by J. S. Scott
“She is?” Dante looked at Jared hopefully. Honestly, he’d never really sensed, heard, or seen much from her in the last week except for her practical and logical side, which drove him completely insane after sampling the passion she was capable of feeling. He’d like to kill the man who’d initiated her into the world of physical pleasure. On the other hand, there was a primal part of him that reveled in the fact that she’d only been with one guy, and it hadn’t been pleasant. He wanted to be the man who made her scream with pleasure, the only one who made her come until she shattered to pieces as she chanted his name like he was the only thing she could think about. The scar was healing on his face, but it would never be completely gone, and the rest of him wasn’t particularly attractive at the moment. He knew he hadn’t been the only one feeling the heat between him and Sarah, but he asked Jared anyway. “You think she’s attracted to me?”
Jared shook his head. “You’re really pathetic. Do you know that? Yeah. She’s attracted. But the fact still remains that she isn’t a woman to mess around with.”
She’s attracted. Dante ignored the rest of Jared’s lecture. “I’m out of here. I’ll catch you later.” Dante wanted to get to the youth center before Sarah started playing.
“Dante,” Jared called out to him.
“Yeah.” Dante turned back to Jared impatiently.
“Here’s the key to your truck.”
Dante snatched the set of keys as they went sailing above his head. “Thanks,” he muttered sincerely, happy to get his keys back again. Taking his keys once his truck had arrived in Amesport had been one of his brothers’ many ploys to keep him grounded.
He stopped as he stepped outside, taking a moment to absorb the scent and sound of the ocean. He had his own small beach behind the house, and he loved the sound of the waves hitting the shore. Opening the window every night had become a routine, letting the sounds of the ocean lull him to sleep. Strangely, since his passionate encounter with Sarah, he hadn’t had a single nightmare about Patrick.
He hopped into the driver’s seat of his truck, a sense of peace washing over him just from doing something normal again. Evan had made sure his truck was transported to Amesport, an act that Dante had thought was unnecessary at the time. It wasn’t like he wasn’t going back to Los Angeles, and he could have rented a car. Now he was sending a silent thank-you to his eldest brother. The familiar feel of the big truck and the scent of the leather interior made him feel almost balanced again. “I owe you one, big brother,” Dante whispered to himself, smiling as he felt the powerful engine jump to life.
Evan, at the age of thirty-three, was definitely the one who handled details like bringing Dante’s truck to Amesport. He always knew what his younger siblings needed. Grady had just turned thirty-two. Dante was thirty-one, and Jared was the youngest male in the family, almost thirty. Their little sister, Hope, wasn’t so little anymore, just having turned twenty-seven, and newly married to Jason Sutherland, a childhood friend of Grady’s. Actually, Jason was a friend of the family because he’d grown up near their childhood home in Boston, but had come precariously close to getting the shit beat out of him by all the Sinclair brothers after the stunt he’d pulled to make Hope his wife. Luckily, it had ended well, because Jason handled both Dante’s portfolio and Grady’s, making sure both brothers continued to grow wealthier every day. Admittedly, Dante didn’t care much about the money. He mostly lived on his salary as a detective and rarely touched the money his father had left him. He’d been pretty stunned when he’d drawn out money to give to Karen and Ben, finally glancing at his balance for the first time in years. He’d been incredibly wealthy when he’d turned his financial management over to Jason years ago, but now he was ridiculously rich.
Taking out the money for Karen and Ben hadn’t even made a dent in his net worth. As much as the money might mean to the future of his deceased partner’s wife and kid, Dante knew that his daily phone calls meant even more to them. The calls had helped him, too. Talking about Patrick, remembering everything good about his best friend, was helping all of them get through the process of grieving. Maybe none of them had gotten to the point of acceptance yet, but every day was getting a little less painful.
He accelerated the truck down his short driveway and swung a left turn to get to the gate leaving the peninsula. Dante had been to the youth center on his previous visits. Knowing Sarah would be there tonight filled him with an unfamiliar anticipation, and he pressed on the accelerator just a little bit harder.
“How were the lessons?” Emily Sinclair asked Sarah curiously, seating herself on the piano bench next to her.
“I think they’re going well,” Sarah answered, happy to see Emily. She’d just finished teaching piano basics to three grade school children, and although she loved doing it, she could use some adult conversation. “The class started with ten kids, and it’s finishing with only three, but they’re dedicated.” Sarah just taught the basics to get kids interested in music. “I think the three who are left are going to go on and take lessons, so that’s something.”
“It’s fantastic,” Emily replied enthusiastically. “You’re amazing for volunteering to do this.”
“I’m just trying to pay back for the use of this incredible piano.” Sarah ran her hands lovingly over the keys of the baby grand.
“It’s here for the public to use,” Emily argued. “After Grady ordered it, I was thrilled that somebody could actually play it.”
Sarah laughed, thinking about the illogical fact that Grady had ordered a piano like this and didn’t even know if anyone in Amesport could play it. There were a few very good adult piano players in the town, but most of them had their own instruments.
“Jared told Grady that he saw you making out with Dante. Are you two an item?” Emily asked in a hushed, secretive voice.
Damn! The one thing I didn’t want to get around town already has gotten around.
“Please don’t say anything.” Sarah looked at the vivacious blonde next to her, hoping the fact that she had been taking advantage of an injured guy on pain drugs hadn’t gotten much further than the Sinclair family. She didn’t understand how she had lost all reasoning that night, but she was still plagued by guilt over the incident.
“Nobody knows,” Emily replied in a low voice, almost a whisper. “Jared and Grady would never tell anyone except family, but Grady’s not crazy about the fact that Dante was getting hot and heavy with you. He’s afraid Dante’s taking advantage. What happened? I heard you got hurt at Dante’s house, and Grady wanted to know what to give you to apologize. I’ve been dying to talk to you for days, but we’ve both been so busy this week.”
Sarah sighed, wondering if she should tell Emily that she’d actually been ravaging her brother-in-law while he was under the influence of pain meds. “Our first meeting didn’t go very well. He was being a self-destructive jackass, and he broke a glass by accident. The cut I got was no big deal, but I told him off. He showed up later that night at my house with lobster rolls and an apology. He was a little buzzed on pain meds. He kissed me. It was no big deal, Emily. He was stoned on legal medication. I’m sure it’s something he wouldn’t normally do. After that, we’ve been very professional. Everything’s fine.” Well, everything except for the fact that I still lust over him every time I look at him. Dante had started a flame that she couldn’t seem to extinguish.
Emily shot Sarah a doubtful look. “I don’t think a few pills motivated his behavior. There has to be sexual chemistry.”
Oh, God. There were those words again. Lust? Sexual attraction? Sexual chemistry? Does it really matter? The fact is . . . I do feel something.
She couldn’t deny it. “For me there was,” Sarah admitted reluctantly. “But it can’t happen again. He’s my patient, and what happened wasn’t professional.”
Emily’s delighted laugh floated through the music room of the youth center. “I went to Grady on business, seeking a donation from him. I ended up kissing him, too, even though I was there for a bus
iness transaction. Some attractions are impossible to deny. I know you. If you kissed him, you think he’s incredibly hot.”
More than hot. I think Dante is like a white flame, the hottest possible fire.
“I got caught up in the moment. That’s all it was,” Sarah said nervously, not wanting to admit to anyone that she found Dante Sinclair much more than just attractive. She had been drawn to him, craving him so desperately that her mind had let go of all rational thought, and she hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything except the feel of his touch.
For just a few moments, she’d felt completely connected to him, and her loneliness had fled. Experiencing something like that had been a powerful aphrodisiac.
“The senior bingo crowd is coming. Meet me later this week for coffee?” Emily stood, giving Sarah a questioning look.
Sarah watched as the chairs in the room filled up. There were several rows available, and they were rapidly being occupied. Playing before the weekly senior bingo session had become a habit, and she didn’t mind playing for anyone who loved music. She’d studied music since she was a child and had done more piano recitals than she could count. The ritual had started months ago by accident, when she had been playing for pleasure after her volunteer lesson for the kids. The seniors who had arrived early for bingo had started wandering in to listen before the bingo session started. After that, it happened every single week, seniors showing up in the music room a half hour before bingo to listen to her play before they went to the gymnasium where the bingo session was held.
“Brew Magic on Friday?” Sarah suggested. “After work?” She loved her girl chats with Emily, but she had a feeling this week she might be squirming. Emily could be as bad as Elsie when she wanted information.
“I’ll be there. I want to hear the whole story,” Emily warned her with a wink before she left the room to attend to her duties as director of the youth center.
“There’s no story to tell,” Sarah whispered softly to herself. It had all been a terrible mistake, an incident that should never have happened. She felt guilty, knowing she should have sent Dante home the moment he’d arrived, but she didn’t. It wasn’t just the lobster rolls or his attempt to say he was sorry. It was the man himself. Something about Dante Sinclair fascinated her, and she wanted to unravel him piece by piece to figure out exactly how his mind worked. Maybe it would give her some clue as to why she was so unnaturally drawn to him.
Needing a distraction, Sarah started to play. She didn’t need to see sheet music. She could play almost anything by heart, having played most classical piano pieces hundreds of times.
She started with Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor. It was one of her favorite classical pieces, the composer leaving so much of the arrangement open to the interpretation of the player. Losing herself in the melodic bass lines, she allowed herself to express her passion in the music, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she poured every emotion she’d been feeling throughout the week into her playing. This was her emotional outlet, the one activity where she felt safe letting go of intellect and reasoning to just . . . feel. Every emotion was woven into the music: sorrow, joy, confusion, disappointment, guilt, and pain. Finally finishing the piece to a round of applause from her small audience, Sarah started right in on another, Franz Liszt’s “La Campanella.” It was a livelier composition, and one that had never failed to make her heart a little lighter after performing it. She finished with gusto, panting as she struck the last chord. Standing to thank her elderly audience, she startled as she saw Dante and Jared Sinclair sitting in the crowd.
The two Sinclair brothers were hard to miss. They were the youngest listeners, their darker hair standing out among a sea of mostly silver-haired ladies. Her gaze locked with Dante’s, his expression fierce and his eyes so hungry that he looked like a predator that had finally found some desirable prey. Dante’s stare was so intense that Sarah couldn’t pull her gaze away. She wasn’t even entirely certain how long she stayed like that, frozen, her eyes captured by his, before the others in the room started making musical requests. Finally, Sarah jerked away from the fixed stare and nodded hesitantly when someone asked her to play a particular tune. She sat back down again and played for the next fifteen minutes, waiting for the next request before she started to play again, keeping her focus on the gleaming wood in front of her.
I can feel his eyes on me and the tension between us from here.
Sarah’s hands were shaking when the last song was finally complete and the bingo crowd started filing out of the room, all of them smiling and telling her how beautifully she played before they left.
“You’re incredible. I’ve never heard Rachmaninoff interpreted quite that way. It was very beautiful and incredibly eloquent,” Jared Sinclair commented as he approached her. “That was the most pleasurable half hour I’ve spent anywhere in a long time.”
Sarah smiled at him despite the fact that he’d spilled her secret. His tone was genuine and the praise obviously sincere. There was nothing more satisfying than knowing she’d made someone’s day a little brighter with music. “Thanks. You like classical?”
“I do,” Jared admitted. “I’ve heard some of the best pianists in the world, but your playing is outstanding. I’m surprised you never pursued a musical career.”
Sarah stood and carefully pushed the bench in closer to the piano. “I don’t think I’d enjoy it as much if it became an actual job.” She couldn’t imagine playing for a living, having her music become a duty that she had to do on a schedule. It wouldn’t be the same.
“Thank you for sharing your talent,” Jared replied, his tone genuine as he grinned at her before walking slowly out of the room.
“You’re welcome,” she called after him as she stepped down from the elevated platform where the piano was situated, grabbing her purse from the floor as she went.
Her head swung to the right as she noticed that the room wasn’t entirely empty. Dante Sinclair hadn’t moved from his chair, and his expression was still as focused as it had been earlier.
“I need to lock the room up,” Sarah told him as calmly as possible, her heart beginning to race as he stood.
“We need to talk,” Dante told her in a graveled, demanding voice.
He sounded like a man who wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
CHAPTER 6
Mine!
Dante’s entire body was wired up and tense, his instincts pounding at him to take Sarah away somewhere and satiate her until she couldn’t think straight anymore. She was dressed in a pair of blue-and-yellow-striped shorts and a short-sleeved matching blue shirt. The shorts were long, almost to her knees, and weren’t meant to be provocative, but on her, they were sexy as hell. Even the innocent, shiny pink polish on her toenails that peeked out from a pair of casual sandals made his dick hard.
He hadn’t just listened to her play the piano; he had felt her. Underneath her logical, analytical exterior was a woman of fire and passion. Yeah. He’d already known that, but he hadn’t realized just how raw those emotions really were. He’d watched her face the entire time he’d been listening to her pour her heart into her music, and it had leveled him, leaving him completely destroyed. He could feel her need just like it was his own, and the sensations hadn’t stopped when the music had ceased. Dante could still feel that sense of longing, and he knew that he was exuding it just as much as Sarah was. Tension flowed in the space between them like an electric current, and his cock was so hard that he was barely able to suppress the need to touch her, to somehow claim her. Even watching her smile at Jared had nearly killed him. He didn’t want another man near her, especially when she was vulnerable. Was it just him who could see that she wore every emotion close to the surface when she was playing?
“Let’s go take a walk,” Dante suggested, gritting his teeth to keep from suggesting what he really wanted: let’s go home and fuck until neither one of us can move. He moved close to her and took her hand, guiding her out of the room.
/> “Wait. I need to lock up, and I have to go pick up Coco,” she told him nervously.
He waited impatiently as she locked the door to the music room, following her as she dropped the key in a box near the front entrance, and then detoured to the gymnasium to peek into the bingo games. “Randi must have her,” Sarah murmured, moving to another room and cracking the door to look inside.
Dante breathed a sigh of relief as Sarah opened the door wider and he saw the room contained only one petite, dark-haired woman and a couple of kids. Randy was Randi, and she was a female.
“Hey, Randi. I just wanted to get Coco out of your way,” Sarah said, her eyes landing on the dog the woman was holding in her lap.
“She’s never a bother. You know I love her. I’d steal her away from you if I thought I could get away with it.” The woman rose from her seat and placed Coco on the floor. “And the kids love her. It took a while to get down to doing their homework.” She leaned around Sarah’s body. “Who’s this?”
“Dante Sinclair, meet Miranda Tyler. She’s a local teacher and a very good friend of Emily’s,” Sarah told him as she scooted from her place between them so he could see Randi.
Dante smiled at the brunette and held out his hand. “We’ve actually met. She was the maid of honor for Emily at her and Grady’s wedding. It’s good to see you again, Randi.”
“Same here,” Randi answered, taking his hand and shaking it before adding, “I’m sorry about your partner, Dante. And I’m sorry you were hurt. I was relieved to hear that you were doing better.”
“Thanks,” he responded quietly, uncomfortable because he wasn’t quite used to talking about Patrick actually being dead. He didn’t know Randi very well, but from what little he’d seen of her at Grady’s wedding, she seemed like a nice enough woman.
Sarah pulled a leash from her purse and attached it to Coco’s collar. “Emily and I are meeting at Brew Magic after work on Friday if you’d like to come.”
