He sprang to his feet and moved her back to the couch. Such a gentleman. So helpful. Somehow, she stepped out of her panties while he did that. Accidentally.
Her knees couldn’t hold her up anymore, and she sank down onto the couch, legs quivering. “I can tell you to stop whenever I want?”
He knelt in front of her and slid his hands between her legs, roughly spreading them apart.
“Yes.” He nipped her thigh gently, and a jolt of pleasurable pain pulsed through her body. “But you won’t.”
Her legs quivered, and he pressed harder, spreading them wider. She was completely exposed to him. His warm breath fanned her sex, and he breathed in again, inhaling her scent. She could tell him to stop. She was going to tell him, any second now …
But what would it feel like to have his eager tongue lapping at her? Probing her aching pussy, sucking on the swollen pink pearl of her clit?
Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Zoey leapt to her feet, her body crying out in protest. Dominic let out a stream of curses. Quickly, she snatched her t-shirt and pants and pulled them back on. She kicked the underwear under the couch just as someone rapped loudly on the door.
“Boss, it’s me! Arturo called. Said you’d turned off your phone.”
The door swung open, and Romano stepped into the room. Zoey stood there shivering with mingled desire and fury. Dammit, she’d been one lick away from climbing Dominic like a tree and begging him to take her.
Dominic looked at Romano with murder in his icy blue eyes.
“I knew it was you, idiot. I could scent you,” he growled. “Eat less garlic. And I told you to wait out front. If you’ve got a death wish, though, I’m happy to oblige. Evisceration, decapitation? Or a good old-fashioned flaying?”
“Why is she giving me a dirty look?” Romano, looking wounded, ignored Dominic’s threats. “I didn’t eat her friend the other day. Did you guys finish having sex yet? Arturo needs you.”
“We didn’t have sex!” Zoey squawked indignantly.
“Okay. Sure. I don’t know what sex smells like.” Romano gave her an exaggerated wink. He glanced down at her pink panties which were half peeking out from under the couch. Looking at her again, he stuck his hands in his pockets and started whistling. Loudly. On purpose.
“Why are you here?!” Dominic shouted so loudly the room shook and Zoey’s eardrums popped as if she were in an airplane.
“Check your spell phone. Arturo’s got a job for you.”
Dominic pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. He read the screen, sighed, and shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’ve got to go kill a guy,” he said, tucking the phone back into his pocket.
Zoey looked at him in shock.
He shrugged. “You might as well know what your mate does for a living.”
“Why are you killing him?” Her voice came out all squeaky.
There was no trace of seduction left in his face. He gave her a blank look as if she’d started speaking Ogrish. “My boss told me to.”
“And that’s it? You don’t ask any questions?”
His expression didn’t change. “No. Why would I?”
“What if your boss told you to kill me?”
He looked at her coolly. “I’m sure you’d be too smart to give him a reason to do that.” He turned and walked out with Romano. To kill a man.
Zoey went into the bathroom and stepped into the tiny shower stall, blasting icy cold water all over her body. It didn’t help.
She got dressed, reheated the rest of the coffee in the microwave, and berated herself for her weakness. One lap of Dominic’s tongue and she’d been ready to abandon all of her principles and make the beast with two backs with … a real son of a beast. What the hell was wrong with her?
Her gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a sharp rapping on the door.
“Depends,” she yelled. “Who is it?” Who even knew she was here? Right around now, that smell ability of Dominic’s would come in handy.
The door rattled as someone messed with the lock. She leapt to her feet as the door swung open and Cin, Lorenzo, and Heath strolled in.
“Did you have to pick the lock?” Zoey said, annoyed. “You could have just said who you were and I’d have let you in!”
Cin shrugged. “Gotta keep my skills sharp.”
Zoey turned her attention to Lorenzo. “Does your mom know you’re here?”
“Will you can it with questions about my mom?” Lorenzo snapped. He never used to snap. Zoey looked at him steadily until he dropped his gaze. “Sorry.”
“Call your mother and tell her where you are. Or leave.”
“She’ll yell at me!” He snuck a furtive glance at Cin, who looked faintly contemptuous.
Zoey had no sympathy. “You’ve earned it.”
Grumbling, he grabbed his phone and headed into the hallway.
“Is lunch ready? Real roast beef!” Cin said, her eyes shining. “I’m drooling!”
“What?”
Cin looked puzzled. “The note you sent me? By gryphon messenger?”
Zoey shook her head in confusion. “I didn’t send you a note.”
“No roast beef?” Cin’s shoulders slumped and she looked disappointed. “Man, I haven’t had roast beef in like a year. My mom used to … never mind.” Tears glittered in her eyes, and she blinked them away angrily. Zoey could see it wasn’t the roast beef Cin was missing.
Like most of the homeless kids in Zoey’s neighborhoods, Cin had been abandoned by her family when they found out she was a magic-blood. They still lived somewhere back east, but Cin didn’t talk about them much.
Zoey glanced at the mini fridge in the kitchen. She suddenly noticed there was a bowl of fresh fruit sitting on top. It hadn’t been there when she’d headed out in the morning. How had she missed that? Because she’d been too busy melting into a puddle of lust.
“Hold on,” she said. She went over and yanked open the fridge door. It was full to the brim with sandwiches and cannolis and pots of tiramisu.
“Oh my God,” Cin said reverently. “Come to mama.”
“All that food,” Heath said, his eyes big as saucers. “I’m going to have thirds and fourths.”
Lorenzo came back in the room with a scowl that said his mother had chewed him out, but his face lit up when he saw Cin smiling.
The kids descended on the food like a pack of starving locusts. Zoey, who was famished after biking around town all morning, joined them. The roast beef was tender, the mayo was tangy, and the desserts were sweet, fluffy perfection.
They stuffed themselves until they were ready to burst, the kids sitting cross-legged on the floor because there weren’t enough chairs.
Zoey felt guilty. Deliciously full but guilty. This was food from the Moretti Pack. She was eating murder food. Extortion food.
It also disturbed her that Dominic knew where to find Cin and her friends. That was why he’d sent them the note and steered them to her crash pad, she realized. Typical mobster—he was sending a message.
It was the kind of thing the Moretti Pack was known for. They sent gift baskets to merchants who fell behind on their payments, and they made sure to deliver it not to the stores but to the homes of the shop owners, parents, siblings, or mistresses.
If the merchants didn’t catch up in a hurry, they’d disappear. They’d reappear in pieces piled up in front of their shop.
Today’s food donation could be taken as a generous gesture, but it was also a veiled threat. I know where your friends live.
Dammit.
“You got the message from the gryphon delivery service?” Zoey quirked a brow at Cin.
“Yep,” she replied cheerfully. “We were hanging outside the squat and the gryphon flew right over us and dropped it off.”
“The person who sent you that gryphon … he’s someone to be avoided. He was sending you the message to get to me. To let me know he knows where you live.”
Cin and her friends exchanged uneasy glances.
“I know you move around pretty often. I hate to ask, but I think it’s time to relocate. Could you possibly stay on the east side?”
The two packs stayed out of each other’s territory. If Cin and her friends crashed in the Bianchi Pack territory, Dominic couldn’t get to them.
The Bianchis wouldn’t object or even notice. The sad advantage of being street urchins was, neither side cared what the kids did or where they slept. They didn’t have jobs or own businesses, so it was pointless demanding protection money from them.
There were empty buildings scattered throughout the poorer districts; it wouldn’t be hard for them to find a place to hide out.
“I guess we could,” Cin shrugged.
“You need me to take care of this jerk for you?” Lorenzo puffed out his narrow chest.
Zoey forced herself not to laugh. “No, I’m afraid this is something I need to address on my own.”
“All right. If you change your mind, just say the word.” Lorenzo did his best to look fierce, and Zoey nodded appreciatively.
Cin shrugged. “We can stay at the old warehouse on 117th and Lombard.”
Zoey nodded. “Yes, do that. And take all the leftover food.”
“Seriously?” Cin squealed. “Best day ever!”
Zoey watched them enthusiastically filling up their backpacks, feeling a tightening frustration that a day with a full stomach was the best day ever for Cin.
Chapter Seven
“W ell, hell.” Giuliana rested her hands on her narrow hips and stared at the “Closed for Business” sign on the door of Carlito’s Custom Wards. “Another one? My uncle’s not going to be happy.”
“You think?” Dominic growled.
Dominic, Romano and Giuliana were picking up protection money from the businesses in the mid-western section of Encantado. Always in cash; harder to trace that way. They were in a trendy shopping center called The Enchanted Circle, where mages sold items that catered to humans.
“Why would he close his business?” Romano asked, his thick brows drawing together. “He was the most popular ward-maker in the city.”
“Exactly.” Dominic shook his head. “Everything was fine last week. There was a line out the door, just like always.”
The wards themselves were just small tiles of wood or clay with various runes carved into them and a hole at the top so they could be nailed next to doorways or windows with copper nails. What made them effective was the power imbued in them by mages.
Carlito was an exquisite artist. His wards had been featured in home decorating magazines. There was a waiting list to buy his more elaborate pieces; he took commissions from the city's elite.
Dominic pulled out his spell phone, scrolled through the phone numbers, and found Carlito’s home number. When he called, he got the message it was disconnected.
He glanced up at Romano and Giuliana and shook his head. “I’ll have someone swing by his house, but I’d bet my left paw he’s already left town and we’ll find nothing but dust bunnies.”
“Carlito was dating a morning T.V. show host,” Giuliana was always up to date with gossip. “She was on the air this morning, so she’s still here. If he really has done a runner, like all those other business owners, that means he left behind his hot girlfriend, dumped a business that was making him a fortune, and paid a year’s salary for the right to move to another portal city where he’d have to start over from scratch. Why?”
Why indeed? Dominic had tried to reach out to three other business owners, but he had no authority over them once they’d left Encantado, and they’d refused to speak to him.
“He had to have been running scared,” Romano mused.
“But he could have come to us if anything, or anyone, had threatened him.” Dominic ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated. “That’s the whole point of protection money. Last year, when his shop was vandalized, he came to us, so it’s not like he’s been afraid to reach out.”
Did these business owners know something he didn’t? Was there some kind of attack coming? He was sure he’d have heard some underground chatter if that were the case.
Romano and Giuliana looked at him, waiting for orders.
“Go ask the lady at Charming if she knows anything,” Dominic ordered. “Then meet us at the pastry shop.”
Romano obediently trotted off to the little charm shop next door to Carlito’s shuttered store.
Dominic and Giuliana went to the pastry shop on the other side of Carlito’s former shop. The owner swore up and down she had no idea why Carlito had pulled a disappearing act. Dominic fetched two ice coffees while Giuliana settled down at a table and pulled out a magazine from her over-sized purse.
As he walked across the store, he felt the gazes of women as they stared with the usual mixture of fear and fascination.
He ignored them all. There was only one woman whose attention he wanted, and she was treating him like he had a communicable disease.
She’d come around though. Not like she had a choice.
He grimaced at the thought. No, he didn’t want it to be like that. Some mafia shifter packs allowed their made men the “privilege” of snatching up any woman who caught their eye, whether she liked it or not.
Even if Arturo allowed it, which he wouldn’t, Dominic would never force a woman.
Zoey had always liked Dominic—he knew that. He’d smelled the attraction on her the first time they met. He’d caught her sneaking glances at him when she thought he wasn’t looking.
But she was stubborn and strong-willed and not familiar with shifter customs. He loved her strength and her pride, except when it stood in the way of her realizing they were meant for each other.
He needed to figure out a way to court her, which meant he’d have to ask an actual woman for advice.
And the only one he was on a semi-friendly basis was … ugh.
Dominic settled into the too-small chair facing Giuliana and shoved an iced coffee at her. She grabbed it and took a sip, still reading her magazine.
“Hey, brat, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“I won’t tell your uncle you never went to the mall yesterday like you said you did.”
Giuliana set her magazine on her lap and flashed him a suspicious glower. “How did you … I mean, what are you talking about?”
“Please.” Dominic gave her a scornful look. “I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
She stamped her foot like a kindergartener being sent to take a nap. “I can go where I want. I’m twenty! I’m not a baby!”
Dominic refrained from telling her she sounded exactly like a baby when she pouted like that. He needed her advice. He might not have been the savviest when it came to women, but he knew better than to insult a tantruming she-shifter before asking for her help. Doing so would get him nothing but a set of bleeding scratches so deep they reached his internal organs. He’d been there, done that—it had taken hours to heal.
Glancing around to make sure nobody was listening, he cleared his throat and spoke in a lowered voice. “How do I romance a woman? What do women like?”
Giuliana scrunched up her nose in distaste.
“You’ve banged like a million bimbos. Were they not satisfied? Nobody’s coming back for seconds?”
“I have had brief encounters in the past, and the women were very clear it was a one-time thing. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Who are you romancing? That chick from the slums?” She curled her lip in disdain.
Giuliana was really getting under his fur today. “Snobbery is beneath you. And yes. Since she’s not shifter, I can’t expect her to come trotting along with me when the time comes, not unless I take the time to do some wooing.”
She lifted her skinny shoulders in a sullen shrug. “Then pick someone else.”
Dominic gave her a sidelong glance. He hoped she didn’t mean “pick me.” He had assumed she didn’t care who she mated with as long as it got her out from
under her uncle’s oppressive paw, but now he wasn’t so sure. Ever since he’d mate-bitten Zoey, Giuliana seemed even crankier than usual.
“You know that’s not how it works,” he said. “Moon-bite. You were there.”
She snorted and picked up her magazine again. “Fine. Take her out to dinner.”
“That’s all that you’ve got? Sorry I asked.”
“If she doesn’t appreciate what she has, she doesn’t deserve you.” Giuliana flipped a page and made a big show of ignoring him.
Dominic, annoyed and more than a little concerned, drained half his coffee and set it on the table. Since when did Giuliana give a damn about who he mated with? He’d dated women over the years, and she’d never seemed to care. Maybe she was upset because this was permanent? Damn, he hoped not. He liked Giuliana a lot as a person and would hate to hurt her. His life had enough complications right now.
Romano strolled over to the table with a scowl on his face that said trouble.
“The shop owner says she doesn’t know anything. And I feel like I was being watched when I walked back here,” he said to Dominic in a low voice. “My wolf’s going crazy. I think it’s someone in Greenwald Park.”
Chapter Eight
D ominic glanced out the shop’s big picture window. Greenwald Park was right across the main thoroughfare, a big park that ran east to west through the city center. He didn’t see anything, but any enemy worth his salt would be hiding.
“Take Giuliana back home, I’ll go check it out,” he said.
Giuliana made a face. “If you’re injured, I should be standing by so I can heal your dumb ass.”
“You know what your uncle would say.”
Dominic ignored her muttered curses. Giuliana’s wolf was a large, vicious bitch who loved a good scrap, but her uncle treated her like a fragile china teacup. She’d tolerated it in her teens, but as she got older, she was growing increasingly frustrated. Dominic had heard Giuliana looked a great deal like Arturo’s late daughter—the one he hadn’t been able to save.
That was unfortunate for her. Arturo would probably never lighten up. He’d send the rest of his pack into the jaws of hell if necessary, but when it came to his niece, he just couldn’t help himself.
Mated to the Capo (Mafia Wolf Shifters) (Encantado Shifters Book 1) Page 6