the eye of Patrick Wilhelm from across the room. Patrick’s son Jackson had lost the poker game at Asylum several nights back. Dante could have never guessed the asshole would try to weasel his way into Suri’s pants the following day. Patrick’s stiff nod told Dante the man knew far too much about his son’s dealings with Asylum. Dante made a mental note to remind the Wilhelms exactly why he held the upper hand. No doubt Jackson would remember his reputation was on the line.

  The conversations died down as guests took their seats, and Senator Liam O’Callaghan stepped to the microphone. Dante lounged in his chair, prepared to be bored out of his mind.

  “Friends, neighbors, and the rest of you who’ve promised me money.” O’Callaghan waited for the laughter to die off after his contrived bit of humor. “I’m so glad all of you could make it to this historic venue today.”

  That was the thing Dante had discovered over the years about Boston. A city steeped in American history was ripe with opportunities to make people feel patriotic. Except for him. Since he was neither American nor particularly patriotic. In fact, Dante’s roots would have been worth at least a ten-minute diatribe of poisonous rhetoric aimed at the Middle East and Iran in particular.

  “I want to tell all of you that your interests are my concerns as we step toward this next election. My rival, Congressman Flaherty, would have you believe he has the best interests of this city and its occupants at the center of his concerns. But the truth is that he’s more concerned with lining his own pockets with your hard-earned money!”

  True. Dante sent a lazy smile toward a blushing debutante who had been mentally undressing him for the last few minutes. She was blonde. He had the inane thought that Flaherty would have been happy to accept her in lieu of monetary contributions to his campaign. The rat bastard.

  From his usual position in a corner of the room, Dante had a view of the entire assembly. He began systematically filing those present and those missing into his mental database. The faster he made a list of people he wanted to schmooze with, the faster he could get the hell out of here.

  O’Callaghan was waxing poetic about school funding, test scores, health care, and state-funded programs for the mentally disabled when Dante noticed a trio of musicians waiting patiently in a corner. One of them was blonde too. Why, when the world was so chock full of blondes, did they hold such fascination for him? Maybe growing up in a Persian household full of women with dark hair and eyes had made him starved for something different.

  The cellist shifted her instrument, her bright hair sliding like satin against the sleeve of her black jacket. She used her hand to flip the swatch of corn silk back over her shoulder.

  Dante froze. The unconscious gesture of a stranger should never have seemed so familiar to him. Except that the woman wasn’t a stranger. It was Suri.

  His body came alive. Suri was here, with a cello? Except it all made sense. The money could hardly be that great when you were playing gigs like this fund-raiser and trying to live in Boston’s high-priced economy. Although, this sort of venue was hardly the place for a garage-band musician. Obviously, the trio was well connected.

  O’Callaghan had stopped talking. Suri placed her bow against the strings and looked to the red-haired violinist for her cue. At the first note, Dante’s heart thumped wildly. Sound rippled off the strings, resonating around the State Room until it washed him in warmth and light. She played beautifully, like a natural-born musician. He stood, intending to get closer.

  “What in God’s name is a bottom-feeder like you doing in a place like this?”

  The words snapped Dante’s attention back to the moment with all the subtlety of a freight train. “Nicolai Anastas, I could ask you the same thing. Why leave your bar? The atmosphere at Jack’s is much better than this place.”

  The smooth-headed bar owner with the pierced ears and heavy Bostonian accent gripped Dante’s hand in a firm shake. “I’ve already asked myself that question, and I keep coming up with the same answer.”

  Considering the last time he’d seen Nicolai the man had been playing a game of poker strictly to gain the freedom of a lady, Dante had his suspicions. “Whoever she is, I like the suit she picked out for you.”

  “My wife, Desiree.” He nodded to a woman several tables away.

  Dante remembered her well. She was beautiful, for a brunette. “Wife?”

  �
�Marriage is just a label.”

  “Then congratulations.” Dante thought of the hell the other man had been through. Nicolai deserved to be happy. “Allow me to wish you well.”

  “Thanks. I’d say I hope to see you again, but I don’t think I’ll be hitting Asylum anytime soon.”

  That feeling settled in Dante’s chest again. The same one that had caused him to drown his intellect in a bottle of Arak the night he’d met Suri. He had to stop feeling responsible for other people’s actions. Nicolai won the poker game. And even if he hadn’t, he’d known what he was getting into when he entered the club. All of Dante’s customers did. Hell, he even made them sign a statement saying they knew how the rules worked.

  Nicolai assessed the influential Bostonians gathered in the room. “I’m making the assumption you’re here to make business contacts, not to donate money.”

  Dante flirted with the idea of contributing to O’Callaghan’s campaign. Nothing like a healthy dose of money from a foreign national with roots in the Iranian aristocracy to ruin the chance of reelection. Not to mention bringing down the fires of discrimination onto Dante’s head. “I’m not the type of person most politicians want on their contribution ledger.”

  “And yet you manage to keep them in line all the same,” Nicolai quipped.

  Was that how the man truly viewed it? Dante had never seen blackmail as a form of public service, but Nicolai’s words seemed to suggest he might see it as such. “You make me sound like Robin Hood.”

  “You don’t strike me as the type to wear green tights.” Desiree walked up and slid her arm around Nicolai’s waist.

  Dante didn’t know why, since he’d never been officially introduced to the woman, but he had liked her almost immediately. There was something absolutely brazen in her manner, as if she couldn’t be bothered with what everyone else thought. “Nice to see you again, Desiree.”

  “You too, Mr. Torres.”

  Torres. He’d been using that generic Latino surname for so long he sometimes believed it himself. Dante Torres didn’t cause as many waves as the name Darios Kadjar would have.

  “Nicolai?” Desiree looked up at her husband as if there were no one else in the room. “My brother is ready to go. If he’s leaving, there’s absolutely no reason we need to stick around.”

  Nicolai gazed longingly at the buffet tables situated across the room. “Fifteen hundred dollars a plate and I can’t even grab a to-go box.”

  “My sister-in-law is expecting, and my brother hates to leave her for too long,” Desiree explained. “Although, considering how hungry she’s been lately, a to-go box might not be such a bad idea.”

  Dante found himself laughing along. He envied Nicolai the easy banter with his wife. Finding a mate and settling down in a long-term relationship had never been part of Dante’s life plan. Now, though, it wasn’t hard to imagine slipping into a similar situation with Suri and Jericho. He and Jericho had always shared a comfortable rapport. Suri not only fit right into their repartee, she added an element of vitality that made it better.

  “You want me to call the car around?” Nicolai slid his phone from his pocket.

  “Actually, I promised Talia I would give Leslie the latest ultrasound photos. Give me a few minutes and then call.” Desiree huffed out a long-suffering sigh. “I never thought there’d come a day when I’d interrupt a musician to hand her a picture of a fetus.”

  The word “musician” gave Dante pause. “Is Leslie one of the string players?”

  “The violinist.” Her expression turned suspicious. “She’s extremely taken.”

  He gazed across the room at Suri’s graceful profile cradling her instrument against her body. Eyes closed, she was totally immersed in the music. It reminded him of the look on her face while she danced. “I’m not into redheads, but I’m a sucker for blondes.”

  “You mean Jen?”

  Jen? Are we talking about the same woman?

  Desiree made a sound he didn’t quite know how to interpret. “I’ll introduce you.”

  “That’s right, you go socialize, and I’ll hit the food table.” Nicolai gave her a quick kiss and strode off toward the buffet.

  Desiree watched him go. “That man doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks.”

  “Pardon me, but it doesn’t really seem to bother you.”

  “Hell no! That’s what I love about him most.” Desiree grabbed Dante’s arm, the familiarity of the gesture taking him by surprise.

  She was literally dragging him through the room full of people toward the trio playing unobtrusively in a corner. He knew the moment Suri saw him. Her head came up, her bow skidding to a stop on the strings before dropping limply to her side. The phrase “deer in the headlights” came immediately to mind.

  “Hey, Les, Talia wanted me to give these to you.” Desiree handed Leslie the pictures, oblivious to the electricity snapping between Dante and her friend “Jen.” “And Dante here wanted an introduction to Jen. Apparently, he’s got a thing for blondes.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Suri couldn’t breathe. She kept sucking air into her lungs, but she couldn’t release it. Every nerve in her body tingled. She’d always heard people describe being irresistibly attracted to someone, but she hadn’t imagined it to be a force of nature that robbed you of speech and coherent thought.

  “Is she hyperventilating?” Niles was staring at her as though she’d grown a second head.

  Leslie looked from Suri to Dante and frowned hard enough to form a storm cloud in her normally sunny expression. “I don’t think Jen wants to meet Dante. Thanks for the pictures, but I think you should go.”

  It was a total Twilight Zone moment. Dante crouched down beside Suri, reaching out to brush the backs of his fingers across her cheek. The air she’d been holding escaped in one long sigh.

  “That’s it, princess. Breathe.” The familiar sight of his scar lifting when he smiled made the bottom drop out of her stomach.

  He wasn’t angry. She couldn’t have said how she knew, but his dark eyes were too warm. More than that, her instincts told her that Dante Torres might be terrifying to some, but never to her. Never.

  “Seriously, Desiree. Jen’s got a fair complexion, but she looks white as paper. I think—”

  “Get a grip!” Desiree cut right across Leslie’s tirade. “Look at them. They already know each other. I knew I was right!”

  “I like you in this profession,” Dante teased. “Were you never going to offer us a private concert?”

  Suri couldn’t help it. It was like the sun had come out. He was so drop-dead gorgeous it was all she could do not to put her cello down and throw herself into his arms. He was wearing one of those tailored suits that made him seem like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Suri was ready to strip him naked and show the world what he really looked like—sexy, dangerous, and hers and Jericho’s.

  Her heart thumped. If Dante was here— “Where’s Jericho?”

  “Running errands.” He laced his fingers into hers, bringing them to his lips. “We decided a long time ago that if I couldn’t handle myself in a room full of pampered socialites, I deserved to have my ass kicked.”

  There was pleasure at seeing him so unexpectedly, but a pang at missing Jericho too. “I think we need to talk.”

  The sensual note in his chuckle sent a thrill down her spine and straight to her pussy. “Agreed.”

  So immersed in Dante’s sudden appearance in her everyday life, Suri hadn’t paid attention to their rapt audience. She was brought forcefully back to reality when Leslie stood up and laid her violin aside with more force than necessary.

  “You and I need to have a discussion, now.” Leslie grabbed her arm, dragging Suri out of her chair. Dante’s quick hands saved the cello from a dive to the floor.

  “Um, okay.” Arguing would’ve made more of a scene. “I’ll be back in just a minute, all right?”

  Dante set the cello gently on its side. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Leslie speed
walked toward a set of double doors leading to the back entrance. Flinging them open, she shoved Suri into a red-carpeted hallway. A dozen yards down, the catering staff buzzed back and forth through a doorway between the kitchen and the buffet tables. They were too busy to care about a pissed-off violinist and her cello sidekick.

  “Spill!” Leslie’s vehement tone said she was done giving Suri space. “I’ve been patient, Jen. But that is one big, scary-looking creep out there. Are you trying to get yourself raped and left in a gutter?”

  Suri didn’t have a ready response. She was still reeling from Leslie’s decisive slander against a man she didn’t even know. And Leslie had just called her Jen. The haze of surprise started to clear, and Suri realized how much the “scary-looking creep” had just done to make things easier on her. Dante had to have realized that she was Jen to everyone there. But instead of pointing out the inconsistency, he’d just called her princess.

  As lame as it is, I really like it when he calls me that.

  “And who the hell is Jericho? This other guy who follows him around to keep him from getting his ass beat? What do these people do? That guy looks like he knife fights on the weekends for fun! Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  Leslie was still going full speed. Suri was trying to decide what to say, but there was hardly an opportunity to interject anything at the moment. She knew Leslie was concerned, the way a friend should be, but really? Was all the degradation necessary?

  “Jen!”

  Oops, guess it’s my turn. “I don’t really know where to start. If I start at the beginning, will you shut up until I’m done?”

  A nod.

  Suri felt bad about the hurt in her friend’s green eyes, but at least Leslie was keeping her mouth closed. “You were right, okay? I got a job as an exotic dancer to earn some extra money.” Les started to open her mouth, but Suri shushed her with one hard look. “Don’t judge me. You of all people better not judge me. It isn’t what you think. I’m not having sex for money. I’m dancing. And I actually like it.”