Boston Avant-Garde 4: Encore (11 page)

Dante made an appreciative noise in his throat. “Fuck, she’s wet, Jericho. You must be one hell of a kisser.”

Her pussy felt hot and achy. Pushing against Dante’s hand, she begged without words for what he could give her. When he buried his fingers in her cunt, she moaned into Jericho’s mouth. It felt so good. He held her open, making her feel vulnerable and needy. He rubbed her clit and straddled the sensitive hood, sliding through her wet folds to tease her opening.

“I’m going to put Jericho’s cock in your pussy, princess.”

It was Jericho’s turn to groan. Suri nipped his full lower lip before kissing his neck and working her way back up to his ear. Dante freed Jericho’s cock from beneath her. Jericho’s chest heaved as he fought for control.

Gazing down into his eyes, Suri felt more connected than ever before. “I want to feel you, Jericho.”

Dante guided the head to her opening, helping slide the long thick shaft into her pussy. She gasped when he bottomed out, the sensation of having Jericho’s full length inside her making her climax instantly.

“Fuck, she’s tight!” Jericho’s gravelly tone vibrated through their joined bodies.

“Don’t come yet,” Dante ordered. “I’m going to stretch her ass.”

Under any other circumstances, Suri might have been apprehensive about those words. But the sensation of Jericho’s body moving beneath her, his cock rocking inside her pussy, left no room for fear.

Dante pressed his lips to her ass cheek. “I’m going to put some lube on you, princess. I’ll go slowly. I swear.”

The cool lube was a violent contrast to Jericho’s warmth. Suri squealed, soothed instantly by Dante’s fingers massaging her tight asshole. She’d never experienced anything like it before. When he slipped one finger inside her, she came a second time.

Jericho’s arms tightened to hold her in place on his chest as he fucked her with quick, shallow strokes. “Shit, Dante, she’s so tight I don’t know how long I can hold back.”

Behind her, Suri could feel Dante’s hand squeeze the base of Jericho’s cock. “Relax, Jericho. Breathe. I’m going to stretch her further.”

A second finger pushed into her ass, flexing against the thickness of the cock in her pussy and making her feel deliciously full. She arched her back, reveling in the sensation.

The third finger—her body balanced on the edge of bliss. Below her, Jericho’s skin was covered in a layer of perspiration. His strokes deepened and grew more demanding. She cried out. Wanting more, needing more, ready to feel what she sensed was next.

“Dante!” His name was a plea on her lips.

“Spread her wide, Jericho. I’m going to fuck her ass.” She could feel him move to his knees between Jericho’s legs.

There was a moment of fear when Jericho’s hands spread her cheeks and the round head of Dante’s cock pushed against the tight ring of muscle in her asshole. Jericho’s shaft made a long, slow slide into her pussy, maintaining the familiar rhythm and calming her.

“Look at me, love.” Jericho’s commanding tone brooked no argument. She gazed into his face, the assurance in his expression like a balm. “You are an incredibly sexy woman.” He gave her a lingering kiss. “Let us give you everything we can, everything you deserve.”

His words unlocked the last of her resistance. Dante groaned as his cock slid deep into her ass. The penetration was pure pleasure, and her orgasm was immediate.

Her body bore down on their cocks—Jericho in her pussy, Dante in her ass, moving together as she came in undulating waves. She cried out, calling their names, begging for more, weeping with the overload. There was no end and no beginning, just the feel of all three of them in a never-ending circle.

Jericho groaned, his cock pulsing as he came in hot spurts. He thrust hard and let go in a rush.

“Look at him,” Dante murmured in her ear. “So beautiful.”

Seconds later, he came in her ass, the thick length of his cock making one last push into her tight hole as he poured his seed into her body. Though she’d thought she was done, Suri came again, the stimulation of their joint climaxes spurring her into an orgasm that had stars dancing behind her closed lids.

If someone had told her that she’d died and gone to heaven, she would have been perfectly satisfied to stay there forever.

“You’re late!”

Suri bit back a sarcastic response that would only draw more attention to her tardy entrance through one of the State Room’s back doors. Guests were already arriving for the fund-raiser luncheon. They mingled in the airy space overlooking a panoramic view of the Custom House Tower’s brilliant clock face.

Niles drew his bow across his viola strings. “Drop it, Leslie. Tune up and start playing, and I promise nobody will notice.”

Suri hurriedly unpacked her cello while Leslie lifted her violin and began to tune with Niles. She settled herself in the folding chair and adjusted the music stand. Picking up her bow, she made sure the full skirt of her black dress wasn’t hung up on the sides of the instrument nestled between her legs.

When she finally played a long, steady note and started to fine-tune her cello’s sound, the day’s stress faded into the background.

The architecture of the State Room was the only thing making it possible for their music to be heard over the 300 guests murmuring among themselves in the venue’s courtyard atmosphere. The trio’s subtle melodies underscored the political pandering going on around the room.

Suri was glad to be part of the backdrop. These were the people who populated Congressman Flaherty’s world, and she knew beyond a doubt she wanted nothing to do with their convoluted value system.

Minutes spun past as Suri, Leslie, and Niles played through the first set in the program Leslie had planned for the luncheon. When the last selection drew to a long close, Leslie lowered her violin, and Suri sighed with regret. Life would be so much easier if the music never stopped.

A robust man in a custom-tailored suit stepped to the front of the room where a microphone waited. Suri didn’t follow politics—not because she didn’t care but because, like most average people, she was consumed with the daily necessities of living. About all she knew was that the guy holding the fund-raiser was running for reelection at the end of next week. A wide, welcoming smile lit his face. It was the kind of grin that could put anyone at ease. The unsettling sensation of déjà vu began to slide down her spine, giving her chills.

“What’s wrong with you?” Leslie nudged her with the toe of one dress shoe.

“Who is this guy again?”

Leslie carefully settled her violin in her lap. “Senator Liam O’Callaghan. Josh did his prenup a while back when he got remarried. You’ve probably seen him on TV.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Nope, she hadn’t seen him on TV. Between school, the trio’s bookings, and Asylum, Suri barely watched TV. But she knew the senator, or knew of him anyway. Her mother had a few pictures of him in a scrapbook. She’d kept them to show Suri what her father looked like.

DANTE TRIED NOT to look as bored as he felt. He hated attending political fund-raisers. He had no trouble blending into the crowd in his custom suit and seven-hundred-dollar Italian shoes, but the man inside the clothing didn’t belong with a bunch of blue-blooded Boston snobs.

He caught the eye of Patrick Wilhelm from across the room. Patrick’s son Jackson had lost the poker game at Asylum several nights back. Dante could have never guessed the asshole would try to weasel his way into Suri’s pants the following day. Patrick’s stiff nod told Dante the man knew far too much about his son’s dealings with Asylum. Dante made a mental note to remind the Wilhelms exactly why he held the upper hand. No doubt Jackson would remember his reputation was on the line.

The conversations died down as guests took their seats, and Senator Liam O’Callaghan stepped to the microphone. Dante lounged in his chair, prepared to be bored out of his mind.

“Friends, neighbors, and the rest of you who’ve promised me money.” O’Callaghan waited for the laughter to die off after his contrived bit of humor. “I’m so glad all of you could make it to this historic venue today.”

That was the thing Dante had discovered over the years about Boston. A city steeped in American history was ripe with opportunities to make people feel patriotic. Except for him. Since he was neither American nor particularly patriotic. In fact, Dante’s roots would have been worth at least a ten-minute diatribe of poisonous rhetoric aimed at the Middle East and Iran in particular.

“I want to tell all of you that your interests are my concerns as we step toward this next election. My rival, Congressman Flaherty, would have you believe he has the best interests of this city and its occupants at the center of his concerns. But the truth is that he’s more concerned with lining his own pockets with your hard-earned money!”

True.
Dante sent a lazy smile toward a blushing debutante who had been mentally undressing him for the last few minutes. She was blonde. He had the inane thought that Flaherty would have been happy to accept her in lieu of monetary contributions to
his
campaign. The rat bastard.

From his usual position in a corner of the room, Dante had a view of the entire assembly. He began systematically filing those present and those missing into his mental database. The faster he made a list of people he wanted to schmooze with, the faster he could get the hell out of here.

O’Callaghan was waxing poetic about school funding, test scores, health care, and state-funded programs for the mentally disabled when Dante noticed a trio of musicians waiting patiently in a corner. One of them was blonde too. Why, when the world was so chock full of blondes, did they hold such fascination for him? Maybe growing up in a Persian household full of women with dark hair and eyes had made him starved for something different.

The cellist shifted her instrument, her bright hair sliding like satin against the sleeve of her black jacket. She used her hand to flip the swatch of corn silk back over her shoulder.

Dante froze. The unconscious gesture of a stranger should never have seemed so familiar to him. Except that the woman wasn’t a stranger. It was Suri.

His body came alive. Suri was here, with a cello? Except it all made sense. The money could hardly be that great when you were playing gigs like this fund-raiser and trying to live in Boston’s high-priced economy. Although, this sort of venue was hardly the place for a garage-band musician. Obviously, the trio was well connected.

O’Callaghan had stopped talking. Suri placed her bow against the strings and looked to the red-haired violinist for her cue. At the first note, Dante’s heart thumped wildly. Sound rippled off the strings, resonating around the State Room until it washed him in warmth and light. She played beautifully, like a natural-born musician. He stood, intending to get closer.

“What in God’s name is a bottom-feeder like you doing in a place like this?”

The words snapped Dante’s attention back to the moment with all the subtlety of a freight train. “Nicolai Anastas, I could ask you the same thing. Why leave your bar? The atmosphere at Jack’s is much better than this place.”

The smooth-headed bar owner with the pierced ears and heavy Bostonian accent gripped Dante’s hand in a firm shake. “I’ve already asked myself that question, and I keep coming up with the same answer.”

Considering the last time he’d seen Nicolai the man had been playing a game of poker strictly to gain the freedom of a lady, Dante had his suspicions. “Whoever she is, I like the suit she picked out for you.”

“My wife, Desiree.” He nodded to a woman several tables away.

Dante remembered her well. She was beautiful, for a brunette. “Wife?”

“Marriage is just a label.”

“Then congratulations.” Dante thought of the hell the other man had been through. Nicolai deserved to be happy. “Allow me to wish you well.”

“Thanks. I’d say I hope to see you again, but I don’t think I’ll be hitting Asylum anytime soon.”

That feeling settled in Dante’s chest again. The same one that had caused him to drown his intellect in a bottle of Arak the night he’d met Suri. He had to stop feeling responsible for other people’s actions. Nicolai won the poker game. And even if he hadn’t, he’d known what he was getting into when he entered the club. All of Dante’s customers did. Hell, he even made them sign a statement saying they knew how the rules worked.

Nicolai assessed the influential Bostonians gathered in the room. “I’m making the assumption you’re here to make business contacts, not to donate money.”

Dante flirted with the idea of contributing to O’Callaghan’s campaign. Nothing like a healthy dose of money from a foreign national with roots in the Iranian aristocracy to ruin the chance of reelection. Not to mention bringing down the fires of discrimination onto Dante’s head. “I’m not the type of person most politicians want on their contribution ledger.”

“And yet you manage to keep them in line all the same,” Nicolai quipped.

Was that how the man truly viewed it? Dante had never seen blackmail as a form of public service, but Nicolai’s words seemed to suggest he might see it as such. “You make me sound like Robin Hood.”

“You don’t strike me as the type to wear green tights.” Desiree walked up and slid her arm around Nicolai’s waist.

Dante didn’t know why, since he’d never been officially introduced to the woman, but he had liked her almost immediately. There was something absolutely brazen in her manner, as if she couldn’t be bothered with what everyone else thought. “Nice to see you again, Desiree.”

“You too, Mr. Torres.”

Torres. He’d been using that generic Latino surname for so long he sometimes believed it himself. Dante Torres didn’t cause as many waves as the name Darios Kadjar would have.

“Nicolai?” Desiree looked up at her husband as if there were no one else in the room. “My brother is ready to go. If he’s leaving, there’s absolutely no reason we need to stick around.”

Nicolai gazed longingly at the buffet tables situated across the room. “Fifteen hundred dollars a plate and I can’t even grab a to-go box.”