9. Samantha
SAMANTHA
“Swim with me.”
“No.”
I pout. “Dante, come on. You did it before.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t like it then.”
I smirk. “You seemed to like it when I kissed you.”
He freezes, one hand on the blender. I’ve talked him into making us margaritas. “That can’t happen again.”
I huff out a breath, kicking off the side of the pool and starting to swim laps.
He won’t even look at me, and I picked out this bikini just for him.
The strings ride up my hipbones, the seat of the bikini barely covering my ass.
The top is a tank with a plunging neckline, and it’s all in my favorite color, red.
I swim for a while until the margaritas are done and then heave myself out of the pool, slicking my hair back from my face. Dante meets my eyes for a brief moment. His eyes are so fucking blue in the sunlight they don’t look real.
I tilt my head. “You don’t wear contacts, do you?”
“Why does everyone always ask me that?” he grunts, sounding irritated. He’s been in a mood the last week or so. I haven’t exactly been avoiding him, so maybe I’m just annoying him.
We watch that reality tv competition show at night, and usually I fall asleep on the couch. He always carries me to bed but… he doesn’t stay with me. Not since that first night. Which makes me sad. He’s just good to cuddle with, big and firm in all the right places, arms tight around me.
It doesn’t mean anything.
“Because you have scary blue eyes.”
He snorts. “Scary?”
“Yeah. They’re like, unreal. Did you get them from your mom or your dad?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Wouldn’t know.”
Right. I close my mouth, feeling like an asshole. He was in foster care. He didn’t have parents, he’d told me that.
My heart aches for him. Losing my mother so young had been so hard. I don’t know what I’d do without Papa.
“I have my mother’s eyes,” I say quietly.
He hands me the margarita. He hasn’t poured one for himself. “Hey.” I pout wide, looking up at him. “You’re supposed to be drinking with me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Me and tequila don’t mix.” He pauses. “Ask your father.”
I snort. “Just a couple? Come on. I hate drinking alone.” I bat my big brown eyes at him and he sighs heavily.
He pours himself a glass. I grin and perch on the edge of a lawn chair, gulping mine down. He’s gotten the lime ratio just right, and it’s refreshing.
“Don’t drink too fast. It’s hot today.”
I roll my eyes. “Live a little, Dante. Have you ever even been drunk?”
He snorts. “I lived a life before I became your bodyguard, you know.”
“I can’t imagine you losing control.”
“I don’t. Not anymore.”
“But you used to?” I tilt my head up to look at him, drinking more of my margarita. He’s not even halfway through.
“Sometimes. Didn’t know my limits when I was your age. It was half Elio’s fault.”
I laugh. “I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during you and Papa’s hellish days.”
He cracks a smile. “I had fun, but at what cost?”
After we finish our margaritas I put the glass down, standing up. “Time for a shot.”
He groans. “If I say no you’re just going to bat your eyes at me again, aren’t you?”
I grin, batting them anyway. “Yup.”
“I hate you,” he mutters.
“You liiiike me,” I say in a sing-song voice, and the corner of his mouth turns up in a smile. I feel almost giddy, my heart skipping a few beats.
I really shouldn’t feel that way. I really shouldn’t be doing this. Because it’s getting harder and harder to separate my attraction to him from… well, the fact that if the situation was different… maybe I really would be his.
Maybe I’d be in love.
But I can’t be in love. Not now. Not with him. I’m too young.
He’s my father’s best friend. His right hand.
I waltz into the kitchen, swaying my hips, and Dante slowly follows. I pull down two shot glasses and fill them with tequila from the bar. “Oh, good, it’s warm,” he deadpans. I can’t help but laugh.
I clink my shot glass with his when he picks it up. “Cheers,” he says dryly, and shoots it back, grimacing. The tequila burns down my throat and I make a face, shuddering. He chuckles. “Did it bite back?”
“Always does.”
I pour us another margarita when we walk back out to the pool, sitting closer to him on the lounge next to him. “So Felicia’s going to win, I think,” I say idly, talking about the reality show we’re watching.
“I dunno. I think Bill is going to give her a run for her money.”
I frown. “Bill? Come on, please, he’s a pushover.”
He shrugs. “People like him. That goes a long way in these shows.”
“I think I’d do pretty well on a show like that.”
He snorts. “You would. All you’d have to do is pout and bat those brown eyes and you’d get them to do whatever you want.”
I smirk. “Damn right.”
He checks his watch after we chat for a while longer. “Almost time for our show to start.”
My chest seems to swell. Our show. God. I’m in too deep already. I should just go into my room, hole myself up for a few days, try and stop thinking about how his arms feel around me, how his lips feel against mine.
I think about it. I could beg off, say the margarita and the sun gave me a headache. He wouldn’t protest.
But it’s so rare that he’s loose like this with me, talking, laughing. He looks so handsome when he smiles. And the fact that I can make him smile… make him happy… it does something to me.
“Pour me another margarita and let’s go.”
He frowns slightly but pours us each another, the last of the pitcher. We head into the living room and he sits down on the couch, flipping on the television. I sit next to him, crossing my legs, our thighs nearly touching but not quite. “The season finale is coming on tomorrow night.”
“It’s already aired, I could probably look it up,” he says idly, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
I frown and grab his wrist. His eyes shoot to mine and something electric passes between us. “Don’t you dare.”
I slowly drop my hand.
“Alright, alright. We’ll watch.”
“Together. This is our thing now.”
He gives me a half-smile. “Oh? We have a thing now?”
“Yes. Papa’s out of town so you have to entertain me.”
“Do I?” He looks bemused. “I don’t remember that being part of the job description.”
I hum. “You didn’t read the fine print.”
He laughs out loud and looks at me for a moment before turning his eyes to the television. We watch and I make commentary about the fashion choices. He just hums or grunts in response. It’s about all I can expect from my man of few words.
Wait.
My man?
My heart races. What’s wrong with me? There’s no future in this. It’s just… fun.
Dante seems less stiff than usual and maybe it’s the tequila. I’m grateful, because I need his touch like air. When I lean my head on his shoulder he doesn’t pull away. I slowly put my hand on his and he still doesn’t pull away.
My heart might gallop out of my chest like a wild horse. I intertwine our fingers, his hand enveloping mine. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t squeeze my hand, but doesn’t pull away.
“Samantha.”
“Hmm?”
“Are you falling asleep?”
I shake my head against his shoulder. “No, I’m watching.”
When I lift my head and look up at him, he’s staring at me with those bright blue eyes of his. “Fucking tequila,” he mutters, and then cups my chin in his hand, crushing his lips against mine.
I make a surprised sound against his mouth, parting my lips. He instantly sticks his tongue between them, sliding it along mine. I moan into his mouth and his hands skate down my sides, resting on my hips.
“Take me to bed,” I breathe when he pulls away and he looks at me for a moment, hesitant.
“Little one…”
“Dante. Papa’s out of town. We’re alone. We don’t have to pretend.”
“Pretend what?”
“That we’re not…” I trail off. Start again. “That we don’t have something between us.”
He lets out a harsh breath. “We shouldn’t have anything between us.”
“Yeah, well, we do,” I say firmly. “Tell me you don’t feel it too.”
He drags a hand across his face and doesn’t respond.
“Take me to bed, Dante.”
Dante looks at me for another long moment and then stands up, stretching out his hand to me. I try not to grin, not wanting to appear any more eager than I already do. I don’t want to scare him off.
I take his hand and he tugs me up. The alcohol makes me a tad dizzy and I bump against his hard chest, putting my hands on his pecs to brace myself. He kisses me again, and it makes me even dizzier. It has nothing to do with tequila.
He keeps hold of my hand as he leads me upstairs into his room. I look around. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, of course, but before I’d been so focused on trying to seduce him that I’d barely paid attention.
It looks… like no one lives here. The bed is tightly made, hospital corners. There’s an empty laundry basket in the corner. I bet all his socks are nicely folded instead of rolled.
I guess for him, it’s just a guest room.
After all of this with Ricci is resolved, he’ll leave.
The thought makes my heart drop into my stomach.
Fuck.
He doesn’t throw me onto the bed or kiss me hard like I expect, instead sliding his fingers down my hips to untie my string bikini.
The bottoms drop to my feet and I stand there just in the tank top.
His breath hitches as he tugs it off me, too.
My breasts bounce free and he groans low.
It rumbles in his chest and I can feel it because he’s so close. My lower abdomen tightens with need.
I tug at his shirt hem. I’m tired of all these quickies where I don’t even get to see him naked. Dante grunts, takes it off with one hand and tosses it on the floor. There’s a tattoo spread across his left pec—a stylized date. I run my finger along the date.
“What’s this?”
He draws in a sharp breath. “It’s the day your grandparents took me in.”
My heart aches for him all over again. “It was that important to you.”
“Yes.”
There’s a bullet wound high up on one shoulder, knife scars on his abdomen. I can’t help myself from running my fingers over all of them. “Jesus,” he breathes, his skin trembling slightly under my touch. “What are you doing?”
“Touching you.” I look up at him. “Do you want me to stop?”
His tongue darts out to lick his bottom lip. He shakes his head.
I keep going, tracing down the line of his abdominal muscles, dipping my thumb into his navel before putting my hands on the waistband of his sweats.
They don’t leave much to the imagination, he’s already tenting them, but his breath catches when I shove them down over his ass.
His cock bobs free against his hard stomach, long and thick and bigger than I remembered.
Dante groans when I wrap one hand around the base. I start to stoke and he grabs my wrist forcefully to stop me, gasping. “Don’t.”
I smirk. “Why not?”
“Because I want to fuck you,” he says, and something about the simple, blunt way he says it has arousal pooling between my legs.
I giggle like a school girl. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”
I climb onto the bed on all fours and he lets out a ragged breath. I expect him to line up behind me and slide into me, but he doesn’t. I feel him get on the bed behind me and turn my head, pouting.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’ll get what you want, little one.”
I huff out a breath, but then he leans down and presses his face against my pussy, his nose nearly slipping into my entrance. I stutter out a moan and push back against him.
He moans against me, the sound vibrating against my sex.
Then he presses the flat of his tongue against my clit and I nearly shout, dropping my head down.
“Fuck, Dante.”
He keeps at it, lapping at my clit as I rock my hips back, unable to help myself. He must be nearly suffocating—I haven’t heard him take a breath. But he doesn’t seem to care, grabbing my hips in a bruising fashion and pressing me back against him.
I whimper, my orgasm finally washing over me. “Oh, oh, I’m coming, Dante, fuck—”
He groans against me again and then lifts his head, his face covered in me. I flush at the sight, pleasure still rocketing through me.
Dante licks his lips before taking himself in hand, stroking once before pressing inside me. I plant my hands on either side of his pillow, rolling my hips back even as he tries to go slowly.
He thrusts deeper, grunting. “So fucking eager. Such a slut for me, little one.”
“Only for you.”
His thrusts stutter and then he starts a steady, slow pace, pulling my hips back against his thrusts. “Say it again.”
“Dante,” I gasp. I come again as he abuses my g-spot with the head of his cock, angling his hips up in just the right way. His right hand moves from my hip and slaps down on my ass cheek, making me yelp and moan.
“I said say it again.”
I drop my head down, whimpering out little moans as I clench around him. “Only for you,” I repeat in a whisper, and he wraps my hair around one hand, pulling me up, my back to his chest, his face buried in my neck. He holds onto my waist, thrusting up into me and I cry out his name.
“Mine,” he growls in my ear, letting out a low, rumbling moan as he thrusts deep and spills inside me.
I breathe out of my nostrils slowly to try and calm down and Dante slowly pulls out of me, cursing in Italian. “Tesoro,” he says, almost mournfully, kissing down my spine before bringing me down next to him, drawing me close against his heaving chest. “Did I hurt you?”
He smoothes down my mussed hair, kisses my panting mouth. I look at him, eyes wide. He’s always been rough and he’s never treated me this gently afterward. Of course, I guess we’ve never had the time.
“You didn’t hurt me.”
His brow furrows, blue eyes searching my face. “You’re sure?” He rubs his hands down my back and nuzzles against my neck.
My heart speeds up. Part of me wants to run and go back to my room, ignore that this ever happened. Because I feel like something is blossoming inside me, something I can’t stop.
“I”m sure,” I say softly, and he kisses my lips again, gently. He lets out a long breath.
“I told you tequila and I don’t mix.”
I can’t help breaking out into a laugh. That makes my decision.
I cuddle up close to his chest, hoping he doesn’t kick me out.
He’s snoring softly in a few moments, and I stare at him.
His lashes fan out over his cheekbones, long and thick.
His jaw is slack, generous mouth parted, his hair falling over his face.
My chest feels tight. What… what if this is love? What if I’ve fallen for him?
What the hell am I going to do?