21. Faith
CHAPTER 21
Faith
I pushed back from the table. I thought I was full before, but now I felt stuffed tighter than the turkey I’d helped devour hours before.
“Worth the drive?” Dante asked.
“Oh my gosh, yes. I don’t see how you can resist driving down here for dinner every night. Mrs. Bishop, that pie was delicious.”
Meemaw beamed but waved away the compliment. “Some folks like sewin’, some like readin’ the news. My thing’s cookin’. Always has been.” She reached over and rested her hand on Dante’s arm. “I just wish I had someone to cook for more often.”
“I know, I know.” Dante shook his head and stood up from the table. “I don’t get here as often as I should.” He reached in front of me to take my plate, and his hand brushed mine, sending a shiver up my arm.
“Oh honey, I don’t mean nothin’ by that. I just miss you, that’s all.”
“I know, Meemaw.”
“Well, I don’t know about y’all, but I’m just plum tuckered. I’m gonna turn in.” Meemaw stood up from the table and pushed in her chair. “When y’all are ready for bed, Dante, you go ahead and show Faith to your room. The sheets are clean. You can take the couch.”
“But—” I started to protest.
“Don’t try to argue with her. I told you before, it won’t do any good.” Dante pulled Meemaw in for a hug. “Goodnight, old woman.”
She wrapped her arms around him and swatted at his tush. “You be nice now.”
“I’m always nice.” He drew back and smiled at her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
I felt like an intruder, watching the intimate moment between him and his grandmother. This glimpse at his softer side was both intriguing and a little disconcerting. So what if he’s nice to little old ladies? He still wasn’t part of the plan. No distractions.
Meemaw walked down the hall and disappeared through a doorway, closing the door behind her.
“Dante, I?—”
“Look, Faith, I know you’re not used to catering to the whims of a bossy old woman, but she will absolutely skin me alive if she wakes up in the morning and you’re not here.” He dunked the dirty dessert plates in soapy water and scrubbed what little remained of the pecan pie away.
I looked around. “I can’t stay here.”
Dante rinsed and stacked the clean plates in the drying rack. “If she thinks I let you drive home in this, I’ll never hear the end of it. I’m not taking you back to your car. You’ll have to wait till morning. Give the plows a chance to get out on the roads. I’ll follow you home tomorrow.”
I stifled a yawn. Meemaw’s place looked so warm and cozy. The thought of braving the treacherous highways wasn’t appealing. Even I could see it was smarter to stay put for the night. “Okay, fine. But where am I going to sleep?”
We walked into the TV room, and I looked over the choices. A single recliner faced the ancient television set, and a crocheted blanket draped over the back of a small, overstuffed couch.
“You take my bed. I’ll sleep out here,” Dante said.
The thought of sleeping in Dante’s bed sent a wave of heat through me. No, not here. I couldn’t justify succumbing to more “research” at his Meemaw’s house.
I looked him up and down, all six foot plus of him. “You won’t fit on the couch.”
“I’ll be fine. It won’t be the first time I’ve passed out with my feet over the edge. Are you tired? Do you want to watch TV for a while?”
“Sure.” I sat down in one corner of the couch. Dante turned off the overhead light and flopped down on the other side, leaving the middle cushion empty between us. He put his feet up on the coffee table and grabbed the remote.
How did it come to this? If it was some other regular guy sitting next to me, it might almost feel normal. But being in Dante’s grandmother’s house? With the one man who’d managed to get under my skin not even two feet away? It was too surreal. Just act normal. You only have to survive until morning.
“What are you in the mood for?” he asked, flipping through the channels.
Mmm, your fingers deep inside me. Holy crap. Where did that come from? I cleared my throat. Normal starts now.
“Doesn’t matter.” I stretched my arms out and tucked my legs up underneath me. A little bit of tension eased from my body.
“We can always pick up where we left off last week.” He reached over and ran a finger down the outside of my thigh. “Come on, didn’t hanging out at the Senior Center all day, talking about stuffing turkeys and mashing potatoes get you in the mood?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. And don’t you dare start in on the stuffing jokes.”
“Stuffing jokes?” A smug grin spread across his face. “What? Like, I’ve been wanting to stuff you all day?”
I groaned.
“Or how about, baby, I’ve got your stuffing right here?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s awful.”
“Bad, huh?”
“Really bad.”
He crossed the couch and straddled my lap, pinning me to the cushion with one muscular leg on either side of mine. My body immediately revved into hot and bothered mode.
“Enough with the stuffing jokes.” His lips brushed my ear. “I bet there’s some of that homemade whipped cream in the fridge.”
My heart thundered. Dante and whipped cream. I licked my lips, imagining how it would taste if I smeared it all over his amazing body. His tongue rimmed the shell of my ear, making me struggle to remember why this was such a bad idea.
I slid my hands into the back pockets of his jeans, urging him closer.
“You smell so good.” His hands cradled my head, tilting my face up to press his lips to mine.
The blare from the television’s weather alert system pulled my attention away from the amazing things he was doing with his tongue.
“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System…”
I snatched the throw pillow and thumped it against his side. “Get off me. We can’t do this—not in your Meemaw’s house,” I hissed. For crying out loud, the man had no shame.
He defended himself against the pillow, his laughs muffled. “I’m just sayin’, she’s a heavy sleeper. She wouldn’t hear a thing.”
I stole the remote and continued to channel surf, finally settling on It’s A Wonderful Life .
“Okay, I give. If you’d rather hang out watching Jimmy Stewart make a play for Donna Reed than play with me...” Dante leaned back, putting his hands behind his head.
There was nothing I’d rather do in that moment than follow the trail of desire between us to see where it would lead. Whipped cream was just the beginning. I could imagine an entire night full of kissing and licking and touching and squeezing and tasting and…grrrrrrr.
I clamped my arms over my midsection and tried to focus on the movie playing out on the screen. No matter what I did, I couldn’t avoid the undercurrent of awareness of the hard mass of muscle to my left.
Dismissing the urge to glance his way, I kept my eyes trained on the TV in front of me. Mary flirted with George Bailey at the school dance as the first sparks of romance ignited between them. Every part of me hummed, acutely aware of Dante’s presence just a few feet away. How in the world had I ended up here, in this room, with him?
His eyes rested half-closed, and he looked like he was falling asleep. He sighed, and his chest rose and fell in a hypnotic rhythm. I wanted to lean over, bridge the distance between us, and put my head on his shoulder. His gray t-shirt stretched tight over his frame, and I could see the outline of his pecs underneath. My body remembered how it felt to be trapped under his weight in the car. Every last part of me ached to reach out and touch him, but I resisted.
Dante’s head slumped down on his chest and his breathing deepened. I took off his glasses and set them down on the table. Without his glasses on, he looked so vulnerable. Long lashes brushed his cheeks and I let my gaze wander over his nose, his lips, and the stubble over his upper lip, committing his face to memory.
As George and Mary clung together on the screen, I sat back on my cushion and struggled to keep myself from wrapping myself in Dante’s arms.