Page 25 of Dante
Nadia quickly put her book down and went on a hunt for a bottle she had seen lying around somewhere. Finding it under the TV, she went back out to the boys.
“Wake up,” she demanded the two, and when their sunglasses had raised with them waking, she tossed the bottle at the big one. “You need to put on some sunscreen.”
“We’re Italian.” Amo shrugged, putting his shades back on. “We tan. We don’t burn.”
That logic almost hurt her brain. “Where the hell did you hear that?” she asked, dumbfounded. “The sun doesn’t care what you are; it will still burn you and give you skin cancer if you stay out long enough.Now, put it on.”
“Damn.” Amo picked up the bottle. “All right, then.”
Her delivery might’ve been a little harsh after that rum runner, but at least she was getting them to do it.
Taking back her seat, she didn’t pay them any attention as they started slathering themselves.
“Can you do my back?”
Nadia drifted her eyes over. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” Amo said, like there wasn’t anyone else around who was perfectly capable of doing it.
Dante could be heard stirring for the first time in a long time.
Her eyes merely went back to her page as she flipped to the next one. “No, Leo can.”
“Hell no,” Amo told her. “He ain’t rubbing shit on my back.”
Rolling her eyes heavenward, she put her book back down. The downfall of big dudes was they had to look hard at all times. “You know, real friends rub SPF onto each other’s backs.”
“No, I just don’t trust him to miss my whole left side.”
Nadia’s mouth practically dropped at Amo’s “one eye” joke, not knowing how to react in the silence until Leo did.
“Fair enough.” Leo laughed. “I don’t even trust you, and you have two.”
Nadia felt comfortable enough to chuckle now as she took the bottle and squeezed out some of the contents. “Turn.”
Another sound came from Dante’s direction.
Dante turned in his lounger, the death glare in his icy eyes hidden behind his dark glasses.
However, he was sure his soldier still could not only see it but felt his warning glare.
He had two best friends, and Amo was one of his best friend’s son. But not even his father, Enzo, could protect Amo from the wrath he felt raging in his bones. Dante wanted to do more than slap the back of his big-ass head right now while he watched Nadia begin to rub the liquid onto his back. Never once had he been jealous of one of his soldiers … but there was certainly a first for everything.
He hoped Amo was enjoying himself, because that was going to be the first and last time he was going to get Nadia’s hands on him.
“Ah … that’s the spot—”
Whack!
“Make it weird, and you’ll be left with Dante rubbing lotion onto your back all weekend,” she reprimanded the six-foot-something soldier after doing exactly what Dante had wanted to do by smacking the back of his big-ass head. He only had one criticism …
Hit harder next time.
Amo was still rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry, I won’t do it again.”
Clearly satisfied that he had gotten the message, Nadia went back to finishing up his back.
Dante, however, wasn’t satisfied. At least not until her attention went to Leo. He carefully watched her look Leo over, and when she rubbed in a still white spot on his cheek that he had missed, he saw her frustration with herself.
