SWNOVELS Savage Little Games: Chapter 11
“So, you’re actually staying with Dante Salvato, here, in his penthouse?” Gavin asks when I bring him another round of shots.
“Yes.” I straighten my black dress I only wore for a few hours last night, wishing I had the rest of my clothes. And I really need to figure out where the washer and dryer is in the penthouse.
“But why?” the handsome young stripper asks, his brow furrowed.
“Because I made a stupid agreement with him to live here for a few weeks. It’s no big deal.”
That’s not the entire truth, but it’s the most I plan on sharing with anyone. Dante didn’t give me a non-disclosure agreement to sign or anything. Still, I doubt he wants his business talked about all over the casino.
Frowning even harder, Gavin huffs, “You’re not actually going to fuck him, are you?”
“God no.”
“Good. But he doesn’t seem like the type to take no for an answer.”
Huh. Is he jealous? No, that’s impossible. He’s at least ten years younger than I am. The pretty boy stripper just hates Salvato as much as I do, and I guess we’re sort of friends since we chat every single night before he goes on stage. That’s when a thought occurs to me.
“Hey, is there some pill or whatever that male strippers take to keep things…calm down there? Something I could sneak into Dante’s food, maybe?”
“Ah, not that I know of.”
“Oh, well. I’ll just have to rip his balls off if he tries anything.”
Gavin throws back a shot, then says, “So what are you going to do all day up in his ivory tower?”
“Not much probably. It’s boring as hell. He made me go shopping today.” I withhold the fact that he watched me try every piece of clothing.
“He took you shopping? That’s not very hardcore mobster.”
“Ugh, you haven’t seen the clothes he bought for me. He wants to control what I wear, what I sleep in. And the underwear…”
“You’re going to let him tell you what to wear? That doesn’t sound like you, Van.”
“I, ah, I don’t actually have a choice about the clothing. It’s sort of all part of the agreement.”
“He’s manipulating you!”
“He’s trying to manipulate me. It won’t work. Two can play his game. I just need a few days to figure out which of his buttons to push to make him give up and back off.”
Gavin’s eyes widen at something or someone behind me. “Oh shit,” he whispers, making me instantly guess the unwelcome visitor’s identity.
Dammit. That took even less time than I expected. I haven’t been down here for more than fifteen minutes. “Salvato is charging up behind me, isn’t he?” I ask.
“Yep.”
“What the hell are you doing down here?” Dante growls from behind me.
“Working,” I reply when I frown at him over my shoulder. I can’t help but notice that his dark hair is more rumpled than it was after dinner. Was he just with someone? Not that I care, other than not wanting to sleep next to a manwhore who could have every sexually transmitted disease under the sun.
“Why?” he grits out.
“Why am I working? Because I want to? Because I was bored sitting in your bedroom with nothing to do. There’s not even a television in there!”
It sounds like Gavin makes a disapproving sound. Oh, right. I didn’t mention to him that I was also staying in Dante’s bedroom with him.
“It doesn’t look like you were working. You were just standing here chit-chatting with the stripper boy.”
“My name is Gavin.”
Dante doesn’t acknowledge the dancer at all, doesn’t take his furious eyes off of me. “You’re done, Vanessa. Get your ass back upstairs. Now.” He actually looks furious with me for serving drinks in his casino lounge, which doesn’t make any sense. Still, I know better than to refuse him.
“Yes, sir,” I mutter sarcastically, even throwing in a mock hand salute. Turning back to Gavin I say, “Sorry. It looks like I have to go.”
“Take care of yourself,” he replies before I walk over to the bar and tell James, “Sorry for leaving you hanging again tonight.”
“It’s fine, Van. We’ve got things covered down here,” the bartender says with a fake smile because Dante is still watching and listening. I can feel his large frame shadowing me, tight on my heels.
Turning back to the lurking mafia king I ask him, “Can I at least come down and visit my friends some nights?”
“If the guards come with you.”
Right. Guards like the ones who followed me down and will tell Dante every single thing I say or do.
Untying the back of my apron, I toss it on the bar and wave goodbye to James, then Gavin. As I walk to the elevators, I can feel Dante’s annoyed stare on my backside.
He doesn’t say a word until we get on the elevator with my guards and his own that I didn’t even notice.
“How were you going to get back up to the penthouse?” Dante asks me.
“I don’t know. Ask one of the two security guys who followed me down?”
“Don’t make me chase you all over the fucking casino.”
“Don’t make me sit around bored out of my mind. I’m used to working all night, Dante.”
“Not for the next seventy-five days. I left a credit card on the nightstand in the bedroom for you. Find something else to occupy your time.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Too bad,” he mumbles. There’s heavy silence in the elevator, tension nearly coming off the guards in waves. Then, the asshole speaks again. “I paid-up your son’s tuition for next year.”
Spinning toward him, a puff of laughter escapes me. “Are you fucking kidding, me?”
“No.”
“Why would you do that? I didn’t ask you for a penny!”
Dante straightens each of his suit sleeves slowly, avoiding my gaze. “I did it because I can. I thought you would appreciate the gesture.”
“Well, I don’t!”
Now his blue eyes snap up to mine. “You make me fucking crazy; do you know that?”
“Then let me go! You’ll never have to see me again. I’ll find a job waitressing somewhere else!”
“Do you think I went to all this trouble to get you in my bed only to give up less than twenty-four hours later?”
“So, is that a no on letting me leave tonight?”
“It’s a no.”
When we make it back to the penthouse, Dante goes to the kitchen while I go straight to the bedroom. My luxury prison cell.
I get changed into one of my new, somehow already washed, pink pajama short set. It’s one of the few pieces of nighttime attire that doesn’t reveal everything through sheer lace or minimal fabric. I’ve just climbed into bed to apply some lotion to my legs when Dante walks into the bedroom.
The mafia king closes and locks the door softly, which is fine with me, then he walks over to stand at the foot of the bed. He looks somewhat calmer than he did on the elevator.
“Your things are here in boxes across the hall,” he tells me.
“My things?”
“From your apartment.”
“How did…” I trail off before it occurs to me. “You sent someone to go pack up my personal belongings?”
“Yes. You’re welcome.”
“You expect me to thank you for breaking into my place and robbing me?”
“I saved you time. Nothing is more precious,” he responds. Then he lifts his hand from his side and there’s a small, familiar black handgun gripped in it. “And what the fuck are you doing with this underneath your mattress?”
Oh, shit. Guess it wasn’t hidden as well as I thought.
“You have the nerve to ask me why I have a gun?” I scoff at him.
“Who are you afraid of, Vanessa?”
Whoa, where the hell did that question come from? “No one.”
“Not the ex. He didn’t even know it was there.” How does he know so damn much?
“It was just, ah, you know, an in case of emergency thing,” I tell him, which is the honest to god truth.
“Why didn’t you shoot Kozlov’s guys with it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Dante. Maybe because they weren’t actually trying to kill me. Or maybe I knew that if I shot them or killed them, then Kozlov wouldn’t have stopped looking for me until I was dead.”
He turns the gun over, examining it closely. “That’s likely true. And pretty smart, actually.”
“No, it’s common sense. Is your first instinct always to kill?” I ask him.
“If it’s warranted. I’m not afraid of anyone who might come after me in retaliation.”
“That’s scary and kind of sad,” I admit.
Holding up my Ruger, he says, “This is unloaded now, and it’s going into my safe.”
“Are you going to give it back to me when I ask for it?”
“When not if for this instance, huh?” he asks as he watches me. His index finger rubs over his lip, and I know what he’s thinking about.
“In this situation, yes, it’s when. I will want my gun back.”
“Did you know the serial number here has been scratched off?” he asks while pointing out where the numbers should be.
“Huh. Weird.”
Dante’s about to rip his bottom lip off as his horny tell goes from touching it to tugging it. What sort of depraved shit is he thinking about now? His blue eyes darken while he watches me like a predator trying to decide if I’m prey worth hunting or not.
“What?” I snap at him.
Finally, he says, “I didn’t think you could get any sexier, but finding out you have a little gangster inside of you is hot as fuck.”
That was not at all what I expected him to say.
And I wish his flirty remarks didn’t make me so damn giddy in some small, buried deep, part of me.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” Dante asks, sobering me up fast.
I decide to tell him the truth about that one, if not for any other reason than in warning. “Yes.”
“More than one person?”
“Yes.”
Smirking like a psycho, he says, “You’re just full of surprises, butterfly.”
He actually believes me? “You’re not going to call bullshit because I’m a petite woman?”
“With an untraceable, loaded gun in your hands, you’re just as lethal as anyone else. More so if your opponent underestimates you.”
I consider that statement the entire time Dante is in the bathroom taking his shower.
Tonight, when he strides back into the bedroom, his nakedness, along with the droplets of water covering his muscular body doesn’t have as much of an effect on me as it did last night.
Well, at least that’s what I tell myself when I force my eyes to glance away when he reaches into a dresser drawer to grab a pair of black boxer briefs.
“Why can’t you take your underwear with you to the shower to put them on afterwards like a normal person?” I ask Dante when he’s covered up, heading over to press the button on the wall to close the curtains. My head may have tipped a little to the left to check out his ass.
Chuckling, he says, “I can see you watching me in the window’s reflection.”
Dammit.
“And I’ll put my underwear on wherever the hell I want.”
“It was just an idea.”
The lights in the room go out and then Dante climbs under the sheets from the other side of the bed.
“What are we doing tomorrow?” I ask him, not yet tired because I’m a night owl.
“We? I have some calls to make. Normal, everyday business to handle.”
“Oh.”
“You can tag along if you want.”
“Really?”
“Do I need to tell you to keep your mouth shut about whatever you see or hear?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious that if I talk about your business to anyone, you’ll cut out my tongue or something equally horrifying to keep others from making the same mistake.”
“Exactly,” he says, blowing out a breath as he flops around getting comfortable. “I’d rather avoid tongue removal. They’re a bloody mess.”
I have no clue if he’s speaking from experience or not, and I don’t think I ever want to know.