Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dante pressed the button for the elevator, his other hand wrapped around a freshly opened wine bottle.
Honesty reminded herself that at any point she could say no, and Dante would respect that. There was only one problem. She didn’t want to say no. She wanted to shout “yes” over and over again throughout the night. The need was so visceral, it frightened her a little.
She couldn’t blame wanting him on the wine she’d drunk, since the idea of him naked had entered her mind the moment she slipped off her suit jacket and handed it to him. Her asking for the check had been a weak attempt to usher her hormones out the door before they took over and raided the village.
She’d felt the current of his electric gaze sailing through her bloodstream. As much as she’d tried to focus solely on her questions about her fledgling nonprofit, she’d been unable to ignore the pulsating hum in her veins.
Bing! The elevator doors opened when the digital screen read PH. They had arrived at his penthouse. He held the doors and gestured for her to go ahead of him.
The floor boasted a lush lobby that was a miniature version of the one on the ground floor, minus the front desk and bar. The hallway split into two, with a suite on the left and one on the right. Dante put his hand on the small of her back and guided her to the left.
“Wait until you see the view of the city from up here.” He let them into the room, and when the door swung aside, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, certainly not this much…opulence.
The heels of her leather mules clacked across marble flooring as she took in the view through floor-to-ceiling windows.
The rain had stopped, but drops and rivulets were suspended in time on the glass.
Beyond, tall buildings checkered with lit windows loomed, black silhouettes against a gray cloudy sky.
She rested her tote on a massive marble coffee table that housed a stack of books and a vase filled with white hydrangeas. A huge L-shaped cream leather sofa and two curved chairs facing the windows on the other side of the coffee table dominated the space.
Dante stood at a built-in bar, its backlit shelves arranged with crystal glasses and a selection of top-shelf liquor bottles.
While he popped the loosened cork from the bottle and poured a splash of red into two wine glasses with long, elegant stems, she took a look around at the rest of the space.
Next to the bar, a black baby grand piano was ready for its close-up.
Behind the bar a pair of open double doors revealed a table ringed with plush leather chairs.
To her left was the bedroom. From where she stood, she could only make out part of a settee and table and the foot of what appeared to be a very large bed.
She touched her throat, suddenly warm.
“Take a tour,” Dante called over. “I’ll order room service. Unless that’s stepping on your nutritionist toes? Do you have any restrictions?”
Clearly not, since she was standing in her ex-boyfriend’s penthouse suite after swearing to herself she’d go home after one drink.
“I trust you,” she said. Oddly enough, and regardless of the past between them, that felt true.
She headed for the bedroom, too curious to keep from it. A massive California king bed dressed in crisp white sheets and a thick, downy duvet was in the center of the wall, an abstract painting overhead. She ran her hands over a folded brown throw neatly spanning the foot of the bed. Cashmere.
But of course.
A walk-in closet outfitted with a dressing area, custom shelves, and mirrored doors held Dante’s clothes. She took in the line of white shirts, suit pants, and jackets, and shelves packed with shoes.
“It’s a lot for two weeks, isn’t it?” he commented as he stepped into the room. He handed over her glass of wine. “My stylist set me up to live here even though I explained to her that I’d be in and out in two weeks, tops.”
His stylist? She sipped the full-bodied wine, rolling it around her mouth as she marveled at their differences.
When they’d been in college, Dante hadn’t behaved as if he’d been rich.
Sure, he had lived in his own apartment—not a dorm room like her—but his place hadn’t been a lush bachelor pad with fine wines and walk-in closets.
It seemed he’d blended into his wealthy lifestyle seamlessly.
This was a penthouse befitting of a billionaire philanthropist.
“You think I’m all polish and no substance, don’t you?” he asked as if reading her mind.
She spun to face him. “You have a reputation to uphold. I can’t imagine a Crane hotel offering a fellow Crane anything less than the best.”
“Oh, this isn’t the best. The top floor is private and belongs to my cousin, Reese. By comparison, this place is a dump.”
A laugh bubbled from her throat, and for a moment she was lost in Dante’s broad smile. Everything around her fell away except for him. He took two steps closer to her, his arm automatically going to her lower back.
Being touched by him, in spite of the number of years that had passed, felt natural. She leaned into the palm of his hand. When he lowered his face to hers, she tipped her chin to meet him without a moment’s hesitation.
Their lips touched, soft at first, in an explorative press.
She sucked in air through her nose, her eyelids shuttering.
She inhaled the scent of him: pine and leather with a clean, soapy fragrance beneath.
It transported her to somewhere she’d never been, while making her nostalgic for what had been.
The attraction between them had never been manufactured. Her body had always responded to him: tingling, warming, and eventually loosening. Which explained why her mouth opened and her tongue welcomed his inside.
He erased the space between them, their bodies meeting, sliding, moving to the rhythm of the kiss. She was so into it, that when the pressure of his hand on her back lightened, she whimpered.
“Don’t stop,” she heard herself say into his mouth on a breathy sigh. Then her eyes flew open as she recognized what had pulled Dante’s attention. Another knock followed the first.
Room service.
“Your call. I can ignore them if you can.” He pressed a fast kiss on her lips.
She came back to earth, aware of her feet pressed firmly on the carpet, one hand on his crisp cotton shirt, the other clutching a wine glass. Shockingly, after the intensity of that kiss, she hadn’t spilled a drop.
The knock came again, and he tilted his head, inviting her to turn up the heat. When she hesitated, he said, “Tell you what. I’ll answer the door, and you take a moment to decide what you want to do next. We’re eating either way—before…or after.”
She watched his tall frame exit the room, admiring how his pants hugged his ass and the way his muscular shoulders filled out his shirt. When he was out of sight, she drank down the wine in her glass and set it on the nightstand.
She scanned the bed, imagined its sheets rumpled, the cashmere throw forgotten on the ground. Her center thrummed with need, and that reaction had no business being there given the circumstances. This was the kind of need that was carnal. The kind that insisted upon being obeyed.
Like a craving for a treat that, when ignored, would only grow and grow until you gave in and binged an entire box or bag.
She had learned the hard way never to restrict herself from what she wanted.
Once she had craved a seven-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting she’d seen on a restaurant’s menu.
The craving had increased the more she’d pushed it away.
Until one night, she had driven to the restaurant two minutes before they closed.
She’d eaten it out of the to-go container while sitting in her car, with a voracity she hadn’t known existed.
Dante was like that cake.
She couldn’t allow him to turn into a binge. He would need to stay in the once-in-a-great-while category.
She’d gorged on him years ago, and now here he was, as tempting as ever. But this time, she would not dive in face-first with little to no regard for her well-being.
She would dive in, without a doubt, but carefully. She would keep her wits about her. If that kiss had proven anything it was that she might have to work harder than anticipated to handle a night with him.
But what she wouldn’t do was deny herself, and then disappear into him like she’d been tempted to do years ago. He was right when he’d pointed out how well she’d done without him. But he’d been wrong when he’d assumed that she’d blossomed because he’d left.
It had taken everything in her not to contact him. Not to beg him to come home and fill the ragged, gaping hole in her heart. But she’d resisted, and it was healthy for her to acknowledge that as well.
She flipped her hair, squared her shoulders, and grabbed her empty wine glass. As she strode to the living room area, Dante was shutting the doors to the suite.
He turned, brushing his hands together and taking her in. Probably noticing her empty glass, possibly noticing the look of determination in her eyes.
“I decided to eat first,” she said, then held out her glass. “How about a refill?”
He grinned and hugged her close before stamping her lips with a hard kiss. “Allow me.”
Dante had requested the food be left on the coffee table, along with a chilled bottle of champagne in a bucket in case the opportunity arose. An array of exquisite small bites on gilded plates were arranged among low, lit candles.
“I ordered a variety of their best,” he told Honesty as she came around to sit on the sofa. He watched her inventory the offerings: seared scallops, truffle arancini, burrata with roasted figs, bite-sized crab cakes, and crostini with whipped ricotta and honey.
She plucked a fig and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm. What about dessert?”
“Oh, there’s dessert. The most decadent kind.”