Everything about him was like catnip to Dom. The smoking hot body was just the start of it. That cold fearlessness? The unabashed sexuality radiating from every move he made? Even the way he spoke drove Dom crazy. His accent was sharp but subtle, and it made Dom hang on his every word. Made him pay attention to the way his mouth moved, hypnotizing him with the way his lips shaped consonants.
Dom thumped the steering wheel. He couldn’t go back. He didn’t dare. The stripper wanted nothing to do with a man from Dom’s world, and Dom would’ve been wise to accept that and move on because he had no business with someone from that world. He’d sowed his gay oats as a kid and nearly been killed for it. Even going back for a lap dance was dangerous. Someone might see him there.
Or worse, those desires might come back.
Fuck. Who was he kidding? They’d never gone away.
And now, with that stripper’s face and body and voice seared into his mind, there was no ignoring them anymore. There was no silencing them.
There was no ignoring the truth—everything he desired was in that strip club, wrapped in sweat and leather.
I want him. I need him.
Dom turned the car around.
Chapter 7
Sergei downed the rest of his water bottle in three swallows. He was still fired up after his exchange with that fucking Italian, but the guy was gone now, and it was time to make up for lost pay. Not that he was hurting for money after getting paid for last night’s job.
And not that the last ten minutes hadn’t been profitable. He’d taken a couple grand off Maisano in one motion. But he was annoyed. Rattled in a way he couldn’t quite describe.
That night in the alley should’ve been the end of it. Domenico Maisano had no business occupying as many of Sergei’s thoughts as he had recently, and he definitely had no business strolling into this club like he owned the place.
Sergei glanced at the door Maisano had come in through, and his stomach twisted. The guy was gone now, and that was the way it needed to be. He especially wanted Maisano out of here because the guy piqued his interest in a way his kind usually didn’t. Sure, he was attractive. Domenico Maisano was apparently one of the better-looking Italians in this town. Then again, even the ugly ones could wear a suit well enough.
But there was something about him that had made Sergei look twice. Something that had struck a different chord tonight than the other Mafiosi ever did. Especially now that his face had mostly healed. Without the blood and swelling, with his dark hair flawlessly arranged except for a couple of strands fluttering in the breeze, he was…
Hell, he was hot.
Really… really… hot.
Sergei scrubbed a hand over his face. He was losing his mind, wasn’t he? Entertaining any thoughts of a Mafioso that didn’t involve bullets? Stupid.
He couldn’t help himself, though. As he leaned against the bar, waiting for one of the stages to open up so he could dance again, he indulged in a few replays of that moment when he’d backed Maisano up against the railing. A veil had definitely lifted just then. A little bit of fear, but a lot of something else. Something Maisano didn’t want to think about.
Sergei’s skin prickled beneath his crop top, but he forbid the shiver from making it up his spine. The only thing he wanted from the wops in this town was blood, no matter how attractive they were. Attractive, and repressed, and—
He shook himself. He did want a piece of Domenico, but for the same reason he wanted pieces of some of the other hot Italians—to literally stick it to the families. An orgasm for him, a death sentence for the other guy if word ever got out. Just the way it needed to be.
On the middle stage, Jesse finished his performance. As he stepped down to escort someone into the back for a private dance, Sergei tossed his water bottle in the recycling bin behind the bar. Then he strode across the floor to the now vacant stage. Time to forget that Italian asshole and dance.
It was a good night. A busy one. Guys were coming in out of the heat for some air conditioning and cold liquor, and sweating right through their expensive suits and silk shirts as Sergei and his boys took turns dancing on poles in the middle of waist-high stages. Booze was flowing, tips were piling up—it was early yet, but looking to be a great night for those in G-strings.
When Sergei went up for yet another dance, there was a crowd around his stage before the deejay had even started the next song. Wide-eyed “gentlemen” sucked on highballs and longnecks as Sergei made that pole his bitch. He leaned against it, legs apart, positioning himself just right to make it look to anyone in front of him that the pole was right up his ass, and judging by the way the combed-over businessman in front of him nearly dropped his drink, the illusion worked.
With a full audience around him, Sergei didn’t usually pay any attention to anybody else. These boys were here to scatter Andrew Jackson all over the stage and shove his uncle Benjamin into Sergei’s G-string. Everyone else was irrelevant.
But as Sergei leaned against the pole and undulated, using his hips and abs to mesmerize four guys tugging at their sweaty white collars, he glanced to his left. The shimmering bead curtain beside the bar had parted, as it did a million times a night, but this time, he looked.
And missed a beat.