CHAPTER 12
Dante held her trembling body as Sarah panted, her heart beating so fast that she was lightheaded. He shut the water off and picked her up in his arms as he stepped out of the shower. After sitting her gently on the bathroom counter, he grabbed huge, fluffy towels and started to dry her body and hair with slow, careful motions. Once she was dry, he dried himself roughly and grabbed a brush, running it through her hair carefully as she sat in almost a stupor of postorgasmic bliss.
This is another way he’s taking care of me.
“I still need you inside me,” Sarah told him shakily, her body and mind needing, craving that ultimate connection.
“I will be,” Dante told her huskily as he picked her up and carried her to his bedroom. “The first time I fuck you has to be in my bed, where you belong.”
Sarah wrapped her arms around his neck and inhaled his scent, getting intoxicated from the combination of musk and male. Dante exuded testosterone, and she almost felt like she could smell it, get drunk on the scent. He was claiming her in the most primordial way by wanting to take her the first time in his bed. Maybe it was a little like a caveman wanting to drag a woman off to his lair to have his way with her. It was a possessive action, and that just ramped up Sarah’s need even more. Something inside her responded to Dante’s dominance like a match to dry tinder, making her burn for him more with every possessive command or action, every claiming word he uttered. Her reaction was elemental, and she couldn’t stop it, even with logic.
He yanked back the covers on the bed and placed her in the middle, standing back and staring at her with a look so hot that it scorched her.
“I need you, Dante,” Sarah admitted honestly, heat pooling in the pit of her stomach and radiating to every fiber of her being.
He crawled onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly as he lowered his head to her shoulder. “I need you, too, sweetheart. I’ll always be here when you need me.”
Ferocious longing pulsated through Sarah’s body, even though she knew he wouldn’t always be here. She wanted Dante more than she’d ever wanted anything in her entire life, and she knew his admission wasn’t purely physical.
“Be with me,” Sarah pleaded, holding him tightly against her. Dante’s emotional wounds of losing his best friend were still fresh, and she wanted to hold him tightly like this for as long as he needed her, in whatever way he needed her.
“Sarah,” he uttered roughly, intensely, as though she was everything to him, and all of those yearnings were encompassed in just her name.
At that moment, they were locked together in a place where only the two of them existed, and Sarah could feel Dante all the way to her soul.
Dante rolled her onto her back and rose up on his elbows, staring down at her with eyes like liquid fire.
She reached up and stroked his jaw and cheek, both rough and whiskered as they always were at the end of the day.
“Condom,” he grumbled.
“No!” Sarah exclaimed. “I’ve been on birth control for years.” What was happening between her and Dante was raw and elemental, and she wanted to experience it that way.
“You didn’t tell me. Do you trust me?” Dante asked, his eyes burning even hotter. “You’ll be the first woman I’ve had bare. The only one I’ve ever wanted that way.”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to remind him right now that she’d seen his medical records. She wanted to be a first to him in that way. “I’m safe, too.”
“Sweetheart, you’re nowhere near safe right now,” Dante rumbled dangerously.
Sarah shuddered in anticipation. She’d waited for this moment for what seemed like forever. “Fuck me, Dante. No mercy.”
“No mercy for either of us,” Dante rasped, grasping her feet and urging her to put her legs around him.
She complied immediately, flexing her hips up only to feel his engorged cock sliding through her moist heat.
“Please. No more waiting.” Her core clenched tight, needing to be filled by him.
“No more,” he agreed, positioning his cock at the entrance to her channel and driving himself home. “Holy Christ,” he hissed. “You’re so damn tight, hot . . . wet.”
Sarah felt stretched, filled to capacity by Dante. He was built big, and there was some pain as he buried himself all the way inside her, but the ecstasy of having him completely immersed inside her was worth the discomfort that was already fading away. It wasn’t a bad kind of pain; it was a possession, a stretching that reinforced the fact that Dante was finally filling her. “Yes,” she murmured, tightening her legs around him to pull him as deeply as he could get. “Fuck me,” she demanded mindlessly.
Dante’s forehead was already beaded with sweat as he pulled back and thrust into her again. “Mine,” he groaned, almost as though the word was a vow as he stroked back out and into her again.
Sarah moaned and tightened her arms around Dante’s shoulders, lost in the rhythm of his intense, powerful thrusts. This was what she needed, this cataclysmic, forceful connection with Dante.
Her world tilted as he pounded into her, his hand sliding under her ass to pull her up to meet the volatile strokes of his cock. Her body felt sensitized; every brush of skin against hers as he moved was like a caress. Sarah could feel perspiration trickle down her face as she moved with him, letting him claim her with every thrust of his cock.
Her hands were everywhere, stroking up his back and over his ass, trying to make him go even deeper.
“Harder,” she urged him, wanting everything he could give.
Dante responded, hammering into her until she was panting and breathless. “Tell me you’re mine,” he demanded ruthlessly. “Tell me you need this as much as I do.”
“Yes.” There was no reason to deny it. If he stopped now, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.
Dante shifted, bringing one of her feet up over his shoulder and changing angles until his cock stimulated her clit every time he entered and retreated. His mouth crashed down over hers, his tongue matching the rhythm of his cock as Sarah finally gave in to her impending climax. Her nails bit into the skin of his back, and she felt the vibration of Dante’s groans as he continued to kiss her exactly like he was fucking her: hot, hard, and fast.
Sarah’s back arched and her legs tightened around Dante’s waist while wave after wave shuddered through her body as she rode the powerful orgasm.
Dante lifted his lips from hers and groaned as she milked him, the strong spasms of her channel clenching his cock tightly. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly as his warm release flooded her womb, both of them left shaking in the aftermath.
He rolled, letting her rest on top of his body so she could catch her breath. Sarah felt limp and spent, her heart racing out of control as she laid her head on Dante’s chest and slid most of her weight off him and to the side. He might be almost healed, but she didn’t want to hurt him.
Neither one of them spoke as they came slowly back to earth again.
Finally, Dante said hoarsely, “Do you understand now why I can’t risk anything happening to you?”
“Yes.” Sarah did understand. She would probably feel the same way if the positions were reversed. It wasn’t a rational thought, but for the first time, she didn’t care. Her heart was involved now, and caring about someone the way she cared about Dante was never going to make sense. It just . . . was. “I just want to be normal,” Sarah responded with a sigh.
“You’re never going to be normal, sweetheart,” Dante replied bluntly. “You’re always going to be special, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I think it’s fantastic. But you should have been allowed to be a child, and experience things that all normal women do. Being gifted should have opened even more opportunity for you, not kept you isolated.” He kissed her gently on the forehead.
“I suppose one of those normal things would be sex?” she questioned, slightly amused, but amazed at how well he could read her, knew her needs almost better than she did right now.
“Especially that. Awesome, mind-blowing sex,” he said with an arrogant grin. “And lots of it to make up for lost time.”
God, when he throws me that cocky smile of his, I want to jump him all over again.
“And I suppose you can help me with that?” she asked teasingly.
He rolled her under him and trapped her hands above her head. “I’ll be the only man helping you,” he said greedily.
His expression went from cocky to grim in an instant, his body tensed above her.
“You don’t hear me arguing,” she answered in a sultry tone. Sarah was taken aback when she felt his hard erection brushing her thigh. “Impossible. You’re over the age of thirty and it takes the average man longer to get another erection.” Especially one that’s rock hard.
Dante’s lips started to curve slowly into a wicked, wicked grin. “Baby, I’m far from average when it comes to you.”
Sarah highly doubted whether Dante could ever be considered average, even when he wasn’t with her. He was . . . “extraordinary,” she murmured aloud.
Dante threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter, and then lowered his head to her shoulder with a groan. “Only you could make that word sound so damn sexy when you’re referring to my dick.”
“Exceptional?” she tried again with a small smile, knowing that he hadn’t realized that she was actually referring to the man and not just his man parts.
“Major turn-on,” he agreed, letting his tongue trail along the sensitive spot right beneath her jaw.
“Amazing,” she sighed, tilting her head so he could have better access to her neck.
“You’re about to find out if you keep talking dirty to me this way,” he warned her in a muffled, deep, passionate voice as he bit down gently on the lobe of her ear.
Sarah moaned, knowing just about anything she said to him made him horny. Crazy man. So when he finally impaled her, sinking himself deeply inside her, she moaned, “Phenomenal.”
“Dirty girl,” Dante answered gruffly.
“Fuck me, Dante,” she begged, most of her vocabulary now evaporated along with her common sense.
“Very dirty girl,” he said with a husky groan as he did exactly that.
Sarah woke the next day deliciously sore, glad it was Saturday, and wrapped in a pair of strong, muscular arms that had held her tightly and protectively while she’d slept most of the day away. Of course, that was after she’d experienced Dante’s “phenomenal” several more times, and it had already been daylight when they’d both fallen into an exhausted sleep.
As she stretched her arms over her head and sat up, she noticed it was already four o’clock in the afternoon. “When have I ever slept the whole afternoon away?” she whispered to herself, astonished. She hadn’t had that luxury even when she’d worked all day and all night when she was in med school.
“Your fault,” Dante said groggily, sitting up and stretching just like she had just done. “You shouldn’t have started all of that dirty talk.”
Sarah’s body reacted just from watching him stretch, his broad shoulders flexing, his biceps rippling as he moved. Her eyes scanned over his sculpted chest and ripped abs, following his happy trail of dark hair that disappeared underneath the tented sheet.
Scrambling out of bed before he could catch her, she laughed as he stalked her, on his hands and knees on the mattress. Her body responded immediately, her nipples hardening as she watched his eyes grow dark and needy. She wanted to let him catch her, but she knew if she experienced Mr. Exceptional one more time she might not be able to walk. “Oh, no you don’t, mister. Keep that thing away from me. I’m sore.”
Dante flopped onto his back with a groan of defeat that made Sarah giggle. “If you aren’t going to let me fuck you, at least feed me,” he bellowed tragically, trying to make her laugh. “You’re a demanding woman and you worked me over hard. I’m famished.”
She did chortle. Sarah couldn’t help herself. When Dante was in a playful mood, he could certainly bring on the drama. Oh, she knew very well that he was playing her by trying to look pathetic. There wasn’t one feeble bone in his body. But she adored the fact that he was doing this for her entertainment.
Honestly, she probably did need to feed him. He’d expended so much energy, and it certainly wasn’t her who wore him out. Dante was . . . insatiable.
It had come as no surprise to her that Dante couldn’t cook well, and she’d found out from day one that she either needed to cook or they’d end up getting pizza or Chinese delivered every single day. She’d gotten into the habit of cooking here, a task she actually enjoyed but rarely fussed with at home because it didn’t seem worth the effort just to feed herself. But watching Dante consume multiple plates of food she’d prepared made her happy, like she was actually doing something useful for him. No one appreciated food more than Dante.
“Eggs, bacon, and pancakes as soon as I shower,” she informed him as she walked toward the bedroom door, feeling self-conscious about walking around as naked as the day she was born.
“I’ll be ready in ten,” Dante called cheerfully, rolling quickly to his feet and practically jogging to the shower.
Five eggs, half a pound of bacon, and five pancakes later, Dante was cleaning up the kitchen as Sarah sat at his piano in the living room. He was a big guy, but where the hell did he put that much food?
She’d just finished a concerto, and she cringed as she heard dishes crashing together as he loaded them into the dishwasher. It was his bargain. When she cooked, he cleaned up.
Thank God he doesn’t use real china.
Dante cleaned up the same way he did everything else: fast and furious.
She watched him emerge from the kitchen, dressed in a forest-green button-down shirt and a pair of faded jeans, looking good enough to eat.
He came toward her in purposeful strides, his expression stoic as he stopped behind the piano bench and held out his hand. “Okay. Let’s go. I have a surprise for you.”
His expression was unreadable. “What are you up to?” Sarah asked cautiously.
He grasped her hand impatiently and pulled her gently to her feet. “You better move before I change my mind. Go put on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt for protection.”
What for? She was already dressed in shorts and a tank top. Intrigued, Sarah scampered upstairs to her room to find some clothes. It was probably still hovering around the high seventies in temperature outside, and it was almost always humid. However, she wasn’t going to argue about wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Dante was definitely up to something, and she couldn’t wait to see what he had planned.
Apprehension seized him as Dante led Sarah outside. He’d put her present together several nights ago when he couldn’t sleep, haunted by the warmth and the temptation of her warm body next to his. He’d gotten up and come out to the garage, desperate for something to occupy his time and his dirty mind. He hadn’t planned on helping her learn to ride anything but him anytime soon when he’d purchased it. He didn’t want her outside or exposed unless it was absolutely necessary. But now his instincts to protect and his desire to make her happy were at war within his aching gut.
I just want to be normal.
That plea, that simply uttered need, had almost brought him to his knees last night. What he’d told her was true . . . she’d always be much better than normal. But she did deserve to do normal things. If he had his way, she’d stay safely tucked away until her attacker was finally caught. But honestly, there was a possibility that the guy had skipped town and he was keeping her sequestered for nothing. He could be vigilant. Still, bringing her outside in the open was nearly killing him. Sure, it was on the peninsula, and chances were that her location hadn’t even been discovered yet. But even a small risk with Sarah’s safety made him antsy.
Happy or safe?
Why in the hell did it have to come down to one or the other? He wanted Sarah to be happy and safe. Was that too damn much to ask?
His Glock was tucked into his waistband at his back and covered by the tail of his shirt. Dante silently scoped out his surroundings before dragging Sarah to the open area of the driveway. Releasing her hand, he went into the garage and rolled out her new bike, watching her face as she saw what he was doing.
“Oh my God. Is that mine? It’s beautiful,” Sarah exclaimed, her face glowing as she moved forward and reverently ran a hand over the black leather seat.
The bike he was rolling out was a metallic red with black accessories, and the look on her face was priceless, well worth the few hours it had taken to put it together. “This is a beach cruiser and it only has one speed. Perfect for this area and easy to learn to ride. It’s good for a starter.”
“It’s good forever. I can’t believe you got this just for me,” Sarah whispered softly, her hand moving over the shiny red paint. “It’s the best gift ever.”
“Better than the piano?” Dante said, amused. Only Sarah would think a starter cruiser bike was the best gift ever from a billionaire. However, he had no doubt that she was more excited about this silly bicycle than she would be about getting high-priced jewelry or anything else he could easily buy for her.
She lifted a brow at him. “You said the piano was for you.”
Damn. Busted!
The piano was never meant for him, but he knew he’d needed to make some excuse to suddenly have a grand piano show up in his living room. Yeah, his excuse had been lame. Still, he’d just stuck his big foot in his mouth. “It was,” he lied shamefully. He knew that she probably had never bought his excuse, but he wasn’t admitting it outright. More than likely, she’d want him to get rid of it.
“Hmm . . . yeah,” Sarah answered dubiously, but she didn’t push the issue. “Did you put this bike together yourself?” she asked curiously.
“Yep. I wanted to. I wanted to make sure it was safe.” He released a silent sigh of relief that she’d dropped the piano subject. Unfortunately, he knew he’d been nailed, but she’d let him off the hook.
Sarah stopped staring at the bike and lifted her gaze to his face. Dante froze as he saw the tears in her eyes, and felt his heart speed up as she curled one hand behind his neck and pulled him down for the gentlest, most tender kiss he’d ever experienced.
“That makes it even more special,” she told him softly. “Thank you.” Gripping the handlebars, she asked excitedly, “Can I try it?”
“Wait a minute,” he ordered, pulling out the safety equipment he’d purchased with the bike. He adjusted the lightweight helmet on her head, laughing as it squashed her curls and sent them protruding out of the sides of the helmet. He made her hold out her arms and legs as he put on knee and elbow pads. “Okay,” he said warily, allowing her to swing her leg over, wondering if there was any other protective gear he could have gotten her.
He showed her how to brake the bike, the most important skill as far as he was concerned, and how to balance herself. Honestly, he’d wanted to put training wheels on the bicycle, but he thought that was a little overkill. Now he almost wished he had included them. He was having visions of Sarah battered and bloody on the ground from a nasty fall, even though he knew he was being ridiculous.
“I’m staying with you, so don’t pedal too fast. And don’t hit the brakes too hard or you could go flying right over the handlebars,” he warned anxiously.
“Doesn’t it make more sense to go faster? It’s simple physics, really. If I’m moving at a higher rate of speed, the bike should become more stable,” she said thoughtfully.
Dante watched the concentration on Sarah’s face and grinned. He should have known she’d be calculating some mathematical formula for staying balanced. “Not too fast,” he instructed. “Mount up.”
Sarah used the pedals to slip onto the seat, finding a comfortable position for her hands on the handlebars as he held her steady.
“Okay, start pedaling,” Dante coached, keeping a grip underneath the seat and next to the handlebars.
She was a fast learner, and started out a little wobbly, but Dante found himself running along with her after a few false starts. He had her get used to the brakes, letting her bring the bike to a stop every time they reached the end of the driveway.
“I think I can do it,” Sarah told him confidently, her face glowing with excitement as they stopped at the end of the driveway after several trips back and forth. “You can let go this time.”
I can let go?
That thought rankled, even though Dante was pretty certain Sarah would stay upright. “We’ll see.” Her face was still shining with excitement, glowing like a child’s who was learning to ride for the first time. Dante had never seen her look more beautiful.
She pushed off and got herself seated, and Dante ran along with her for a short distance before letting go. “Don’t forget to brake,” he bellowed, running alongside of her now.
A startled look appeared briefly on her face as she realized he wasn’t holding on anymore, but then she whooped, “I’m doing it myself!”
She was, although Dante stayed close enough to react if she started to go down. He watched as she pedaled faster, and then started to ease on the brake to stop near the garage.
“I did it,” Sarah said breathlessly as she lowered her feet to the ground. Clambering off the cycle, she engaged the kickstand and threw herself into Dante’s arms, peppering his face with kisses as she bounced around in his arms jubilantly. “That was incredible.”
Worth every damn moment I’ve been sweating out her safety.
Dante was still watching their surroundings, but her happiness had been worth his stress, and having her delectable body bouncing against his was a definite bonus.
“I’m making you the best dinner ever later tonight,” Sarah told him excitedly.
Dante wanted to tell her that any time he ate at the same table with her was an incredible dinner, but he wouldn’t argue. His skills in the kitchen sucked, and Sarah was an incredible cook. The very best part of having dinner with Sarah was seeing her beautiful face as she sat next to him at the table. It was weird how fast he’d gotten used to not eating alone, to having her there every evening. Probably because he loved having her near him so damn much.
“It’s starting to get dark. You ready to head inside?” he asked her reluctantly, wishing he could capture her joy and hold on to it forever. This was the way he wanted to see her every single day.
“Yes,” she agreed readily, elevating the stand on her bike carefully and pushing it into the garage as though it were one of her most prized possessions.
Dante watched as she carefully removed her gear and stored it in the pouch on the back of the bike.
“Thank you,” she told him sincerely, reaching for his hand and entwining their fingers together when she joined him outside again.
He had to swallow a lump in his throat the size of Alaska. He’d never had a whole lot of tenderness in his life, but this woman was making him crave it from her.
Dante shrugged. “It was just a bike ride.”
“It was a whole lot more than just you teaching me how to ride a bike and you know it,” she replied quietly.
She knew that stepping outside in the open had been difficult for him. She was telling him that she appreciated the fact that he’d compromised for her. It should have surprised him that she understood, but it didn’t. Sarah could read him in ways that nobody else ever had.
Hell, there was almost nothing he wouldn’t do for her, but he didn’t know how to tell her that, so he kissed her instead, giving Sarah the same type of warm embrace that she’d given him earlier, before he wrapped an arm around her waist and took her back into the house.