Diantha quirks a brow. “What about twenty thousand dollars?”
“Money?” He laughs. “All you want is money, little girl?”
“I wouldlovemoney, or”—she shrugs—“access to the catacombs.”
Alfo scoops up some cocaine from his desk with his cigarette filter before placing it in his mouth. “Fine.”
She frowns. “Fine?”
“Fine.Ifyou can do it. And I don’t want you coming here ever again. If you want to practice, take that shit across the fucking river to New Jersey. Twenty thousand, not a cent more. I want you to protect us from the police and the fucking townies.” He turns his gaze on me. “If I catch even a whiff of witchcraft on you, I will remove your testicles myself, you fucking Italian prick. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Diantha uncrosses her legs and slides forward in her chair. The fabric falls higher, revealing her shapely thighs all the way up to the crease at her hip. “It’s a deal.”
For a moment, I worry she might extend a hand. I stay ready on the balls of my feet to grab her arm. But she doesn’t.
“Goodbye, Alfo,” she coos.
He snaps his fingers and Nisos scurries over with his wineglass. “Get the fuck out of my face.”
Diantha takes my hand and leads us from the office, but once we’re far enough away from the brightly lit service corridor and kitchen, I take the lead and pull her off into a shadowy corner of a side room. Rhythmic music rattles the walls while green lights flash around us, but as far as I can see, we’re in here alone.
“We did it,” she whispers, grinning in a way I’ve never seen before. Like a light has been turned on behind her eyes. “We fucking did it!”
I slide my hands around her waist, drawing her close. I breathe in her scent, thick with the musk of her pride, her excitement—and, undeniably, her arousal. “You were unbelievable,” I whisper. “Incredibile. A force.”
“He said yes.” She laughs, resting her forehead against mine for a moment before pulling away and pushing her fingers into her hair. “Heactuallyagreed to twenty thousand dollars.Fuck.”
“No celebrating yet.” I raise my brows. “There’s more, and I don’t want you to get your hopes up. This is not going to be easy.”
She takes my face in her hands. “Thank you, Orfeo.” She drags her fingers up over my jaw then down my chest, etching an icy path across my skin. She coaxes my need for her the same way the moon pulls the tides. Her fingers land on the top button of my suit jacket, teasing me as she hooks and unhooks it through the hole. “I trust you.”
“Good,” I whisper, dipping my nose to graze the length of her neck.
When I straighten, I find her staring up at me through her dark lashes. “Whose dress is this? I think it’s enchanted. I feel invincible,” she says.
“Who cares?” I back us up slowly until her spine meets the wall. I tilt her face into the light. “It’s yours now. This fabric was made to be draped over your body.”
She hums, dragging her knuckles down my chest. “You’re a charmer.”
“Again with this? You think I am so disingenuous.” I tut. “Why would I lie?”
“Because you want to kiss me,” she teases, that mischievous light back in her eyes.
“And? So? I don’t need lies. You feel this?” I take her hand and press it over my heart. It thuds hard enough that my chest rises and falls under her hand. “This is what you do to me.”
Her breath catches between her lips. “Your heart beats?”
“No, not usually. Not like this.” I bring her hand to my mouth, kissing each of her fingers. I take my time, working my lips down the curve of her palm until my teeth are flush against her wrist. I trace her vein with the tip of my tongue and watch her chest hitch.
Her breathing is shallow and quick, her nipples tightening underneath the thin fabric of her dress. Her pulse thumps harder, and I let my eyes fall shut in that anticipatory ecstasy. I know her blood must taste divine if just her scent has me this affected.
“Kiss me,” she whispers, lifting her chin. “Please.”
All the noise and the chaos of the club fades away; all my worries, my fears, stay suspended in time. In this moment, this moment in a life where my sense of time has been decimated and warped, stretches into perfection. And if everything I endured under Paolo and under Alfo, all the pain and monotony, led me to this…
Well, it was worth it.
