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Dominic
Having Lula sitting around his place in exactly what he asked her to wear proved to be a bigger distraction than Dom had anticipated. He had been so distracted thinking about her perfect ass in those tiny red panties that he had to take her over the back of the couch just so he could focus.
It worked for about an hour and then the image of her flushed, just-fucked cheeks would pop into his head, and he found himself hovering around her again.
She swatted at him. “Get back to work.”
“But, babe, I just want to kiss you,” he complained.
“Yeah, and we both know what happens after that. Get to work or I’m leaving. You told me you had lots of work to do.”
“I do.” He ran his eyes down her beautiful body, her legs were draped over the sofa and she had a book dangling from her fingers. “But I ...”
“Nope,” she warned, “get to work, or I’ll put on pants.”
Fuck that. “Fine,” he grumbled and trudged back to his work as if he had been sent to the principal’s office. “But I’m going to kiss you when I’m done.”
“If I let you!” she called back.
Okay, Adams, he told himself, you can do this.
Breathe in, breathe out.
It took a few minutes but he was eventually able to regain his focus.
Right now, Dom was trying to piece together all the new information about Giancarlo Menotti’s closest circle of friends. He thought he had known all the major players before, but Menotti was known for two things: his violence and his secrecy. He held his cards so close to his chest that Dom wondered if he even knew what they were.
With the big box of primary resources Tom gave him, though, everything was coming into focus. Menotti’s known associates were becoming more vivid, more fleshed out, and a whole new cast of players were appearing for the first time that no one had ever heard of.
Everybody knew Menotti’s right-hand men were Luca Marchesi and Nicolo Gallo. That was old news. What Dom was uncovering was another ring just below the tip of that pyramid that up to this point, people had only guessed about. These were the guys that got their hands dirty, that carried out hits or took down shop owners who didn’t cooperate. They were muscle. Pure evil. The Stella d’Italia.
As he worked through the box, information was starting to coalesce into a pattern that suggested the actual identity of these men, and it was the most exciting research Dom had ever been a part of. He’d heard whispers that these three men had shared a scarification tattoo on the inside of the wrist—a simple five-point star—but hadn’t believed it until he found a folded, black and white picture stuck between the pages of Menotti’s address book. There were no faces, just three wrists held together, revealing three raised star-shaped scars.
Dom sat down in his chair with the photo in his fingers, stunned. This was proof of the Stella d’Italia that no one else had seen. He would be the first author to be able to prove what had only been guessed at by other writers. It was a stroke of pure luck.
Choosing the Menotti Crime Family for a subject had been risky, he knew it, and just in case he didn’t, everyone told him so. Giancarlo Menotti had been written about by at least fifty other authors, but something about the man had drawn him in since he was young that he had never been able to shake.
“Follow your burning interest,” was what his father used to tell him about historical research. “It’s what keeps you going when it gets hard.”
So he did. And now, with all this coming together right under his fingertips, he knew without a doubt he made the right choice.
By the time he stood up from his desk, he had compiled a pretty good case as to the identity of one of the three men. He stretched and smiled at the thought that Lula was waiting for him somewhere in his house in bright red panties. He had never felt so blessed.
––––––––
Lula
Lula stared angrily at the four dots on the map of Little Italy that Saturday. It was all they had so far. Four little dots that fit the data points.
And these four fucking dots, from what she could tell, weren’t the right dots. They had only gotten through the first half of the restaurants listed in the phone book, and after two nights of this, she was sure they’d have more to go on.
She was ready to throw in the towel but Dom just kept plugging away, teaching her what real focus looked like. She loved that he was helping her, that she could look over and see his serious, handsome face working to help her keep her dream alive.
He had been steadfast by her side for the last week. Nan was going through a rough patch and he went with her to visit every day because he didn’t want her to be alone if Nan got upset again. If she’d had any chance of rescuing her heart before this week, it was gone now. She was in love. Completely and irreversibly.
She loved everything about him—his focus, his writing, his passion for teaching, his devotion to his family, his skills in the bedroom ... the list was pretty long before she even got to his devastatingly good looks.
And the more of his writing he shared with her, the further she fell. He was brilliant at it, weaving boring bits of information into a fascinating tale of crime and family intrigue. He was the total package, and every time he looked at her with that tenderness in his eyes she was stunned to be the one he was looking at.
“Come on, babe,” Dom urged her out of her thoughts, “let’s do one more page, and then I’ll carry you home, okay?”
Home. She smiled at him. “Okay.” With a deep breath, she started the process of throwing out non-family restaurants and plotting the address of those that were. A half-hour later, she had one more dot.
“Attagirl,” Dom encouraged her, kissing her cheek. “Zetticci’s, huh?”
All she could do was shrug. “Let’s see if this one is still open.” She pulled out her phone and searched for a current listing. Her heart beat a little faster. This was only the second dot that was still open. “They are! Zetticci’s Restaurant,” she read from their website. “Old World Italian Food since 1938.”
“Let’s check it out,” he said, packing up all their items. “Friday? You and me? That red dress?”
She laughed. “That dress belongs to Amy, but I’ll see if she’ll let me borrow it again.”
“But it’s a yes?”
“Of course it’s a yes,” she told him, wrapping her arms around him from behind. “Thank you, for everything,” she said softly, her heart filling.
He spun around and pulled her to his chest. “You are so welcome, beautiful.”
A thousand other thoughts whirled through her mind, but she kept them to herself. She could feel his reticence too. What was he thinking? Was he as deep into this as she was? It felt like it, his eyes looked like it, but he remained silent.
“Ice cream,” he announced out of nowhere. “I want ice cream tonight. You game?”
She giggled. “Um, is the Pope catholic?”
“Depends on who you ask,” he told her, wiggling his eyebrows.