He waved toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”
He led the way up to my room. I walked in to find him rummaging through my closet. “What are you doing?”
“You heard the Padrino. He told me to make sure you get ready properly.” He selected a slinky black dress I picked out at the store. He threw it on the bed. “Go take a shower, and don’t make me come in there and wash you myself.”
He crossed the room to the table by the balcony. He was already going back to his phone, but that meant nothing. He would keep watch. He would carry out Luca’s orders to the letter.
The phone was just his way of ignoring me. It was his way of letting me know I was beneath his notice.
I threw caution to the wind. What did I have to lose, anyway? “Why are you being so cold to me after what happened at the store, Dom?”
He didn’t look up from his phone. “Don’t call me that. Don’t talk to me at all unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Why can’t we start over? Why can’t we be civil to each other?”
“Wearebeing civil to each other.” He started tapping out a text.
His attitude annoyed me too much to tolerate. I strode after him on his way to the table. “I’m talking to you. Don’t you even have the decency to turn around and face me?”
“Nope. You’re wasting time. Go take a shower before you piss off the Padrino.”
“Stop calling him that! He isn’t the fucking Padrino. He’s Luca. He’s your cousin. Just call him by his name.” Dominic chuckled to himself. “What the fuck is so damn funny about that?”
He turned around and sat down in the chair. He pointed to his phone. “There’s a funny meme here about a dog giving a cat a ride on its back. The dog turns around and says to the cat…”
“I’m talking to you, goddamn it!”
He kicked up his feet, propped his heels on the table, and crossed his legs at the ankle. “If you want Luca to kick your ass because you aren’t ready to go, that’s your call. Leave me out of it.”
“You bastard! You wanted to kiss me at the store. Admit it. I didn’t do anything you didn’t want. You probably want to do the same thing right now.”
“I don’t want you fucking with my head. There’s a difference.”
Those words slapped me across the face. My anger died in a flash. I stood back and stared down at him, feeling sick to my stomach. “I wasn’t fucking with your head.” I turned on my heel and headed for the bathroom, churning between fury and despair.
How dare he accuse me of that? Didn’t he realize how much I wanted to kiss him? Did he think I just faked liking it?
I made it halfway across the room before he collided with me from behind. He caught me, spun me around, and slammed me against the wall. “You fucking lying bitch! Don’t even think about pulling that sob story on me. You KNOW you did it to fuck with my head. You were thinking about escaping the whole way there in the limo. You thought you could jerk me around and screw with my feelings so I wouldn’t notice. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No!” I screamed. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“And yet, here you are, fucking with me all over again. I made a mistake falling for it once. Don’t think I’ll do it again. Don’t talk to me, okay? Don’t ever talk to me again—ever. I fucking hate you.”
“I hate you! Get away from me!” I kicked out with all my strength, and my temper flared, mostly because he was right. Iwastrying to escape on our way to the store. I wanted to tempt him in the hope that I could get him to slacken his vigilance. Did I really think he was that stupid?
I hit him in the leg, and he stumbled back a step, roaring in pain and rage. He took one furious look at me, grabbed me, and whirled me around. He flung me full length on the bed and rushed me.
I caught one look at his face before he pounced, and my breath caught. Could I handle what was about to happen?
These guys had been warning me for days that I would suffer serious punishments if I didn’t cooperate. I never believed they could really follow it through. I thought they loved me too much from our childhood, but maybe I seriously misjudged them in that.
Dante and Dominic were both big, muscular, and built like tanks. Dominic might be a shade smaller than Dante, but that only made him even more compactly built, and his determination and single-minded nature made him even more dangerous than his brother.
Of the three of them, pushing Dominic to lose control was by far the most colossally stupid thing I could do, but I couldn’t stop it now that I actually pushed him over the edge.
He jumped on the bed, straddled my thighs, seized both my wrists, and slammed them down on the bedspread. I really asked for it, and now I was going to find out just how dangerous these men could be.
He glared down at me in volcanic fury, and then, incredibly, he lunged in and kissed me hard. He ripped off instantly, and we stared at each other. Was he as surprised as I was?