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A smile breaks across Danny’s face, deepening his scar, and the beam of his pearly white teeth snap me out of my mental debate. “I should have chosen my words better.” He squeezes my knees. “Gordon was partial to females of a certain variety.”
I’m frowning again, and Danny reaches up to my forehead and starts rubbing at the lines, trying to smooth them out. I’m lost. “Females of a certain variety?”
“Girls,” he says, the one-word clarification hitting me like a boulder in my stomach. I feel my body convulse, my mind being blitzed with unwanted memories. It’s Danny’s turn to frown, and I look away, certain that every image in my head is screening in my eyes for him to see. “Then I’m glad he’s dead.” I need to shut the hell up.
Danny’s hands slide up to my thighs beneath my dress, and I look out the corner of my eye to him. My expression should warn him not to ask. And, thankfully, he doesn’t. With one knowing flex of his grip on my flesh, he rises and takes a chair opposite me. I notice the waitress go to the restaurant door and unlock it, and so I glance over my shoulder to see the table we just vacated is now freshly laid. You’d never know a murder just happened there.
“So,” I say, returning my attention to Danny and taking a much-needed sip of my wine. “Do you kill here often?”
His mouth drops open momentarily, and then I’m left absolutely stunned when he bursts into uncontrollable laughter. Like the falling-apart, belly-clenching, body-spasm kind. He’s in pieces across the table from me, eyes watering. I’m not sure what to do with it, so I look across to his men, seeing they’re all having a similar reaction to me. Surprise. I shrug at them when they all look at me as if to ask what the hell has gotten into their boss. “Are you okay?”
Danny wipes at his eyes, sighing repeatedly, chuckling more, jerking constantly. “Oh, Rose.” Reaching for his wine, he takes a sip around another cute giggle. I’m surprised, yes, but I’m also awed. Danny Black having a laughing fit is irrefutably one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Five minutes ago, he was a menacing, murdering devil. Now, he’s a hysterical, chuckling god. Shaking his head to himself, he lays his forearms on the table, smiling across at me. “I kill here quite often.”
My smile can’t be held back. “And the owners just accept that?”
“The Italians like me.”
“Why?”
“You find it hard to believe that someone could like me?”
“Maybe,” I admit.
“I keep them in business.” He shrugs. “The local government wanted to kick the owners out when the lease expired five years ago. The restaurant has been here since 1902. I appreciate history and sentiment, so I bought the building.”
“And in return, they let you kill people in their establishment?” I ask, and he shrugs once again, passing me a menu.
“Technically, it’s my establishment.”
I accept the folder detailing the cuisine and set my wine down, but not before another quick sip. “Do you enjoy killing people?”
His smile is gone now, and I hold my wine in my mouth for a few seconds before swallowing hard. “I only enjoy killing people who deserve to die.”
Oh? “And how do you determine if they deserve to die?”
“I make executive decisions based on what I know to be fact. My instinct helps too.”
“Sounds like a well-thought-out process,” I muse quietly, scanning the endless pasta choices, all of which sound mouthwatering.
He reaches over and points to a seafood linguine on my menu. “Maybe I should adopt the same protocol when it comes to the women I fuck.”
My eyes jump to his, finding a glistening, almost playful stare. I’m reading between the lines. Is that what he’s doing with me? Thinking hard? “Maybe you should,” I reply, staring him down. “Are you saying you’re easy?”
“No, I’m very hard.” He shifts in his chair, cocking a cheeky eyebrow. He’s really playing. Is this his idea of a wind down after a kill? Chill-out time, so to speak? The indignant side of my female mind wants to cast his suggestive move aside. After all, he rejected me a few hours ago. But the sensible side of my female brain, the strongest side, realizes that this is exactly where I need him to be. My foot twitches under the table, wanting to lift and place itself around his groin area. Too much?
“We’ll have two of the seafood linguine,” Danny says to the waitress when she approaches, not taking his eyes off mine. “And oysters to start.”
My lips stretch unstoppably. I like suggestive Danny. I like the playful side of the cold-blooded killer. “You like oysters?” I ask as the waitress leaves us.
“No, hate them. Do you like them?”
