It was weird, Sergei needing him instead of the other way around. He’d started thinking Sergei was doing this because, hey, he knew getting together with Dom meant guaranteed sex, and sometimes an effortless sure thing was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Except last night, it was Sergei who’d asked for it, and Sergei who’d been almost shaking with a need Dom couldn’t quite put his finger on. Dom had been serious when he’d told him this shouldn’t be a one-sided arrangement, but he hadn’t been expecting that.
In the darkness, he sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face. He was glad he’d been able to give Sergei what he needed. Hopefully it had been enough. And he was more than a little thankful that Sergei took care of his needs too.
Dom refused to let that give him any kind of hope that there was—or might eventually be—more to this. Though he would’ve sawed off a limb to have a real, honest to God relationship with a man, it wasn’t happening. Sergei had walls up and Dom had obligations. Sex was as far as this thing could go. It couldn’t and wouldn’t last forever.
As it was, Sergei drove him to distraction. Dangerously so. When Dom’s obligations or his need to preserve his image kept them apart, he thought of nothing except how to make time to see him again. He dodged dates with Brigida Passantino now that she was back in town. Bowed out of social engagements whenever possible. Found any and every opportunity to text Sergei with busy tonight? or I’d like to see you.
And Sergei nearly always obliged. Sometimes it was three in the morning after he’d worked a shift at the club. Sometimes it was in a shithole motel by a truck stop two hours out of town in broad daylight. Sometimes it was at one of the seedier places as soon as the sun went down. Whenever, wherever—Dom was hooked on Sergei like half of Southern California was hooked on the coke his family processed through Cape Swan.
But there were only so many times Dom could body-swerve his own life. Whether he liked it or not, he was a Maisano, and his uncle wasn’t going to accept many more excuses where Dom’s bachelorhood was concerned.
So, in between finding every possible chance to get fucked by Sergei, Dom had finally made that date with Brigida. In a few hours, he’d meet her at the restaurant where Floresta and Mandanici had ambushed him, and they’d try this again.
And all the while, as he put on the face of a longtime bachelor who was serious about settling down, he knew damn well he’d be aching for another hit. For one more night that he could lock away in his memory so he’d have fantasies for later. Something to keep him sane while he spent the rest of his life as a committed heterosexual in between committing capital crimes for an organization he despised.
Jesus. I really am in hell.
*
At the urging of his uncle and her father, there was extra security this time. Dom had adamantly refused a bodyguard for his daily life but relented for this, and as he sat in the restaurant and waited, he tried to ignore the looming shapes hovering behind him.
One bodyguard. I agreed to one bodyguard.
But no. Corrado had to insist on three.
Well, at least he wasn’t getting his ass kicked tonight. Which was good, because as exhausted and achy as he was from another night with Sergei, he was in no condition to put up a fight.
At exactly seven o’clock, Brigida Passantino walked into the restaurant, and every head turned. Though Dom didn’t feel an ounce of sexual attraction to women, he could definitely see why other men fell all over themselves for her. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, and the black dress was made for her tall, slim figure. Knowing what he did about Brigida and her sisters, the dress struck him as a compromise between father and daughter—short enough and low enough for a woman who wasn’t afraid to show some skin, but still modest enough for Passantino to let her out of the house. Dom grinned to himself. Though the older generations of men in this town were still stuck in the 1950s, and saw women as currency to be exchanged and objects to be admired, there were women like Brigida who would stand on their own two feet and be who they were regardless of what their fathers thought.
“I’m a grown woman,” he could almost hear her snarling in her powerful, dangerous father’s face. “I’m meeting this asshole like you wanted. You’re not telling me how to dress too.”
And then there was the way she moved. Her long strides, her posture—it all screamed not just confidence, but fearlessness. She strode across the restaurant, shoulders back and head high, not giving her security detail a second look as they followed her. He had a feeling she’d be just as bold without a pair of heavily armed men at her back.
As she approached, he stood. Biaggio had taught him young to pull out a lady’s chair, but something about the way she held his gaze told him that wouldn’t go over well.
Instead, he extended his hand. “Brigida?”
She smiled warmly and shook his hand. “You must be Domenico.”