Chapter 83 - EIGHTY THREE

Chapter 83: Chapter EIGHTY THREE

ANGEL

"Why?" I tilted my head, letting confusion fill my face. "It’s just a little ice cream. It’ll dry."

A muscle in Vincenzo’s cheek twitched. Would it be so bad if he acknowledged my near-naked state? If he thought sexually of it?

"Because I’m telling you to." He grounded each word out.

"You’re being weird, Daddy." I leaned forward on my elbows. The position pushed my breasts together, the wet fabric clinging, the neckline gaping. I knew exactly what he could see from his angle. "It’s just a dress. It’ll dry in like ten minutes."

His eyes dropped. To my chest. And I had two full seconds— where he wasn’t a father, but a man staring at a woman’s breasts through a wet dress—before his eyes snapped back to my face.

I saw it. That flash. That hunger. Raw and vicious, buried under fury and the iron discipline of a man who’d been fighting his own body for weeks.

But I saw it.

And he knew I saw it.

"I’m not asking." His voice was ice wrapped in velvet wrapped in a death threat. "Put the jacket on or I will put it on you myself. Right here. Right now."

The threat made my skin prickle. Not from fear. From the image it conjured—Vincenzo standing up, walking around the table, standing behind me and draping his jacket over my shoulders with those big hands. His fingers brushing my bare skin. His body close enough to feel. Every person in the restaurant watching him cover me up. Claim me. Mark me as his in the most public way possible.

I wanted that. I craved it so badly my thighs pressed together under the table.

"Fine," I sighed, reaching for the jacket—slowly—and draped it over the back of my chair. Not on my body. "Happy now?"

"Angel."

"What?" I all but snapped, "I’ll put it on when I come back from the bathroom. I just need to go clean up first. Unless you want me to wipe ice cream off my boobs at the dinner table?"

Vincenzo stared at me furiously and I stared back stubbornly. The air between us was so thick I could have cut it and served it as dessert.

I gave in first, I stood up and yanked the jacket around my shoulders. Before I began my journey to the bathroom, I picked up a cherry stem from my plate.

I walked past the stranger’s booth with it.

"For you," I whispered, and placed the knotted stem on the table beside his wine glass.

His fingers closed around it, his eyes were glazed.

I straightened up and walked toward the restrooms, my hips swaying.

I glanced back toward the dining room. At Vincenzo to ensure he saw that. Then at the man twirling my cherry stem between his fingers, grinning like an idiot who’d just won the lottery.

I watched the man stand up. The fool was going to follow after me.

And satisfaction fired through me— to know he’d get punished for making me suffer the stress of entertaining him.

I was washing my hands when the bathroom door swung open behind me.

I looked up in the mirror and saw him—the man from the booth.

He was standing in the doorway of the women’s restroom with that confident smirk, his eyes already moving down my body like he was unwrapping a gift he’d bought himself.

My pulse spiked, not in fear. But anticipation what was about to take place.

A small smile tugged on my lips as I fought the urge to roll my eyes when he let out a whistling sound, his leering gaze on my legs.

My phone was in my left hand, Vincenzo’s bug live. I was fully aware that every word spoken in this bathroom was being fed directly into his ears.

This idiot had no idea he’d walked into a cage.

I turned slowly, leaning my hip against the sink.

"Took you long enough," I smirked, meeting his eager gaze.

The fool’s grin widened. "You were waiting?"

"I left you a cherry stem. What did you think it was, a friendship bracelet?" I scoffed.

He laughed, bolder now. He took a step inside and let the door swing shut behind him.

His eyes dropped to my chest—the wet fabric, the visible nipples, and the ice cream still drying on my skin.

"Slutty little thing, aren’t you? I’ve been watching you all night with that ice cream. Quite the show."

"You loved it?" I crossed my arms under my breasts, pushing them up. The wet cotton stretched tighter. "Was it the tits that brought you in here, or the mouth?"

"Both." He was close now. His cologne filled the small space—sharp, the kind that tried too hard. "The man at your table. Is that your father? Sugar daddy?"

"Does it matter?"

"Not really." His eyes crawled over me. "I can treat you better, baby girl,"

"Really?" I let my gaze drop to his belt, holding it there. "Show me what you’ve got and I’ll decide if you’re an upgrade or a downgrade."

The words weren’t for him. They were for Vincenzo, hearing his little girl flirt with a stranger in a bathroom.

The man didn’t need to be told twice. His hands went to his belt, unbuckled, unzipped. Pulled himself out with the confidence of a man who thought he had something to be proud of.

I looked at his cock the way you’d look at a disappointing appetizer.

Then I laughed. I couldn’t help it, the giggle that left my mouth made him look at me, as if I’d slapped him across his face. I could see his ego deflating in real time.

"That’s it?" I pressed my fingers to my lips. "Oh, honey. I’ve sat on bigger fingers."

His smirk completely collapsed. "What did you just—"

"My daddy’s got more than that when he’s soft." I covered my mouth. My eyes widened in mock horror. "Oops. Was that mean? It’s just—" I pinched my thumb and finger together. "It’s like a cocktail shrimp."