The Italian Dom by N.J. Adel
CHAPTER 38
Nicky
Watching Dom take a dip in the sea had become a morning ritual. In spite of the freezing cold, he swam every day at dawn, while I enjoyed the view, mesmerized. His olive, tattooed skin glistened deliciously with the water droplets. His salt and pepper hair was a sexy wet mess. He looked like a god in the waters, standing tall, unfazed by the cold or the raging sea.
“You should try it some time,” he said as I wrapped a towel around his shoulders.
“I’m not a…sea person. The pool, yes, but the sea in January… Maybe in the summer.”
He smiled. “Then why are you at the beach if you don’t like it so much? A little birdie told me you weren’t a morning person either.”
Because I don’t wanna miss the show. Watching him swim was sexier than any movie or porno I’d seen. I rubbed his back and chest with the towel, running my hands over his toned skin. “Speaking of the little birdie, I called Lina a few minutes ago.”
“It’s almost midnight in Chicago.”
“Well, I was asking for updates. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that Leo hasn’t made any moves yet or isn’t anywhere to be found.”
“Again with that fucker,” he mumbled. “Listen, baby, I know you’re worried about your sister, but she has two families protecting her around the clock. There isn’t a chance the traitor can set foot where she is without being caught first.”
My eyes narrowed at him as I remembered him making an almost exact statement that night he was at my apartment, with the same confidence. “A man like you, surrounded by danger and betrayal and blood, how could you be so sure?”
He sat on the beach chair and drank some water. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why aren’t you suspicious like I am that something might be up, something we don’t know or won’t see coming or even are misinformed about? Like how do you know for sure Leo left Italy if no one had actually seen him leave?”
“Do you think I’d bring you here if I didn’t know you were absolutely safe?”
Shaking my head, I sat on his lap and clasped my hands behind his neck. “Of course not. I know how protective you are of me.”
“You’re my precious baby girl. It’s what good Daddies do.”
I bit my lip, feeling his cock stirring in his trunks. “I can’t shake that feeling that someone is hiding something.” I held his gaze. “That Daddy might not be telling me everything he knows.”
“Baby, this is our honeymoon. I want to enjoy it as much as I can, and that doesn’t include talking about my job. Like you said, I’m a man surrounded by danger and blood the whole time. These brief moments I steal from life are what makes me sane. I don’t want to waste our precious time on a target.”
“A target?”
“Yes. To you, Leo might be the boogeyman, but to me, he’s a target, a bug I’d squash on site, a job, like many I’ve handled over the past thirty years.”
“God, this is…” It’d take me forever to get used to hearing this darkness and living with it. How could Lina do it? We were raised the same way. A fucked up way without a doubt, but we cared about right and wrong. And what our men were doing was wrong. “And you’re so old.”
He chuckled. “More reason to value our time together, baby girl.”
Even though he was saying it casually, lightly, I received it with a pang in my chest. A few days ago, all I wanted was for Dom to be gone. Now, much to my surprise, I couldn’t bear the idea of having to live without him. My beautiful monster. My Daddy.
Perhaps he was right. I shouldn’t waste our time worrying about a prick like Leo. And like Lina said, I should be focusing on living my life and not using her as an excuse not to. Fixating on Leo was me falling back into old habits. I had to stop.
“I want a real wedding,” I blurted out, not exactly sure where that came from.
He folded his arms around my waist and brought me in for a panty-melting kiss. “I thought you’d never ask. Where do you want it to be?”
“Ummm…how about here…in my Sicilian beach villa?”
He smirked. “Fancy. But what about the boogeyman, that, according to you, might still be in Italy and we may never capture him?”
I nudged him on the shoulder. “I didn’t say that. Not exactly anyway. And you could just put me out of my misery and tell me where he really is.”
“Now you think I know where he is?”
“To be completely honest, I think Tino knows where he is, and he might have told Enzio, who might have told you.”
“Well, here’s what I know, baby girl. You’re safe from Leo Bellomo as long as you’re with me. Daddy will protect you from the boogeyman.”