Chapter Eight
The second floorof the club was the space that held the actual nightclub. After an hour of drinking shots and champagne, the only business of the night’s agenda fun, the group headed up the stairs to dance.
The change of scenery was a relief for Gabriella. She’d spent an hour squashed to Tommaso’s side while he held court with his hand laid possessively on her thigh. She’d smiled widely and summoned all her acting skills to play the role of besotted new wife to a man already being calledDon, and pretended not to notice or care that two of his friends were with their mistresses and not their wives. Really, she should be encouraged by it; treat it as a welcome reminder that the novelty of Tommaso having a sex slave would soon wear off and that he’d then be on the hunt for someone fresh and new. Whether he would make one of his new conquests his official mistress, she didn’t know, and if it happened, she wouldn’t care. If it happened, she would be like Valeria Esposito.
Valeria had been only too happy to turn a blind eye to Lorenzo’s numerous infidelities; numerous being a complete understatement. Gabriella knew for a fact that at one point he’d had two mistresses ensconced in apartments on the same streetand that neither had known about the other. She also knew for a fact that Valeria had refused to share a bed or bodily fluids with Lorenzo since Siena’s birth.
The difference between Gabriella and Valeria, though, was that Valeria had held a huge amount of power in her marriage. Gabriella possessed none. Lorenzo had screwed around because Valeria had turned a very willing blind eye. Tommaso, like his brothers, had inherited his father’s rapacious sexual appetite and would screw around too, and would care nothing for Gabriella’s feelings about it. Not that there would be any feelings other than relief, she hastily reminded herself.
Rather than one central dancefloor like all the other nightclubs she’d been to, the second floor of Gino’s was divided into multiple plush seating areas, many of them hidden from view. People danced wherever they pleased to the sensual beat playing out that thrummed through the skin. Gabriella felt it dancing through hers and was helpless to stop the thrums of excitement dancing with it. It wasn’t just the music that was sensual. It was the whole vibe. The black décor was countered by strategically placed silver disco balls that sparkled on whoever was dancing beneath them. Tiny silver lights placed around the seating areas emitted only the subtlest of glows.
Semi-clad hosts and hostesses with perfect figures wove through the mass of bodies, and when Tommaso led their group to a seating area that had been roped off for them, bottles of champagne and more shots were brought to their table before they’d finished taking their seats. Gabriella, already feeling squiffy from the alcohol she’d drunk, downed her shot gladly. She’d never been a big drinker, but that night it seemed to be expected, and she was more than happy to oblige. The alcohol made itmucheasier to perform besotted wife, and two more glasses of champagne and numerous shots later, she was draped on Tommaso’s lap in imitation of the other women in their partyand feeling more relaxed than she’d felt in…well, forever, she supposed. It helped that Tommaso’s lap was so strong and his arms so secure around her. It helped, too, that he smelled so divine.
“Go on, Gabba, tell us how Masino convinced you to marry him,” encouraged Sylvestre, a man who’d been in the Espositos’ pockets for so long he should have lint clinging to him. “The man’s been obsessed with you for years!”
Asif! Any form of obsession Tommaso had held for her had been strictly of the getting into her underwear variety.
She felt him tense, no doubt bracing himself for her answer. She might be halfway to being drunk – make that three-quarters – but she didn’t forget that this was all performance.
“He showed me his cock,” she replied deadpan, and was rewarded with raucous laughter that had her giggling and winding her arm tighter around Tommaso’s chest. She could feel his laughter rumbling through it, his tension evaporating.
“Nicely done,” he murmured in her ear, sending shivers skimming over her skin. She squeezed the pads of her fingers into his back in answer before moving her hand to take the latest shot they’d been presented with. On the count of three, they all necked them, and then Gabriella was being dragged to her feet by Claudia, Sylvestre’s long-term girlfriend, and Roberto’s current mistress, whose name she couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter how hard she tried to recall it; her brain didn’t want to cooperate.
With so many bodies on the floor, the three women danced closely together, which was fine by Gabriella. Her legs were feeling as uncooperative as her brain, so being packed like sardines was keeping her upright.
Writhing her body in time to the music, she caught Tommaso’s gleaming stare and gathered her hair, piling it on top of her head before releasing it so it cascaded like a waterfall overher shoulders. He wanted her to play the besotted bride? Let him see just how good an actress she could be!
Somehow she managed to make her legs and feet cooperate enough to walk back to their seating area. Keeping her eyes fixed on him and a playful smile on her lips, she helped herself to two more of the delicious shots, then stood between his thighs and looped her arms around his neck. “Come and dance with me, husband,” she whispered sensuously before nipping his earlobe.
He didn’t need to be asked twice.
On the dancefloor, she hooked her hands to the back of his neck and gazed up into his molten eyes as they swayed in time to the beat. God, he was gorgeous and so darkly and sinfully sexy. She wasn’t sure who slipped a thigh between the others’ legs first, but when his hands drifted down to clasp her buttocks, she thrilled at the sensations and unashamedly pressed herself even closer, and when she felt his hardness press against her abdomen, her insides throbbed with arousal. The people dancing around them had become a shimmering haze, Tommaso the only thing she could see with any clarity.
“Come with me,” he murmured roughly into her ear.
The haze around them took on more focus, the dancing people becoming faceless blocks to weave around until they reached a dark staircase that must lead to the rumoured bedrooms. She looked upwards, but couldn’t see where the staircase ended because the stairwell was swimming around her.
Clinging tightly to Tommaso’s hand, she managed three steps before her legs gave way. She had just enough presence of mind left to twist her body so her backside landed on the stairs. The spinning of the stairwell worsened.
There was movement around her, and then Tommaso was on his haunches in front of her. Funny how she could still see him so clearly when everything else was a blur.
He peered at her intently. “You’re drunk.”
She laughed in his face and flopped backwards. Shewas! She was drunk! Fullydrunk!
He swore loudly. “Don’t move.”
“Don’t worry,” she said…slurred. “I don’t think I can.”
He got his phone out and, his now-watchful stare on her, called his driver.
“We’re going already?” she said when he ended the call.
“Considering the state you’re in, yes.”
“I thought you liked me drunk,” she taunted.
“I like you functioning. You can’t even walk.”
