“Probably just hungry,” his shaking hands managed to find the tip of the zipper and reluctantly pulled it up. His knuckles brushed against her jagged tattoo. “I noticed these before, what is it?”
“Wings,” Harley turned her head slightly, her long lashes batted as she explained, “angel wings.”
“Your artist did a poor job.”
“You prefer a map of the world or a patriotic bird?”
Dante tugged at her zipper encouraging her to continue.
“They’re wings trying to come out. You know, deep down inside I can be an angel.”
Who did she need to remind? The little bit of history did something to the blood coursing through his veins. Everything stiffened. Whose big idea was it to go out?
“So what are you in the mood for?” She turned in his arms, her dark eyes looking toward him.
The curls of her long hair touched and brushed against his thumbs as she spun in his arms. The way his hands rested at the curve of her waist felt natural. He hadn’t realized she was wearing makeup until he noticed her eyelashes extending further out than normal. He realized she barely wore make up. Rarely did he have to wipe the waxy leftover lipstick after they’d kissed. His erection strained against his jeans at her loaded question.
Dante met her gaze with a raised eyebrow. She pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes. “Okay-okay. I figured since we’re here we should enjoy this place called Ignacio’s.”
It was Harley’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You need a reservation.”
Since coming to Villa San Juan on and off again with his crew to furlough, Dante had come to know a lot of the sights and best places to go. Ignacio was practically an uncle to him. “We’ll be okay.”
“I’m not sure you can afford it on your FBI salary. Seriously, we can order in and hang out here.” Harley pressed her hand against his chest subconsciously over his heart. Something about the way she batted her eyes. He couldn’t eat or think. Well, he thought about a few things and ways to get her into bed.
“Let’s go before I change my mind.”
****
“So you’re friends with the owner,” Harley’s grin spread across her face with unspoken sarcasm as she turned her cheek toward his while he pulled out his chair for her.
“You’d rather be in line waiting?” Sitting across the white linen table from her, Dante smoothed his shirt down and played with the fork and spoon. Was he nervous? What was wrong with him? He dated plenty of people in his time and did not care about impressing them. With Harley, he wanted her to picture him as one of the good guys, someone she could trust.
“Did you play a lot of sports growing up? I hear some men get addicted to ah,” her index finger played with the stem of her water glass, “competition?”
Dante relaxed a little at the sight of her genuine smile. “Babe, you’re just now noticing?”
“Besides your cocky ego?”
He shrugged, placing his elbows on the table. His Nonni raised him with better manners. “I never had anything to be insecure about, well, until I met you.”
Harley teased him gasping and clutching her heart. Dante felt a rush of jealousy over her hand. Her golden skin against the black material beckoned to be touched.
“You’re surprised? I’ve never met a woman who couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Every time I leave a room, you take off.”
“In my defense of the last time,” Harley laughed. “We needed to get to Hannah and couldn’t wait for you to get dressed.”
“And the first time you ditched me?”
She pressed her lips together and looked away. Over the candlelight he watched her golden cheeks turn a shade of red. The live band began to play a salsa beat. Couples left their tables and filled the floors. Harley’s shoulders swayed to the beat.
“I did not do a good job at ditching you since you were able to carjack me,” she said looking back at him. Whether she realized it or not, her shoulders shimmied and her breasts jiggled.
Dante tried not to stare too hard. “Care to dance?”
“You can salsa?”
“I might be Italian, but I’m every bit as Latino as possible.” He held his hand for her to take.
She folded her arms over her chest and sat back in her seat. “Maybe later. Tell me more about how you’re possibly Latino.”
“My friends, Tito and Roman.”
“Roman is the one who pops up almost as much as Tai,” she interjected, “he’s a Torres?”
“Yeah, and he’s from here. After working together for so long, we’re like brothers.”
“At the FBI?” she added.
“Yeah, we’ve worked together so long, I’ve picked up on things. Plus, I have a place in Washington Heights.”
The bachelor place in the Heights became more of a bachelor pad for the guys on the team in the dog house with their significant others. Some went down south to their partner Jerraud’s place, especially after he rebuilt his houseboat after an explosion a few years back. Their jobs with the bureau did not allow them much time to lay roots. A well-paid maid came once or twice a month to keep quiet and keep the three bedroom apartments clean. Cole and Rosalind shared a place in Southwood on the Georgia/Florida line. The team loved crashing the family. They all got along well with Rosalind and their daughter Jane. Jane was old enough to babysit. Dante let out an audible sigh and shook his head wondering why the idea of children entered his head.
“So when I told you all about Villa San Juan, you’d already been here?”
The corners of his mouth jerked back being caught in a lie.
“You are such a liar,” Harley rolled her eyes.
“What’s with you and liars?”
Harley shrugged her shoulders and looked away briefly. “I guess in that sense I am just like any other girl.”
“Not a chance.”
“I don’t want to be lied to,” she said flatly.
The table next to them received their food, something sizzling. He became aware of the room around them even more. All the other couples sat pretty much nose-to-nose and smiled into each other’s eyes. Here they sat with an argument surfacing. Dante gulped. “So, some guy lies to you and I pay the penalty?”
Harley raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. If she had lasers he might have been cut in half. “Are you saying you’re trustworthy?”
“I keep coming to find you after your ass keeps disappearing on me,” Dante flashed a smile, “that has to account for something?”
“Sure, stalker.” Harley retaliated with a dazzling smile of her own.
“Man,” he sighed, “I’ve never had to work so hard to get a woman. You have to realize this is a first for me. I usually have women eating out of the palms of my hands.”
“So find one of them,” she shrugged her shoulders.
Ouch, he winced inside. “You’re cold, you know that?”
“Perhaps,” the corners of her eyes softened. “Okay, so you grew up in Brooklyn but you joined the military? Why?”
“I got tired of my dad beating on me. My mother used to send me down to her sister’s place to get away from him.”
“Chet’s?”
“Yeah. I’m surprised I never met you before on the summers I came.”
“Summers I was here,” Harley half smiled. “So why’d you stop coming?”
Dante shrugged his shoulders, “When my sister died, mom sort of died soon after. I was too old for the summer visits and too broke for college. The Marines seemed the logical choice for me.”
“I’m sorry your dad beat you.”
“I survived.”
“Is he still alive?”
Dante inhaled and thought about his folks. When Allegra died, he turned his back on his father. What was the point of establishing a relationship with a man he didn’t respect? “Last I heard he was in a retirement home.”
“Last you heard?”
He shrugged his shoulders again, “How often do you talk to your parents? I saw your fr
idge. There were more pictures of Hannah than anyone else in your family.” He watched her throat bob up and down as she swallowed.
“That’s different.”
Their waiter came over and brandished them with a plate of red snapper ceviche on a homemade cracker. Ignacio had to be the best chef he’d ever met in his life; however, when he bit into the red sauce, his mouth burned with fire. Trying to play it cool, Dante reached for his water. “How so?” he asked over the glass of water.
A crinkle appeared at the corner of Harley’s eyes as she took a bite and shared the same heated sensation from the appetizer. “My folks are retired and living in Puerto Rico.”
The way she handled the heat with such cool and ease turned him on. Dante shifted in his seat and took another sip of water. “No phones there? How are you going to tell them about their beach house?”
“They know.”
“You talked to them?”
Harley shook her head. A curl slipped from her hair piled on top of her head. Would it be strange if he reached across and sank his fingers in? “I got an earful from my sister, Jennifer.”
“You frowned when you said her name.”
“We’re not close. She considers me the fuck-up in the family ever since I came into this world. My folks were ready to retire, both kids out of the house when I was born.”
“So, what is the age difference?”
Harley bit her bottom lip gently to think for a moment. “Let’s see, Jenny was twenty when I was born and Anthony nineteen.”
The picture on her refrigerator entered his mind. He’d thought her parents had looked older. “So your folks were older?”
“Eh, I didn’t make things easy and I was constantly reminded about what a little devil I was.” Her left shoulder shrugged, clearly an issue she’d worked out over time.
“I get it, your angel wings trying to come out of your shoulders?” He asked with a raised brow. “What was hard about having older siblings?”
“My brother, Anthony and his girlfriend, Felicia made life easier always pretending I was their kid. They’d counter every time Jenny tried to remind me of my devilishness.”
“Did anyone question it?”
She shook her head and gave a sly smile that sent his blood racing. Why did they come here in public to eat? All he wanted to do was clear the table and make love to her right here.
“And your sister? You guys never tried to work things out?”
“We were never close. She didn’t like me so I didn’t like her. And I told on her all the time.”
“You were a tattle tale?”
“Certain things would slip out. Growing up, our dad insisted Jenny live at home until she married, she snuck out a lot. Anthony used to bribe me with candy to keep quiet about things.”
“And Jenny didn’t?” Dante asked, enjoying the image of a bratty Harley. Even as she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, he loved it. “So I guess I can understand how the two of you did not see eye to eye.”
“You’d think with our age difference, she’d get over it,” Harley shrugged. “I’ve accepted we’ll never be close. Definitely not as you and your sister, Allegra.”
Unlike the way Harley frowned at the sound of her sister’s name, Dante’s love for his sister rose in his throat. He gulped and smiled. “We were the best of friends, considering our age difference.”
“Who was older?”
Dante enjoyed the bond building between them. She shared her family story, now he needed to do the same. She needed to understand. The only other people who knew about Allegra were folks with whom he fought terrorists.
“She was,” Dante sighed at the image of Allegra coming to pick him up from school when she returned from college, at least that’s where he thought she’d been. “She died because of Leonardo.”
Harley set her drink down, her attention, which he hadn’t realized had been slightly glancing about the dance floor, turned toward his. “What?” She cocked her head to the side, her eyebrow rose in question.
“What happened to Javier’s brother,” he chuckled bitterly. Over the years he’d learned to control his anger over the loss of his sister. “Leonardo’s first victim was my sister.”
“They knew each other?”
Subconsciously or not, Harley reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. He allowed the gentle gesture. “She knew his father well. Leonardo did not like it because she posed a threat to the organization, so he got rid of her but not before chipping away at her flesh. Remember the slice marks on the body?”
“Geez Dante,” Harley, still holding his hand, sat back. Disbelief struck her mouth. The red lipstick stood out against her white teeth as she mouthed words to form. “You can’t be on this case.”
Dante pulled his hand back. “What?”
“You’re FBI, right?”
He sat up straighter. “What the fuck?”
“You’re too close to this case. FBI one-o-one,” she raised an eyebrow. “Right?”
“I’m doing this on my own.”
“So you’re a rogue agent?”
The tension between them needed to be lightened. Women liked to cause a public scene when pissed off. This was why he liked to spend his time with them in bed where he could fuck them into submission. He couldn’t do so with Harley. She was still different. He knew a good lay would not make her feel better. It might take her mind off things for a while but she’d be right at it. Dante wiggled his eyebrows, “Doesn’t it attract you to me?”
“I’m attracted to you?” she asked, her brow rose for a moment before she rolled her eyes. “I don’t recall saying those words, but I am growing tired of you lying to me.”
“More of an omission of the truth.”
“As it was the other night when you tricked me into marrying you and the bottom line is, I hate liars.”
Dante didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “You know, you weren’t so inebriated you couldn’t say no. Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here.”
Harley gaped at him. The waiter came with their food. She pushed her plate away the moment the waiter left. “That’s not fair. I said yes because I was distracted with my niece.”
“I was distracted by your niece too,” he admitted, “I needed to get your phone.”
“And a piece of ass on the way was icing on the cake.”
“I recall you being equally satisfied, so what’s the big deal?” Dante forked his pork roast. Typically he enjoyed all his meals from Ignacio’s. Tonight he was having a bit of trouble chewing. It didn’t settle right that he kept lying to her. Telling her the truth risked more of a chance of losing her.
He half expected Harley to fold her arms across her chest and pout; instead her hand fingered the knife before her. Red fingernails curled under the silver. Damn, he did tell her no weapons tonight. Not that he would shoot her but having his weapon might make him feel a little less vulnerable.
“Mind if I take your lady for a spin?”
Ignacio Torres, owner of the fine establishment swooped in and perhaps saved Dante’s life, all with the flick of his wrist. Harley hesitantly looked across the table at him, and then decided to kill him later, after she danced with the old man.
****
Ignacio Torres, the knight in chef’s pants, came at the nick of time and swooped her onto the dance floor. Each salsa spin she watched Dante enjoy watching her on the floor.
“It took me a few minutes to remember where I knew you from,” Ignacio said. His hips gyrated toward her.
The fast Latin beat of the live band drowned out Harley’s inner screams. Her eyes opened wide and when their palms touched to spin, she gulped. “How did you know?”
Ignacio Torres, of the Torres’s—as in the Torres’s who founded Villa San Juan—gave a little smile and a sympathetic nod of his head. “I couldn’t put my finger on where I knew you from until you batted your eyes at Dante. I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Harley offered a weak smile, �
��My memories of this place weren’t too fond.”
“You let my sister scare you away.”
“No,” her eyes scanned the restaurant toward the men’s room where Dante excused himself. “I didn’t belong here.”
“Nonsense.” Ignacio reached for Harley’s hand and spun her around. “You belong here as much as anyone else. Does he know you’re back?”
A dagger stabbed her heart. She pushed Ignacio’s questions out of her mind and focused on her so-called husband. Dante headed off for some alone time, probably to figure out how to tell her the truth and she danced here like a hypocrite. She hated to admit it but, until the close connection between him and Leonardo, tonight’s date had gone swell. They’d gotten to learn more about each other. He loved his sister. Was she being too judgmental? She was in Villa San Juan in pursuit of Javier, but that was more justifiable because Javier was her niece’s fiancé.
“Harley?”
Harley blinked back to Ignacio. She smiled, realizing she’d zoned out thinking about an ex, whom she’d known for years, but never wanted her, compared to how she barely knew Dante, yet he wanted to spend forever with her.
It sounded crazy, but Dante was crazy.
Cutting her eyes back through the restaurant, Harley spotted a familiar sight causing her heart to flop into the pit of her stomach. The geek squad from Christopher Alfaro’s group entered the restaurant. She was positive it was him. His face cut into her memory after staring at him praying his gizmo wouldn’t give her true identity away. With three hours drive between Villa San Juan and Little Mexico, Harley didn’t believe in coincidences.
“No, he doesn’t, Ignacio,” said Harley, “and I’d like to keep it that way. If you don’t mind, I need to get back to my husband.” She flashed her ring finger with a smile. Ignacio nodded with admiration and let her go.
Harley’s glare aimed toward the bathroom door where Dante stood, unarmed.
“Would you like dessert, ma’am?” asked the tuxedo-clad waiter, “Shall I wait for your husband?”
“What?” Harley whipped her head around to the man standing in front of her. “I’m sorry, no, no dessert.” Her body weaved to get a better view of the henchman; he disappeared but not quite to the men’s bathroom. The coat room. Not that Villa San Juan needed a coat room, the city’s temperature never dipped below seventy.
Mr. and Mrs. Rossi Page 13
