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Chapter Thirteen
- Dante -
SHE WASN’T DRUNK. I’Dwatched. She had two glasses of wine in an hour, and she’d been eating. But she drank those full glasses like they were grape juice, which for some, wasn’t an issue. But for her? It wasn’t like the birthday party where she took her time and drank several glasses over the course of hours and still got intoxicated. Tonight, she drank fast and she slammed that last glass with a purpose right before she got her coat and went outside.
I toggled the outdoor pan-tilt-zoom camera so I could watch Noemi as she walked the veranda at the back of the house. I had kept an eye on her all night. Gabriel had invited me to join them for dinner but eating dinner with those pricks was the last thing I wanted to do. But the idea of leaving Noemi exposed to those twisted bastards sickened me.
I knew those men. Noemi wasn’t Stefan’s type, but he wasn’t above taking advantage of a woman if the right opportunity arose. Usually, he liked his women bold and powerful, neither of which described Noemi. Peter would screw any woman that came onto him or his money. I doubt he even bothered to get names first but even he liked a good challenge. St. Valentine and I shared similar tastes. He liked submissive women who could be bent to his will. Women who liked it, who craved dominance in their life.
He liked women just like my Noemi.
As much as I wanted to dare him to put his fucking hands on her like that piece of shit Jacko did, I didn’t trust myself to join them for dinner. I would have beat the shit out of St. Valentine if I’d been at the table when he kissed her hand. He made that gesture twice and that was once more than I could stomach.
I was still clenching and unclenching my fists to calm myself the hell down. The only thing that had kept me from storming the dining room was her reaction. Noemi had pulled away from him. She didn’t meet his eyes; didn’t engage. Of course, he probably got off on that, but she had been a good girl. I couldn’t fault her for her reaction. I didn’t have audio, so I had no idea what was said, but from her lips, it looked like Noemi responded with a simple “thank you” to whatever compliment he’d paid her.
After Lilly departed and the men were all leaving the room, Noemi didn’t give him another look. She threw back the last of her wine, made her way to the closet to get her coat, and came outside. I preferred that. It made it a lot easier to watch her without having to switch cameras between rooms.
At first, I thought she’d had too much to drink. But no, she wasn’t drunk as she leaned against the column of the back porch. She wrapped one arm around its girth then leaned her forehead against the stone. I zoomed in closer. She didn’t look intoxicated. She looked... wistful. Melancholy. Thoughtful. Forlorn. And sexy as hell.
She’d come to dinner despite my displeasure with her. She was tempting me, not knowing the danger she flirted with. Did she see past my facade? Did she fucking know how much I wanted her? If she did, she’d know how much I hated myself for it and she’d stay the fuck away from me.
“Ah,bambina,” I groaned, allowing myself to give in to my addiction. It was easy to do behind a camera and a closed door. I’d done it before. I watched my baby girl for years and she never knew.
No. I was not one of those perverted fucks who liked children like the men whose lives I took without one ounce of remorse. My attraction to Noemi didn’t begin until she was a grown woman.
When we moved into the house and my sister and she first met, Noemi was nothing more to me than the little girl next door. I was twenty-four at the time and was just starting to break through in my business. I took a lot more contracts back then. I had to prove myself so that I could drive my price up. I was perfecting my craft.
Noemi was cute and painfully shy. I barely noticed her when she was around, and she was around a lot. But as the years passed, I wasn’t. My contracts became more elite, more exclusive. I spent more and more time away from home. Each time I returned, I could see changes in her as all young boys and girls change. She matured. She was pretty, but she didn’t do anything to enhance her beauty until she was older. I wasn’t physically aware of her until her senior year of high school. I was gone for almost six months doing some work in Eastern Europe. I had a group of terrorist brothers that needed to be dealt with, so I picked them off one by one. It was necessary, but it took time. When I came home because I promised Lilly I’d be there for her graduation, Noemi had become a different person.
She wore makeup. She curled her hair. It was obvious she had started taking fashion advice from my sister. But even then, I barely acknowledged how attractive she was. I still said “hello” to her and she still smiled, nodded, and looked the other way.
One corner of my mouth turned up at the memory. She thought I didn’t know, but I did. I knew she had a schoolgirl crush on me. I knew that was why her cheeks would light up and she’d turn her gaze away as soon as I stepped into a room. I didn’t want to encourage it, so I didn’t engage her beyond some casual discussions at the table if she ate with us or an offhanded compliment here and there if she and Lilly were going to a school dance or some shit like that.
I didn’t realize any feelings for her until the night Willis knocked on our door looking for her. Until the night I saw how beautiful she was when fear and devastation were etched into her lovely face. Until I saw the tears stream down her silken cheeks. I had no heart back then either, but I had a cock and it immediately reacted to her.
But there was more. Something called me to her beyond the physical urge to purge her sadness by fucking the shit out of her.
I felt this uncontrollable urge to protect her. To pull her to me and dare anyone else to make her sad again. I had no damn clue at the time what the urge was or how to deal with it so I ignored it like I would a pesky fly.
I lived with my self-imposed ignorance for a whole four days until my barriers broke the night before her parents’ funeral.
Noemi had been staying with us almost daily except for when she was helping Willis with the funeral arrangements. I was okay with that. I didn’t understand why I understood it, but I did. She needed Lilly. She needed my mother. Hell, she even needed Gabriel, but she didn’t need me, so I kept my distance.
I was holed up in my study, when the silent alarm on my computer alerted me to someone coming into the house. A quick scan of the cameras showed Noemi running through the front door. Her grief was palpable. The atmosphere in the house changed the minute I knew was there. I could have stayed where I was and let her cry herself senseless, but I pushed the chair back and followed her sad song to the kitchen. I found her sobbing into her hands at the table, her entire body shaking with grief.
I’ve heard women cry. I’vemadewomen cry. The sound of Noemi’s grief still echoes in my mind. I’ll never escape it. She cried large, choking sobs that made me feel like a real man, like a man who had to do everything and anything he could to stop the moisture from pouring down her face.
She didn’t see me until I grabbed her, pulling her into my arms with no words exchanged. Her arms wound around me and mine closed around her tightly. She stopped fighting her urges to control her tears and crumbled in my grasp.
I’d never felt so needed.
Never felt so strongly that I had a purpose.
My entire world in that five minutes of time was to give her comfort. I didn’t have to think about it or wonder if I was doing the right thing. I held her and reveled in every wicked second of it. Foreign feelings had surfaced. Later, I would resent them.And her. Her parents’ untimely death took a burden from my shoulders but created turmoil that haunted me to this day.
It wasn’t until that night that I started watching her. I told myself it was just so that I could make sure she was okay. Her grief was profound and never-ending that first summer after her parents passed. I was partly driven by guilt and partly by my cock. Keeping my vigil over her was a guilty addiction. Whenever she came to the house, whenever I was in town, I used the camera system to watch her. Lilly, my Mom and Noemi at the kitchen table. Noemi at the pool. Watching movies in the theatre room with Lilly.
My obsession lasted all summer. Then Noemi moved to a college dorm and she spent less time at our house. Her absence should have made things easier on me but every time she walked back in our door, my body fucking knew it. My muscles tensed, my dick twitched, and I hid in my office, behind my cameras. I never got to see the things I wanted the most – a naked Noemi, a Noemi wearing nothing but her bra and panties. A smiling Noemi trying hard to overcome her sadness. The cameras were in central locations used for security, not bedrooms or bathrooms. Privacy was still guaranteed.
