What the bloody hell was this guy doing here? Who was he? What the hell was Dante planning? Was this some sick turn of events? Did they expect her to do stuff with the both of them? This was never discussed. This was never arranged. Was the dress Dante bought her, something to bribe her into doing them both? What the fuck was going on!?

Angel was frozen in her tracks. She was mortified that there was another man, someone she had never met, in the apartment. The shock was clear on her face.

The stranger seemed to be as equally shocked.

Dante stood, his movement broke the stranger’s gaze, but Angel’s eyes were still locked on the man.

“Angel,” Dante started “this is a friend of mine, John. John, this is Angel.”

The man stuck out his hand, offering her a handshake. Angel tensed in response. She never broke her fixed gaze on him, but her body must have visibly bristled, because the man awkwardly pulled his hand away.

“She doesn’t like people she doesn’t know. Takes her a bit to warm up to people,” Dante tried to explain her unfriendliness. He turned to look directly at Angel, “forget your bag?”

Remembering the entire reason she came into the living room in the first place, Angel quickly grabbed her back, fumbling to hold the towel around her with one hand. Angel was still filled with nerves when Dante put a hand on her shoulder to steer her to the bedroom. She quickly, and quite rudely, shrugged his hand away, but he followed her to the bedroom anyway.

She still was confused as to who the stranger was. What was being expected of her? She wasn’t sure she could trust Dante. She was still unsure of his intentions. He had once told her he was an undercover police officer, but he continued to pay. He paid cover to get into the club, bought her drinks and clothes, and he paid for her business not once but twice. Angel didn’t know what was the truth. All of this could be a lie. Or it could be Rich’s doing, or Frank’s. Angel couldn’t be certain of anything.

“Angel,” Dante tried to sooth her.

She pretended not to hear him as she tossed her bag onto the bed and began to rummage through it with one hand.

“Angel, what is wrong?”

She continued to ignore him.

He grabbed hold of her shoulders and spun her to face him.

Angel let out a surprised gasp, still clutching her towel in place with one hand, a black thong in the other.

Dante looked at the thong with a raised eyebrow before taking it from her. Reluctantly, Angel let it go and watched him toss it back on the bed. “What’s wrong?”

Angel looked away from him awkwardly.

“You think he’s here for you?”

She stayed silent.

Dante let out a soft laugh, “no. He isn’t here for you. He didn’t even know you were here. I’ve been living on my own for quite a while. Trust me, the last thing he was expecting was to see a soaking wet, practically naked girl, in my apartment.

Angel still didn’t respond.

“Relax, alright? Get dressed and come join us.”

Angel nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She watched Dante turn his back to leave the room. She turned to face the bed, dropping the towel to the floor and picking the black thong back up.

Arms wrapped around her, pulling her back against someone. She tensed and struggled for a second before realizing it was Dante. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, kissing her gently and inhaling her scent. He pressed her body against his, one arm across her waist, the other across her collar bone. She grabbed hold of his arms, the nerves rising inside her again. She expected his hands to slip downward and grope her, but they stayed in place. Angel’s breath caught in her throat as he gently bit her neck. The bite wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t even leave a mark, but it still caught her by surprise.

Dante let go of her neck, his arms still wrapped around her. “I don’t share,” he whispered, almost warningly in her ear before letting her go completely.

She turned quickly. He was just as quick to turn and leave, but Angel caught a glimpse of the growing bulge, trapped behind the zipper of his pants.

Blushing, Angel quickly dressed and joined the men in the living room.

Dante patted his lap for her to sit, but she sat on the floor at his feet instead.

Angel pulled her knees to her chest, her damp hair hung down her back. She watched the man named John. She watched him glance at her once, maybe twice, as he and Dante talked. Angel watched his body relax over time, and she watched as he leaned back on the couch. His voiced smoothed a bit as he became more comfortable, and he even took Dante up on his offer of a bottle of beer.

Dante’s hand toyed with Angel’s hair. He ran his fingers through it, and gently petted her. After a while, Angel found herself pressing to his hand, her eyes drooping closed from the comforts of his gentle petting.

Angel jolted, her eyes snapping open when Dante stood with a start. She looked up at him, then to John when he stood.

“It was good to see you man,” Dante stated, shaking John’s hand happily “we’ll have to get together more often. Drinks maybe?”

“Sounds like a plan,” John replied as Dante led him to the door and held it open for him.

When the door shut behind the man, Dante locked it the dead bolt. He turned and gave Angel a gentle smile “I haven’t seen that guy in years. Lot of good memories with him.”

Angel didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.

Dante stood and went to the kitchen. Silently, Angel sat, leaning against the couch. She heard pots and pans rattling in the kitchen, then the click of the stove being turned on. Angel stood and made her way to the kitchen.

Dante was already browning ground beef in a skillet. Angel watched silently as he put a lid on the skillet, opened a lower cabinet and pulled a cutting board from it, putting it on the counter, and then pulled a kitchen knife from its wooden holder, and put that with the board. He opened the refrigerator and removed a green pepper and half an onion. He began cutting the onion, his movements swift and powerful. He then diced the pepper with the onion and scraped it into the sizzling beef. Using two wooden spoons, he mixed the skillet’s contents, tossing it every so slightly into the air. Once thoroughly mixed, he opened the refrigerator again and pulled out a bottle of ketchup. He put a glob of the ketchup into the skillet, then put it back in the refrigerator before pulling out a bottle of Worcestershire sauce and added a bit of it to the skillet. After he put the sause back in the door of the refrigerator, he measured out a bit of brown sugar, salt, and pepper, and added that to the mix. Again, he used the spoons to mix all the ingredients together. He replaced the lid on the skillet, put the cutting board and knife in the sink, and pulled two plates from an upper cabinet. He pulled a loaf of bread from the pantry and put two slices of bread on each plate. He put the bread away, opened the refrigerator and pulled out four slices of cheese and put a slice on each piece of bread. He checked the skillet and satisfied, spooned out the contents onto the bread and cheese. Dante turned off the stove, leaving the skillet on it to cool and to be cleaned later. He opened a drawer and pulled two forks from it. He put a fork on each plate and picked them up.

When he turned with the plates, he saw Angel watching him. “Sit down.”

Angel sat at the table, her back to the kitchen. A plate was set before her, and the other at the seat perpendicular to her. But Dante did not sit down.

She heard the pantry open again. There was rustling, then a quiet pop! She heard a cabinet open and the clinging of glasses being removed. Then the sound of liquid being poured.

Dante then set a glass of red wine next to Angel’s plate, and put another glass next to his own before sitting down.

Angel looked at the glass silently. It was a rule: no drinking or drugs while working. The rules made sense. If you were incapacitated, you were in danger. If you were in danger, you wouldn’t perform well. If you don’t perform well, you don’t get paid as well. If you don’t get paid as well, you don’t bring back enough money. If you don’t bring enough money, you were worthless to your pimp. And pimps don’t keep worthless girls.

As if he had read her mind, Dante stated, “one glass won’t get you drunk.”

Angel glanced at him. He was already busy eating. She picked up her fork and began to eat.

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Dante was right. One glass did not get her drunk, but it did warm her up. Angel was not used to alcohol. She tended to stay away from it, faithfully obeying Rich’s rules, and her body was thin enough to make her a “light-weight.” Her head did give a nice spin when she stood from the table.

Dante had taken her empty plate with his and set them in the sink to be washed later.

Angel’s head screamed at her, and the pain coursing from her throbbing temple caused her to let out a soft groan. Exhaustion catching up to her, mixed with the alcohol – a substance pretty much foreign to her body – made her legs tremble. Luckily, Dante was able to catch her before her legs completely gave way.

“Whoah, easy there” Dante whispered gently.

Angel tensed. Jeez, was she drunk? She couldn’t tell. She’d never been drunk before. This had to simply be her body complaining about the foreign alcohol. Angel’s body wasn’t functioning right, or at least not the way it needed to around a client. She tried to keep her guard up. If Dante caught wind that she wasn’t up to par, he could use that to his advantage and seriously hurt her. Or worse, he could become upset and tell Rich about her inability to perform.

Angel straightened herself, trying to play off, and simply ignore her fumble. However, Dante wasn’t so quickly fooled. He kept his comments of irritation for her ‘one-man-wolf-pack’ mentality, to himself. Angel was so desperate to not appear weak, so insistent on taking care of herself, and it bothered Dante. Did the girl even know how to open up and establish a relationship outside of the whore-and-john relationships she had with everyone around her? Did she know how to invest trust and emotion into another being? Or was it really too late for this girl to be anything than what she already was?

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Sunlight warmed Angel’s face as she tried to shut her eyes as tight as possible, the bright light making the back of her eyelids reddish instead of the black she wanted. She groaned as she opened her eyes, the sun blinding her. Quickly she shut her eyes again, rolling over to get away from the blinding sun. Eyes still closed, she felt the warmth of the sun on her back and shoulders. Warmth flooded through the front of her body as well, coursing through her in slow, creeping waves. But there was no sun on the front of her body…why was it so warm?

She opened her eyes. The bare tanned skin, smooth over toned muscle, was all she saw. Dante was laying there, with his back to her. Her body tingled as she realized she was practically pressed against him, and she tensed when she realized farther…he was naked. Then the sudden realization that Angel, too, was naked, hit her like a brick wall.

Her breath caught in her throat. What had happened last night? Angel honestly couldn’t remember. There was no possible way that one glass of wine could have gotten her drunk. Had Dante slipped something in her drink? Something to knock her flat on her ass and erase her memory? Had he used her? Used drugs to his advantage and then used her to his own liking? Angel couldn’t be sure of anything.
Slowly, Angel crept out of the bed. She didn’t want to wake Dante, at least not until she got her wits about her. Angel found her clothes on the floor next to the bed. Quickly, she slipped them on before grabbing her back and then locked herself in the bathroom. She huddled on the floor next to the bathtub, her body curled into a fetal position. She hugged her knees to her chest, and buried her face into her arms. Careful, so not to make noise audible to anyone outside the bathroom, Angel closed her eyes and cried.