Chapter 18
FRANKIE
When I enter the opulent lobby of the St. Regis Hotel, I see Dante waiting for me.
There are gleaming parquet floors, stately floral arrangements, and crystal light fixtures galore, but I only have eyes for him as he rises from a wingback chair and crosses the room.
This might be the first time I’ve seen him dressed semi-casually, with the top few buttons of his dress shirt undone and the sleeves rolled up, accentuating his muscular forearms. No tie, no jacket. It’s sexy as hell.
He immediately takes my hand and pulls me in for a kiss. My heart flutters at the feel of his lips. It’s like kissing him for the first time all over again, but a different version of him. One who actually loves me.
“I’m sorry to say that we won’t be in the best suite tonight,” he says.
“Oh no,” I say with mock horror.
“Apparently there’s a visiting dignitary residing in the Presidential for the month, so we’ve been accommodated in the St. Regis Suite. Alas, it is only the second best.”
“The nerve!” I grin and nudge him with my shoulder. “How dare international politics get in the way of our fuckfest.”
Dante actually barks out a rough laugh. I can’t help but grin. It sounds a little rusty. I made a silent vow to myself to help him get more practice at it.
He takes my small bag and my hand and leads me to the elevators. The car is empty when we step inside. The second the doors close, he pulls me in for a deep kiss. I let myself fall into him, savoring his lips, his tongue, the taste of him.
I’d been daydreaming of nothing but Dante ever since I left the Bellanti estate earlier to pick up Livvie from school and drive her back to Charlie’s.
My little sister caught on to my changed mood immediately and eyed me suspiciously, but the only comment she’d made was to wonder out loud what had happened to Rico.
When I shrugged, she didn’t push further.
Charlie was understandably interested in how the meeting at Bellanti Vineyards had gone, but I simply said that we were still working on negotiations—and that I’d be spending the weekend with Dante.
That earned me a few raised brows, but when Livvie hugged me goodbye, she’d whispered, “Good luck,” in my ear.
I wasn’t just being coy—I didn’t want to give my sisters false hope about what was going to happen to our winery. And I also needed to see how things went with me and Dante before I made any final decisions.
With a ding, the elevator opens onto a wide hallway. The colors soothing and neutral, with baroque gold mirrors and matching sconces spaced out along the walls. Dante leads the way to our room, swipes the key card, and pushes open the door.
Soft light fills the space as we drop our things in the marble entry and step into the posh room.
The first thing I notice is the wall of windows in the living area, which offers a stunning view of downtown San Francisco.
The city is lit up in all its brilliance, so close it looks like you could reach out and touch it.
There are even a few stars twinkling in the sky.
I press my hands against the glass and drink in the view. “Dante, you need to see—”
But he’s already there, right behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. His cheek presses against the side of my head and he whispers in my ear.
“It’s a beautiful view.”
I nod and relax into his embrace. There’s no urgency right now. This is our time—time to be together. To be close. We’ve never done this before, but I’m glad we are now. He finally pulls away and gives me a kiss on top of my head. “I’ll put our things in the bedroom.”
I watch his tight ass as he walks away. I’m tempted to follow him, but I take a quick look around instead.
The walls are done in a soothing shade of lavender that brings a smile to my face.
There’s a textured cream rug over the dark wood floors and sleekly modern furniture upholstered in shades of natural and merlot linen.
I move from the sitting room into the bedroom.
A massive bed sits in the center flanked by marble-topped end tables.
Artwork with an equestrian theme graces the walls, and a plush chaise nestles against a pair of arched windows that look out toward the water.
My eyes are drawn again to the bed. Dante catches me looking.
“Hungry?” He arches a brow.
“Starved,” I say suggestively, grabbing his ass with a little squeeze.
He cracks a smile, almost laughing again at my corny joke. “I’ll order room service.”
We end up eating on the couch, sharing a light supper of scallops with roasted squash, parsnip puree, and wild rice as we take in the city lights and talk.
“This is nice,” Dante says, gesturing between us. “Ever since I can remember, we had to eat all our dinners at that long-ass formal dining table. Seven sharp, every night. If you were late, the door would be locked and you’d have to go to bed without a scrap.”
“Jesus,” I murmur.
“Dad didn’t believe in having conversations while eating, either,” he adds. “Said it was low class. Rude. So it was usually dead silent. Not to mention all the other rules he enforced. Elbows off the table, both feet flat on the floor, napkin in lap, use the correct fork…all that shit.”
“Wow.” I had noticed that Dante and his younger brothers weren’t big talkers at the table, but I assumed it was just personal preference. Not something that had been drilled in them.
“Yeah,” he goes on. “It wasn’t so bad when my mom and sister were there, but after we lost them…it was down to just my brothers and our dad. Dinner always felt like a last meal, you know? Though I guess we all got impeccable table manners out of it. How about your family?”
I have to think back to remember what it was like having dinner as a family at our house.
“My mom…walked out on us when we were little,” I tell him slowly. “So it was just my sisters and our dad, too. Except he wasn’t around for dinner all that often, and when he was, he was usually under the influence.”
“I’m sorry,” Dante says. “I’m prying. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, no, it’s fine. Dad had to eat too, so he’d leave a little grocery money out for us every week.
We actually—my sisters and I—would take turns cooking.
If it wasn’t too cold outside, we’d eat on the back porch together.
It was nice. Even on the nights we had to eat cereal and toast, I wouldn’t have wished it any other way. ”
I smile at the memories, and tell Dante about the disastrous time Charlie tried to cook her first Thanksgiving turkey and the fire department had shown up because we couldn’t get the smoke alarm to go off.
“Unfortunately,” I continue, “we had put the smoking roasting pan on the back porch, and while the firemen were giving us a stern talking-to, our yellow Lab, Penny, snuck out and started eating the blackened thing.”
“Oh no. Was she okay?”
“Yeah. But we were so freaked out that she’d end up with turkey bone splinters in her stomach that we rushed her to the ER vet for x-rays. She was absolutely fine, thank God.”
I finish up the story for Dante, because it has the best ending.
Dragging ourselves home late that night, we had stopped off at the Alvarez fruit stand to see if we could get some kind of food wrapped up to go, but Delores ushered us all inside and plated up hearty servings of their leftovers so my sisters and I—and our dog—could eat together in her warm, cozy kitchen.
By the time I’m done, Dante is grinning from ear to ear. We talk carefully about our childhoods some more, swapping stories about how we grew up. Some are good, but many are not. This is a door I’ve never stepped through with him. With anyone, really, besides my sisters.
I open up about some of the things Charlie and I have done to protect Livvie from our dad, and how closely bonded the three of us are because of him. I don’t bring up the marriage he forced on me, though. My truce with Dante is still too new, and I feel like it needs protecting.
“I guess we both had pretty fucked-up fathers,” Dante muses.
He talks about his mom and his sister, who disappeared at sea when he was a teenager. About how it changed his father, made him more suspicious—and much more vicious as well. He talks about the discipline Enzo had insisted on, in every aspect of their lives.
“It made Armani a good soldier, but it had the opposite effect on Marco. He rebelled. Ran wild. He’s starting to come around, but I don’t know if he’ll ever fully settle down,” Dante says. “Lately he’s been on this car racing kick. It’s like he’s legitimately addicted to danger.”
“What about you?” I ask. “Did the discipline make you a good soldier, too?”
He goes quiet for a moment. “He made me like him. And I don’t think I want to be. Not anymore.”
“Then don’t,” I say simply.
I get up and put our empty dishes on the room service cart, then wheel it into the foyer and come back with both my hands out toward Dante.
“Come to bed,” I tell him.
His expression is all seriousness as he takes my hands, rising from the couch, but as soon as I start undressing him in the bedroom his eyes grow dark with heat.
He’s had so little comfort in his life. Hell, so have I, and I want us to find it together. As much as I want to take this slow, I’m increasingly needy and wanting as I strip him bare. I’m about to push him onto the bed, but he takes my wrist.
“Let me return the favor.”
With that, he begins undressing me, taking his time. As my clothes come off, my gaze drops to his thick, hard cock. The sight of it has my mouth watering. The second my panties hit the floor, we tumble in a naked heap on the bed, not bothering to kick back the covers.
Dante covers me with his body, his lips finding my neck. I let my hands wander, touching him everywhere. Tracing the lines of his sculpted chest, the ridges of his abdomen.
When I grip his cock, he jerks with a little moan, hot precum running over my fingers.
“I wanted to go slow, but—”
“Anything you want, Frankie. Anything.”