Chapter 7 #2
He held her close through the slow song. “Rocco and I talked.”
Daisy looked up at him in surprise, clearly hopeful that he and his brother had worked things out, which touched him in ways he hadn’t known he could be touched.
He nodded. “We’re going to be okay.” He paused. “He wants me to stay in San Francisco and help him run The Canvas Shop. I could also get a job with Jake at the marina.”
Her gaze briefly skittered away. “Is that something you’d want to do? Stay?”
“Would you want me to?” he asked and found himself holding his breath.
She stared at him for a long beat, her eyes saying yes, which had him breathing again. Until she spoke, her tone not matching her eyes. “That’s…a lot of pressure,” she said quietly. “I’d never ask anyone to move because of me.”
Not what he’d wanted to hear, but what had he expected? He’d hurt her, she wouldn’t want to take another chance on him.
When the song ended, he lowered his head and kissed her without thought. It was simply like drawing in air. When she moaned and pressed closer, he deepened the embrace, not breaking away until the music revved up again and they were bumped from all sides by people dancing.
“We should get going,” she said. “To check out the next band.”
Right. The next venue was another restaurant and bar in the Castro district. They walked up the rainbow-colored sidewalks and into the place that smelled so delicious they ordered food.
Over a pile of hors d’oeuvres, they dug in. Diego worked his way through a stack of wings and pizza chips and was headed for the queso when Daisy spoke and had him stilling.
“This is nice.”
“It is,” he said. “But last night you were reluctant to go there with me again.”
“I know. I know I must seem like an emotional see-saw, and I don’t mean to be making you dizzy with it. I just couldn’t see how this could ever work out between us.”
“And…something changed that?” he asked and then held his breath.
“I decided I would regret not even being willing to try.”
Her words both revved him up and also calmed his heart. “Me, too,” he said quietly.
She was playing with the condensation on her glass. When he’d picked her up earlier, she’d had that polished, professional, can’t-touch-this look about her, and that had been hot as hell.
But she’d been dancing and had imbibed a bit. She was flushed. She’d let her hair down, and it was wild around her face. She stared at his mouth in a way that made him want to do a whole bunch of really wicked things to her.
This band was even better than the first, and Daisy looked happy and relaxed and sexy as hell, and Diego had no idea how he was going to let her walk away from him again.
“Dance with me,” she demanded softly, letting her gaze travel the length of him. At whatever she saw, she smiled and stood. Then she pulled him up, and with her hands on his chest, shimmied close to him.
She was going to be the death of him.
But he let her draw him out onto the dance floor, where she slowly slid her hands up his biceps and wound her arms around his neck, all while wriggling the sexy, hot bod that fulfilled his every fantasy.
With a low groan, he yanked her roughly into him and let his fingers slowly trail down her back, his hand cupping her ass to press her closer.
With a gasp, she met his gaze. “You want me,” she breathed.
“Yeah, but what I want, I can’t have. At least not on this dance floor.”
She bit her lower lip and kept moving against him, practically glowing as if it were her greatest wish to drive him as insane with lust as he could possibly get.
Mission accomplished.
But two could play this game. Eyes locked, he dragged his hand up from the curve of her ass, his fingers scoring lightly up her back to tangle in her hair.
With a gentle tug, her throat was exposed, and his mouth instantly covered the curve between her shoulder and neck.
His other hand rested lightly on her hip as he started moving slowly in time with the driving bass of the music.
She moaned low in her throat and closed her eyes.
The lights above them blinked and changed color to the beat of the band.
Diego couldn’t have said what the song was, whether it was fast or slow.
He couldn’t have said how many people were on the dance floor.
Hell, he couldn’t recall his own full name.
Because when she looked at him like she was, her eyes hot and dark, he could think of nothing at all.
“Diego?” she whispered.
“Yeah, babe?”
“Take me home.”
He couldn’t get her out of there fast enough, grabbing her hand, tugging her toward the dimly lit exit. Snippets of muffled conversations reached him, the vibrations of the music as they exited out into the night.
“Home as in your place, or the boat?” he asked when he had them on the road.
“Most definitely the boat,” Daisy said in his ear, a move that gave him the very best kind of shiver down his spine.
Twenty minutes later, they were walking down the marina dock towards his vessel. He was holding her hand because though the docks were lit, it was still tricky going at night. His body was on high alert, feeling tight and achy and anticipatory.
Given the way Daisy was breathing, she felt the same.
She stopped walking and turned to him. “Diego?”
“Yeah?”
“I lied before.”
He stilled. “When?”
“When you asked me if I wanted you to stay, and I said that it was too much pressure. That was the lie. I want you to stay.”