by Lori Wilde
“Oh,” he said, a smug smile curling up his lips. “I beg to differ. Last night you—”
“Last night was very out of character for me,” she interrupted. “I don’t act like that.”
“What was so different about last night?”
You, she wanted to say but didn’t. “I wasn’t feeling quite like myself.”
Dante leaned forward, his head turned, eyes intent on her face. “What did you feel like?”
“Loose, relaxed, as if I wasn’t even in my own skin.” Thinking back on it, she had been feeling very odd and it was difficult to articulate what she’d felt.
“Anything else?”
The way he was looking at her made her think about the way her father used to interrogate her when she dared to break curfew, which hadn’t happened but once or twice. One grilling by Tom Kingston Sr. was more than enough for any teenaged girl. It was unsettling and she was tempted not to answer Dante, but she found herself saying, “I had a cosmo. It tasted weird so I didn’t drink all of it, but—”
A frantic hissing sound erupted from the stove, interrupting her.
“Oops, oops, the egg water is boiling over,” she said, tearing her gaze from his and diving for the stove.
In her rush, Elle lost her balance and Dante thrust out an arm to catch her before she fell. He snapped the fire off underneath the eggs with one hand, while wrapping the other arm around her waist.
The man had amazing reflexes.
Her breasts skimmed his biceps. Her cotton V-neck T had risen up in the process and his hand flattened against her bare belly.
It felt as if everything was moving in slow motion as he pulled her back to her feet.
“Whoa there,” he said, his mouth dangerously close to her ear.
Her stomach rippled. Her nipples hardened. She didn’t want this reaction—or hell, maybe she did. The pleasure of his touch was undeniable. Maybe he was a potato chip, too—you couldn’t be satisfied with just one.
After what seemed an eternity but was in reality mere seconds, he let go of her belly to slide his palm around to the small of her back and turned her to face him.
She wished he would stop touching her.
Or maybe she was kidding herself because all at once she was leaning against him for support, her eyes glued on his lips. The very same intoxicating lips that had driven her crazy with desire the night before.
This was completely nuts. There was nothing erotic about standing in her kitchen making potato salad.
But she wanted him to kiss her again.
His head was lowered and his hand was at her back and she was looking up at him—waiting.
Her eyes shuttered closed as she thought about the pressure of his lips on hers, hungering for the sensation that had so captivated her in Pete Russell’s pool room.
Insanity.
Stop this, Elle.
Okay, it might be insane, but the truth of it was she liked his touch, ached to feel his arms around her again, and yearned to have his mouth back on hers. She wanted him to hold her and kiss her and never let her go.
“Elle?”
She opened her eyes, breaking the mental trap she’d fallen into. He met her gaze. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Fine, great, never better.”
“You had a funny look on your face.”
“Did I?” she said faintly.
“You did,” he confirmed.
“I was thinking about Vanessa and what’s going on over at the hospital.”
“I think you’re a liar.” He shifted closer and the movement spiked her pulse. “But a very sexy one.”
His lips were mere inches away and getting closer with each erratic strum of her heart.
He was staring so hard at her mouth and the blood was pumping through her veins and his hand was hot against her skin. His eyes narrowed in a sexy, somnolent expression that she couldn’t resist edging the tiniest bit closer to him.
“I think you were thinking about this,” he murmured, and then he gave her what she’d been yearning for.
The full brunt of his lips.
Dante’s mouth tasted like golden, star-dusted honey and she instantly forgot everything else. He branded her with his fevered tongue, blistering her with the heat of his rising passion.
Elle’s heart plunged, tripping her pulse in a frantic rhythm of stimulus and response. Dreamily, she sighed against his mouth. She’d been craving this all morning and she hadn’t even realized it until now.
A scorching heat flashed through her, incinerating everything in its path—her tongue, her throat, her chest and beyond. She burned from the glorious pressure of his lips.
Burned for him.
No one else’s kiss had ever affected her like this. Certainly not Mark’s, not even in the early days. This craving Dante stirred in her was new and different and scary as hell.
Dante’s kiss took her breath, took her brain, took every ounce of resistance she possessed.
The scrape of his beard stubble against her tender skin only added to the erotic sensations he stirred inside her. Naked need erupted from him into her and spun a silken web of magic that went far beyond the mere joining of their lips.
She was ready to throw in the towel on her self-control and push him to the bedroom, and then Dante pulled away.
“To be continued,” he murmured. “We’ve got to get these potatoes on to boil if we’re going to make it to the park by your one-hour deadline.”
Forty minutes later, the potato salad was made, packaged in Tupperware and Dante had already washed up the pans, cutting board and utensils he’d used.
“That is awesome potato salad. My mother is going to be so jealous,” Elle said after she’d spooned a bite of it into her mouth. “Who knew that you were so much more than a pretty face? He cooks, he cleans, he operates. I still can’t figure out why you’re single.”
He didn’t comment, just put the potato salad in the plastic bag she’d got out of the pantry for him. “Let’s roll,” he said, reached for her hand and led her to the door.
His palm was warm and his grip firm. Holding hands with him felt way too intimate. Holding hands was something sweethearts did and they definitely were not sweethearts. She tried discreetly to pull her hand from his, but he stubbornly held on tight. Her stomach did that strange loopy thing, and she felt at once both panicked and disarmed.
He took an extra helmet from his motorcycle saddlebags and stowed the potato salad in the spot where the helmet had been.
“Here you go,” he said and settled the helmet on her head. She pulled it down tight and then he reached over to click the snap closed beneath her chin.
He swung one leg over the bike, got it started and then held his hand out to help her astride. She sank down onto the thick leather seat behind him, her heart strumming.
Once she was set, he took off. Elle let out an involuntary squeal of delight. He zoomed through traffic, headed for Lady Bird Park, which was only a few miles from Elle’s house.
Beneath her clasped hands, she could feel Dante’s six-pack abs rippling when he moved. They took a hairpin curve at a clip that had her holding her breath and tightening her grip around his waist.
“You did that on purpose.” She raised her voice to be heard above the engine noise.
He turned his head toward her, flashed her a grin. “Prove it.”
Her inner thighs were wrapped around his outer thighs, his hard muscles sweetly rigid underneath her soft ones. Her crotch settled flush against his firm butt. She felt all warm and melty inside.
To distract herself from sexy thoughts, Elle stared out across the grassy freeway embankments, which were awash in a sea of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes, as they usually were this time of year in the Texas Hill Country. The wind was cool on her face. The smell of spring hung rich and earthy on the air.
As they neared the exit ramp to the park, Dante slowed the motorcycle and switched on his turn signal.
The look
on her family’s face when they came zooming into the picnic area was priceless.
Her two older brothers, Phillip and Ben, decked out in their softball jerseys, dropped their jaws when they saw Dante’s motorcycle and realized their baby sister was riding on the back.
The park was full of Kingstons who’d taken over five picnic areas—her parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews, three-quarters of them cops. The men in the bunch converged on them, looking as if they had chips on their shoulders and were aching for Dante to knock it off.
Without even thinking, Elle slipped her arm through Dante’s and then immediately wondered why she’d done so. She glanced around at her family, who’d been there for her when Mark had dumped her. They were a loving bunch who always gave her a soft place to land when she fell, and she knew they were only worried about her.
She took a deep breath and put a big smile on her face. “Family, this is Dr. Dante Nash. Dante, the family.”
GETTING FRIENDLY WITH Elle was much easier than Dante had thought it was going to be, especially after their awkwardness the night before at Pete Russell’s house. The woman trusted too easily. She’d let down her guard, let him right into her house, even as she protested their relationship wasn’t a relationship.
Dante knew better. She wanted more—he wanted more, too—and here he was taking advantage of her desires. She excited him as no woman ever had, and that was a scary thing.
But this was the hard part. Getting friendly with her family.
He’d never been good with other people’s families, probably because he’d never been good with his own. There was only him and his father left now, and he hadn’t seen his old man in fifteen years. It was his dad’s choice, not his.
He was an instant hit with Tina, Elle’s mother. The homemade potato salad went a long way in claiming her affections. And to be honest, he really liked the older woman. She was the epitome of the mom he’d never had. Watching her lovingly tend her brood caused something in the center of his chest to shift oddly.
“A man who cooks?” she said, after Elle explained he’d made the side dish. “Don’t let this one get away, daughter.”
Dante’s eyes met Elle’s.
Pink splotches of embarrassment stained her cheeks. Her reaction, along with the unexpected rush of tenderness that assailed him, surprised him.
Her sisters-in-law and female cousins had his attention as they gathered around, asking him about being a surgeon to celebrities. But Elle’s father, brothers, uncles and male cousins were a different matter all together.
If these men knew what he had done to Elle last night, he had no doubt they would clobber him within an inch of his life. They were cops, officers of the law, and as such, they had a strong sense of justice but with a potent protective streak.
Dante didn’t take offense—he understood. He had been equally protective of Leeza.
Glancing around the park, at the picnic tables laden with food, he experienced a sudden, inexplicable sense of loss and alienation. He didn’t belong here, and yet a yearning for this kind of connection to family that he’d never had and had never admitted to wanting tightened his throat.
The delicious smell of mesquite-grilled hamburgers and bratwurst filled the air. Elle’s mother set his potato salad down to join containers of cole slaw, spicy baked beans, corn on the cob and broccoli casserole. Dessert was a bountiful selection of melons, chocolate cake and peanut butter cookies. Three two-gallon ice-cream freezers churned with homemade banana ice cream. There was punch for the kids, sun tea for the adults and iced beer for those in the mood.
Elle, Dante noticed, was in rare form. Playing with the children, laughing at her brothers, girl-talking with her mother, sisters-in-law, aunts and cousins. At work, she was all business, sharp and quick and smart. But here, among her family, he saw just how open and fun loving she could be.
The meal was incredible, the company even more so. And when lunch was over, the conversation turned to the softball tournament.
Not long afterward, Dante found himself wearing a Kingston family jersey and squatting behind home plate in a catcher’s mask. He watched the Kingston clan gleefully gear up to smack the softball around.
He and Elle ended up on opposing teams and her team went first. When it was Elle’s turn at bat, Dante was confronted by a very appealing view.
No matter how hard he tried not to ogle her in front of her father and brothers, he couldn’t stop his gaze from straying over her body. She stood at home plate, her tight little Capri pants clinging provocatively to her hips and thighs as she wiggled her butt, swishing the bat through the air in a couple of warm-up swings. The way her T-shirt molded to her chest made Dante’s mouth run dry. The V-neck scooped low, revealing a spectacular pair of tits. High and round. Not too big, not too small, just right.
Then, for absolutely no reason at all, he stopped abruptly, almost overcome by what he was feeling. Why? What was this all about?
From early childhood, he’d been taught to swallow back his emotions and ignore them in favor of cool-headed logic. Growing up abandoned by his mother and knocked around by his father, Dante had learned to fight, to protect what was his and that the only two feelings a man could rely on were vengeance and anger. The rest led him to places that hurt too damned much.
But suddenly, here he was, feeling a simple yearning that resonated all the way into his bones. A yearning born of years of denying the things he really wanted but never thought he could have.
A home. A family. Love.
It was a dangerous dream.
The idea of it sliced him up inside.
His gaze tracked back to Elle, who’d got a hit and was running toward first base. Her auburn curls were flying in the breeze, her breasts bouncing prettily as she ran against the backdrop of a bright blue spring sky, red dirt and green grass. Yellow rays of sunlight splashed her body and he imagined a beatific smile lit up her face.
His heart twisted.
A single glance at her and the power of their chemistry vibrated through him like an electrical pulse. He felt it in his lungs, in his throat, tight around his ankles like shackles, light as a drawn breath, thick as blood.
She must have sensed that his gaze was upon her because when she made it safely to first base, she tossed her head and turned to stare at him.
Dante squeezed his eyes shut and in that pop of difference between the bright noonday sun and the darkness behind his eyelids, he experienced the oddest sensation of falling down a long, black, empty tunnel.
His eyes flew open and he shifted his attention to the pitcher. Elle’s brother Phillip was up to bat.
“You hurt my sister and my brothers and I will cut your balls off,” Phillip said cheerfully.
“What?” Dante asked, startled by the comment.
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She’s vulnerable, on the rebound. Elle’s been through enough with that bastard Mark. She doesn’t need you screwing her over.”
“I’m not going to hurt her.”
“That’s good. Because that thing I said about cutting off your balls? I meant it,” Phillip said, then promptly smacked the softball far into left field.
Dante had no doubt that he did.
As he watched Elle round the bases to third with her older brother hot on her heels, he couldn’t help wishing that he hadn’t just told a big fat lie. No matter how you sliced it, he was going to hurt Elle.
The guilt Dante had been feeling was back, vicious as ever.
Elle was running for home, legs churning in the red sand, auburn curls tumbling about her face. The outfield hurled the ball toward home plate. The Kingston clan who were standing on the sidelines were screaming excitedly.
“Come on, Elle, come on, come on, come on.”
“Tag her out, Dante.”
“You can do it!”
“Get her, get her.”
Elle’s eyes were on his; Dante’s were on hers, not on the ball where they should be. But
then again, her eyes weren’t on home plate, either. Her gaze was on him, fully, completely, and the look was undeniably hungry.
She barreled straight toward him.
In the dugout, her team was jumping up and down, waving their baseball caps and cheering.
His team was rushing forward.
The softball seemed to hang in the sky in what seemed like a slow-motion free fall. Everyone held their collective breaths.
Finally, Dante tore his gaze off Elle and redirected his glove at the ball.
Elle dove, sliding into home plate, red dust flying in the air…just as Dante jumped up and snagged the ball in a midair catch.
“Safe,” screamed Elle’s team.
“She’s out,” hollered Dante’s.
“His feet were off the base when he caught it!”
“You’re wrong.”
Both teams flooded the field, converging on home plate like a swarm of ants. They were all arguing and shouting at once, no one paying the least bit of attention to anyone else, all of them caught up in the excitement and controversy.
Elle was on her back on the ground looking up at him.
Dante loomed over her, the softball clutched tightly in his glove.
Their gazes wed. Neither one of them could look away. She smiled at him so sweetly that Dante had to smile back.
“I warned you,” she said. “My family is very passionate about their softball. You sure you want to get mixed up with a bunch like this?”
Before he could answer, Elle’s father clamped him on the shoulders. “So tell us, Dante, from your point of view, is Ellie in? Or is she out?”
9
DANTE REACHED A HAND down to help Elle up, his big, masculine fingers encircling her wrist. He tugged her to her feet, and then leaned over to brush dirt from the seat of her pants.
The gesture was overly familiar and not at all like something he would normally do, and it lit a fire deep within Elle. She stood before him, unable to look at anything else but him, ignoring the sounds of her family squabbling over the game and the fact that her father was standing right behind Dante.
