by Shirley Jump
"You need a vacation."
He let out a short, dry laugh. "I gave those up for Lent. And Easter. And Christmas."
"The rewards of entrepreneurship, huh? It's the same for us at Gift Baskets."
"Yeah. Being an owner isn't all it's cracked up to be." He pulled into a space two cars up from her door. "Here we are."
"Listen ..." She let her voice trail off and considered him in the dark. Beyond his looks, he was a man who understood a part of her no one else did. She'd never talked business with a man before and been listened to. Like an equal.
She'd enjoyed it. Though she'd rather eat pine bark for a year than tell Mamma that.
"Did you want to ask me something?" Dante said.
She took a breath, then went against her own plan not to think about him or see him again. "Why don't you come up for a little while? Have a cup of coffee? A glass of wine?"
One drink didn't constitute a date, she told herself. Or a prelude to marriage.
His smile seemed ten times more intimate in the soft light cast by the street lamps. "A little dessert?"
She put up her hands. "I’m not having any of that I've sworn off desserts."
"A bit of sweets isn't always a bad idea," Dante murmured.
Oh, damn. When he used that low, sexy voice of his, thoughts of business fled her mind like dirt at a Hoover convention. Her gaze met his and she stopped thinking about anything with calories. "I’m not the kind who can stop at just one bite."
Dante leaned forward, and for a second, she held her breath, until he reached into the backseat. "Are you sure? I've got a box of Sicilian ricotta cake here. I meant to bring it to your mother's house for after dinner. But I forgot it in the car."
"I... I shouldn't." The white box of delight in his hands teased at her.
If he came up, with that dessert she wouldn't get one word of business conversation out. Hell, she'd be lucky if her mouth connected with anything other than him and what was in that box.
"Shouldn't? Or won't?" He untied the string on the box, with slow, sensual movements. As if he were slipping off her dress.
Oh, shit. There went the last of her resolve.
"Can't," Maria gasped. She scrambled for the door handle and hopped out of the car. The rain poured down on her head. She raised an arm to block it, but it did little good. With her free hand, she dug through her purse for her keys.
Damn, that had been close.
Inviting him in had been a bad idea. The kind that came from late nights and cloudy thinking. Maybe she'd been inhaling those soap bubbles. Or maybe the aroma of the risotto and veal had gone to her head. She had to get into her building before she turned around and grabbed him, begging him to end her misery once and for all.
But too late, he was already out of the car. An umbrella extended over his head and the cake box under one arm. He crossed to her, tipping the umbrella to cover her, too. "You're getting wet."
"I'm looking for my keys."
"We don't have to eat a single bite," Dante said. "We could just... talk."
"Cows have better bullshit than that."
"I'm serious."
She found her key and inserted it into the lock. Then she turned and took in his face. He wasn't looking at her breasts. He was looking into her eyes. Like he cared about her, not just her body.
But then she remembered last fall when her heart had been broken by David as surely as a Christmas ornament smashed by a Mack truck. Never would she let a man get that close again.
No matter what he had in his little white box.
"Good night, Dante," she said and started to turn back toward her door.
In one swift movement, he dropped the box and umbrella to the ground, then gathered her up against him and kissed her with the force of a summer storm. His hands tangled in her hair, his lips roamed over hers.
The entire thing was sudden and...
Wonderful.
Dante murmured against her mouth and cupped her head with hands that seemed to treasure her like a piece of china. When he did, something she'd thought had been dead for months sprang to life again. Emotion. Feeling.
Connection.
To hell with not getting involved, with keeping her heart protected as if it were a rare statue of the Virgin Mary. Dante's hands came around to cup her chin with a feather-light touch and for the first time in a very long time, Maria stopped feeling twenty pounds overweight. Stopped thinking if she was thinner or prettier, no one would ever cheat on her again.
Dante had done the impossible. Made Maria feel beautiful and desirable.
And ready to rumble.
Maria's Dating-Is-a-Chess-Game Mussels and Clams in Wine Sauce
2 pounds fresh mussels, in their shells
2 pounds fresh clams, in their shells
6 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried red chilies, more or less to taste
1-1/2 cups of dry white wine
Chopped fresh parsley
Scrub, rinse and debeard the mussels and clams. Discard any with broken shells. Imperfect partners may be allowed in real life, but not in seafood.
In a large saucepan, heat the oil, garlic and chilies. Add the wine, then the shellfish. Cover and steam until the shells have all opened and the shellfish are ready to be honest about what's really inside them. Discard any unopened shells.
Sprinkle with the parsley and serve with the sauce on the side, as well as toasted bruschetta for dipping. Now that the mussels and clams are being open, maybe it's time for a little removal of the shell on your end, too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She scrambled into her building and unlocked her door faster than David Blaine could make a quarter disappear.
"I believe I owe you a massage," Dante said when they entered her living room.
The thought of having a massage from those strong, thick fingers of his sounded like ten orgasms at once. She pictured him standing over her naked torso, palms working magic. Bringing the flesh to heated life.
Setting off fires in parts of her body that hadn't been inflamed in way too long.
Damn Harvey and his disappointing performance. Damn her hormones for working in reverse whenever Antonio was around. Maybe it was some weird kind of perimenopause. Mr. Right turned her off while Mr. Wrong made her pant like a St. Bernard in St. Tropez.
"Let me guess what you want," Dante whispered, moving into position behind her, his hands now on her shoulders. The fabric of her shirt became a semiconductor, transmitting the heat of his touch directly to her brain.
His fingers didn't just rub. They danced along her collarbone, her shoulders, along her neckline, doing the rumba and the tango, with a little waltz added in. Everything inside her sprang to life, dancing in time with his touch.
This wasn't any ordinary massage. And her reaction was going beyond hormones. A surge of fear ran through her.
"We shouldn't—"
"Shouldn't what?"
Fall in love. Get married. Make plans beyond today.
"Do—" and then the thought was gone, lost in a heated rush of anticipation as his hands moved to her shoulder blades and then slowly down her spine.
Inch by inch. One vertebra at a time. Caressing and heating, easing every ache that had ever existed in her back.
And a few that didn't.
"You're so good." The words came out in a half moan, half whisper.
"You have no idea," he said softly, then leaned down and pressed his lips to her neck.
An electric thrill coiled through her, whipping against her nerve endings, as if she'd just touched a downed power line. She should—
Stop thinking, that's what she should do. Because if she thought about one more reason why she shouldn't kiss Dante, she'd be—
Oh, God. Now he was kissing the hollow of her throat. The T-spot. That one little secret place they never wrote about in Cosmo.
Maria groaned and collapsed onto her love seat, placing one hand
on each side of Dante's face and hauling his mouth down with hers before she could think twice about it.
And then she kissed him, her mouth wide against his, her tongue seeking more than the tease he'd given before. In bed, she was a woman who took what she wanted—and gave even more in return.
And right now all she wanted was him. For Christmas and her birthday and Flag Day in Aruba.
Dante pulled her to his chest, his arms wrapping around her back, pressing her breasts tight to his torso, the feel both agony and pleasure. She hauled him closer on the sofa, so his entire body now lay across hers.
He was hard and he was hot. His mouth roamed across hers, nipping and tasting at one time, then consuming the next. She rode a roller coaster of sensuality, her senses careening around corners, escalating her desire for him like a shaken champagne bottle about to be uncorked.
He pulled back, an inch, maybe two, from her mouth. "I want you, Maria."
"I want you, too."
"But not like this."
She blinked. The air in her apartment seemed to become very still and heavy. "What?"
"When we make love," and he emphasized the when with a gentle swipe of his finger across her lips, "I want it to be because you are madly in love with me."
She drew back. "I don't fall in love."
Not anymore.
"You're a terrible liar."
"I don't fall in love," she repeated. "So don't hold your breath waiting."
"I intend to prove you wrong." He grinned, his face so close to hers the smile seemed like it could be her own. "And that's going to be damned fun."
She swallowed. His argument made sense—and that's what scared her. Would her mind sabotage her as easily as her body had? She couldn't fall in love with him. He represented everything she didn't want in her life. Everything risky she couldn't take a chance on again. Her heart couldn't do that a second time. "This isn't a game, Dante," she said, as much to herself as to him.
"Everything between a man and a woman is a game of sorts."
"In games, there's always a loser. And I don't intend to be the loser."
"Sometimes, everyone wins."
She scrambled off the couch and got to her feet. "That's a bunch of crap. That's why they call them 'fairy' tales because the only people they come true for are imaginary little sprites who live in the woods."
He rose and crossed to her, his touch now a tender one on her shoulder. "What's made you so bitter?"
"I'm not bitter. I'm realistic." She turned to him. "What made you such a dreamer?"
He shrugged. "I believe in happy endings."
"Then why don't you have one of your own?" She took a step closer. "You work a million hours a week and from what Franco has said, barely date at all. How were you going to get that fairy tale? Were the mice going to deliver it to you?"
Dante heard the harshness in her voice, springing from some well of past hurts. Some other man had put that sound into her words. Not him. So he didn't take offense.
And he didn't walk away.
Instead, he grinned. "No, an angel was going to stand under a streetlight across from my restaurant and make me realize I'd been working way too much lately."
Maria pivoted away from him, crossing to the windows at the rear of her apartment. Below her, the narrow streets were dark and empty, shrouded by the rain.
In a month or two, the neighbors would be out there, sitting in their lawn chairs, enjoying the warm nights. The men would be smoking and gesturing wildly as they argued politics or sports. The pigeons would dart in and out hoping for a crumb, life in the North End would go on, as it had for centuries, as if nothing had ever happened to break her heart in this second-floor one-bedroom apartment.
Maria swallowed. "I’ve heard that line before."
"From who?"
When she didn't answer, he came closer and wrapped his arms around her waist. How she wanted to lean into that embrace. To trust. To believe in him and everything he'd said. "Who hurt you, Maria?"
"It doesn't matter. A man. Men." She bit her lip and shook her head. "Men who think they can talk a sweet game, make me think they believe in that forever and ever ending. Then it turns out they have a little extra something on the side. A backup plan."
His hand moved to her hair, the caress soft and agonizingly tender. He leaned down, his mouth again at her ear, soft, quiet. Teasing. "With you, the only backup plan a man needs is a way out of checkmate."
Despite herself, she laughed. She turned to face him, finding an answering smile on his lips. Damn him for making her laugh. He'd broken the tension and somehow jerked her out of a damned good pity fest with one sentence. "What am I going to do with you?" she said.
"Let me win my dignity back."
"Dignity?" She grinned. "After that pitiful loss to me, you might as well give up any hopes of dignity."
He trailed a finger along her chin. "I was distracted."
Hell, she was distracted after that touch, but she kept her cool. Barely.
"And you aren't now? After that?" She gestured toward the love seat.
"Oh, no. I'm much more focused now."
"Right."
"Come on, let's play again."
The way he said it didn't imply a chess game. He meant more. Much more. After all she'd just said and felt, she should say no. She had made her position clear. If she wanted to stick to her love guns, she'd push him out the door now and—
Go to bed alone. Frustrated. Cold. And sans one orgasm.
"I'll just beat you," she said, hedging.
"I don't think so." He grinned. "I've been studying."
"What? Chess for Dummies in your spare time?"
He grinned. "Actually, The Kama Sutra Pop-Up Book."
That particular title brought up mental images that would add a tinge of blush to the New York Times bestseller list. "You're kidding."
"Play me and find out."
The double entendre set off the electrical storm in her gut again. She shouldn't.
But damn. She had even less willpower when it came to sex—and that deep, tempting voice of Dante's—than she did against manicotti.
For a second, she wanted to believe he was different from David and all the other men she'd met. That the words he'd said were real. That after she'd changed her life to accommodate him and started believing in forever, he wasn't going to turn out to be some cretin who ordered her around like a Merry Maid on retainer. Or a nympho who kept a stable of women on the side so he could ride a different pony whenever his saddle got itchy.
Maybe … Dante was different. Or maybe she just wanted to think he was for tonight. Because it was raining. And she was cold. And lonely.
And he had made her laugh.
"One game. No more." The words were out of her mouth, as if her brain didn't have anything to do with her voice box.
He took her hand and led her to the chess table. "This time, let's make it really interesting."
"How do you propose we do that?"
The corners of his mouth lifted up into a devilish smile. "Naked chess."
Dante's Hurry-Up-and-Get-Naked Broiled Shrimp
24 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (use a damned food processor; it's faster)
3 tablespoons chopped basil
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
1/2 tablespoon pepper
Juice of one lemon
4 tablespoons olive oil
If you don't have time for deveining the shrimp, have it done at the fish store. All you need is a quick snack, not a two-hour detour from what you were doing. Mix the shrimp with all the ingredients in one bowl, throw it in the fridge and leave it to marinate for at least eight hours.
Preferably overnight.
When you come up for air again, preheat the broiler, then slip the naked shrimp onto skewers and brush with remaining marinade. Cook for about three minutes, then turn and cook for three minutes more. Eat in bed.
But be very
careful where you leave your skewers.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dante saw Maria's reaction and knew as much as she said she didn't want him—
She did.
Everything in her eyes and her body language belied her words. Like a mutiny against her mind.
Good. For a minute there, he'd been worried. And he wasn't a man who'd ever worried before about what a woman thought—or whether a woman would be interested in him. But this time it was different.
Because she was different. Feisty, yet kind. A woman who said she didn't care, yet loved her family with a fierceness that spoke of volumes of love somewhere deep within her. A smart woman who ran a successful business and had been able to save his own butt once already.
"What exactly is naked chess?" she asked.
"Well, one of us gets naked." He'd proposed the idea, not quite sure what the hell he meant, only knowing it sounded damned good.
"Oh, gee, let me guess who." She shook her head. "Men are so predictable."
"If you want, you can get me naked instead." He gave her a suggestive smile, which she waved away. "Okay, here are the rules. Every time somebody calls 'check,' the checked person has to remove a piece of clothing."
"That's not naked chess."
"It's not?"
"No. It's strip chess." She grinned and set up her own pieces. "You know I'm going to beat you again."
"Not necessarily."
"And take great delight in seeing what you look like beneath that apron."
"I'm not wearing my apron right now."
"I was speaking rhetorically."
"I know." His gaze locked with hers for one long moment. "Your move first."
She slid a pawn forward; he did the same. This time, though, Dante studied the board and didn't let her distract him.
A few moves later, beneath the table, she crossed one leg over the other, her shoe dropping to the floor with the movement and her foot drifting up against his leg. "Oh, sorry."
He grinned. "Sure you are." He slid his bishop forward. "I believe that's check."
