Page 69 of The Woman in the Hollow
With a grumble, I reached for the remote, turning on the TV and looking around until I found a boring documentary about the building of the railroads, the droning voice of the narrator managing to make me pass out within moments.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dante
I walked into the guest bedroom, closing the door, and then leaning back against it.
Reaching up, I yanked my tie looser, exhaling a deep breath as desire zinged off each nerve ending, giving my cock ideas it definitely didn’t need to be having about the wounded woman rolling around in my bed.
“Fuck,” I sighed, raking a hand down my face.
I needed to go downstairs, dig out my phone, then answer the million texts and calls I was sure my family had sent my way over the past hour or two.
Instead, I walked my ass into the en suite bathroom, closed the door, stripped, and climbed into the shower, hoping some cold water might douse the flames of my desire.
Somehow, though, my cock was still rock-solid as the icy water streamed down my back and chest.
With a sigh, I reached down, fisting my length and stroking, trying not to let my mind wander back to my bedroom, to the woman wearing my shirt, to her creamy skin and the way her pupils blew wide and her breath went shallow when myfingers touched her stomach. Or back to the damn office. Or the haunted house.
In the end, they all came flooding back as I stroked myself. Her sighs, her shivers, the crush of her lips, how wet she was for me, how hard she came around my fingers, how much harder she would come when I was buried deep inside her.
I came hard, groaning all alone in the damn shower like a fucking teenager.
I punished myself with a few more moments of frigid cold water before climbing out, drying off, and getting dressed again.
I made my way downstairs, brewed a pot of coffee, and grabbed my phone.
Before I could even check my texts, though, there was a knock at my door.
I winced, hoping the sound wouldn’t bother Hazel as I strode to my front door to let Domenico in.
“I thought you were meeting the shipments.”
“They arrived already. I called a couple of the field hands and the kids in to get the maze done again and the pumpkins placed. They don’t need me for that shit. But your soldiers are keeping an eye on ‘em all.”
“Alright,” I said, moving aside to let him in. He was right; setting up a maze and laying pumpkins in a field weren’t really his specialty.
“How is she?”
“A little tipsy. And hopefully sleeping. There was a lot of glass in her hands. And she’s got some nasty bruises starting on her shoulders.”
“When the fucker tried to drag her back through the broken greenhouse wall. Threw her arms out to stay outside.”
Domenico walked through my house like he owned the joint, a habit we’d all grown used to since he got out of prison. He always made himself at home.
“There’s coffee,” I called behind him as I locked the door.
I was only a few steps behind him, but by the time I got into the kitchen, he’d already poured himself a cup and had dropped himself down at the kitchen table.
“Find anything out?” I asked.
“We got the fucker’s picture circulating. No one recognized him right off, though.”
“And Big Ed?”
“Moved.”
“Already?”
