Chapter Thirteen

 

 

Dante reached over the back of Michelle’s seat in the movie theater to play with a silky strand of Aurora’s hair. Aurora turned and gave him a soft little smile. He didn’t think she was paying attention to this movie any more than he was.

But Michelle had wanted to come and she’d wanted popcorn and she’d wanted to sit in the middle. None of which she’d demanded but all of which she’d engineered with alarming alacrity. Dante was really going to have trouble on his hands when she was a teenager. Besides the seating arrangements, Dante really had nothing to complain about. Nothing like a movie on a stormy Saturday afternoon with his girls.

His stomach bottomed out for a second before quickly rebounding. It had shocked him the first time he’d realized he was thinking of Michelle and Aurora that way. His girls. But he was slowly getting used to the thought now.

Somehow, over the last two months, Aurora had worked her way into being a part of his family.

He knew that Michelle was feeling the same way too. She was always disappointed when Aurora didn’t sleep over. And she’d started asking Dante questions about marriage, about mothers, and most alarmingly, about whether he’d ever have any kids.

“It’d be cool,” she’d said. “I would be an aunt and a sister all at once.”

“Why’s that?” he’d asked, handing her half of the peanut butter sandwich he’d just made.

“Because you’re like my brother and dad all at once, so your kid would be like my sister and niece or brother and nephew all at once. It would be cool.”

Michelle had shrugged and hopped down from the counter, ready to get back into whatever she was reading, but Dante had sat, dumbfounded, for another twenty minutes.

He’d always been so careful with Michelle, reminding her over and over that he was her brother, not her dad. He’d kept their father fresh in both their minds. Not in order to honor the man, but as a cautionary tale for both of them. Positions in their family had to be earned, not given without discretion. And their father sure as hell hadn’t earned a place in their lives.

Dante had no idea that Michelle was starting to think of him as a dad. It both thrilled and scared the shit out of him at the same time. He could be a brother. He was a hell of a brother. But father? He had no idea how to do that. None at all. He supposed that it probably wasn’t all that different, he was just going to have to keep doing what he’d been doing. But for some reason it was filed under a very different drawer in his mind.

When the credits rolled and the three of them headed out of the movie theater, Aurora quickened her step to fall in beside Michelle.

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Michelle looked up expectantly, slipping her hand into Aurora’s in the automatic way that she always did Dante’s.

“I already talked to Dante about it,” Aurora continued. “And he said I should ask you about it.”

“Okay.” Michelle looked back and forth between them. “You guys are getting married?”

“What? NO!”

Dante’s ego took a healthy punch to the gut at Aurora’s utterly horrified look. She turned and looked Dante straight in the face, practically begging for his help out of that particular conversation.

He raised his hands and his eyebrows at the same time. If she was so horrified at the prospect of marrying him then she could get herself out of this one.

“I… no. We’re not getting married. That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Okay,” Michelle said, taking it on the chin. “Then what?”

“My company, Esposito Group, we throw fundraisers a few times a year for good causes. And this year I was thinking that we should do a fundraiser for research toward Von Willebrand’s.”

“Oh!” Michelle looked surprised as she pulled open the back door of Dante’s car. “Really?”

“Yeah. I was thinking a lot about what you said about wishing that you knew more about the disorder. And we’re always on the lookout for good causes.”

“That’s really cool, Aurora.”

“So…” Aurora’s gaze flicked to Dante for a half second as they slid into the front seats. “Will you make a speech?”

“What?!” Michelle screeched, her messy hair falling into her eyes. “Me?”

“I think everyone would really want to hear from someone who lives with the disorder. They’d want to know a little about what it is like to have it and what it would mean to you to know more about it.”
“I—I’ve never given a speech before.”

“Come on, kid, you can do it,” Dante jumped in. “You’re made of words. Hell, you’ve never been speech-less before.”

Aurora and Michelle grimaced at one another over Dante’s bad joke, but Michelle instantly sobered. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course.”

Dante knew when it was time to change the subject for Michelle. He knew when she chewed her lip, nervousness was rising in her belly. “You still wanting to go to that sleepover tonight?” he asked, half hoping that she’d say no.

“Yeah,” she answered absently, still obviously thinking over the idea of making a speech about Von Willebrand’s in front of a bunch of adults.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I know I said it was a good idea before but—”

“No, no. You were right,” Michelle agreed. “I like Teya. And she’s never invited me to anything before, so I think I should probably go.”

 

* * *

 

When they arrived home, Aurora wordlessly followed Michelle into her room and sat on the little girl’s bed, making suggestions about what to pack. She could tell Michelle was a little nervous about her first sleepover with her new friend Teya. Dante had told Aurora that most of Michelle’s friends were other kids from the hospital who were dealing with blood disorders. Which was cool, but she was just starting to make some public school friends as well.

Aurora was doing her best to stuff an oversized sleeping bag into an undersized backpack when Dante came back to the bedroom to find them.

“Time to go,” he said.

“Mind if I wait for you here?” Aurora asked, one hand on her stomach. “I’m a little tired.”

“You feeling alright?” Dante asked her, his eyes narrowing on the hand on her belly.

Aurora immediately dropped her hand. “Oh. Yes. Just a little tired is all.”

Michelle held her hands out for a hug and Aurora wrapped her right up.

 

* * *

 

When Dante returned from dropping Michelle off at the sleepover, it was to find Aurora, heels kicked off, curled up on his living room couch.

He watched the soft rise and fall of her chest. Her hair was the messiest he’d ever seen it, the silky strands tangled over the throw pillow. She wore a casual green dress, a little boxy and made of t-shirt material. She’d been doing that more often lately, he’d noticed. Dressing casually on the weekends.

It made his mouth water. And it thrilled him. He felt like he was somehow bridging the gap between the two versions of her. The stiff and formal work version of her and the passionate, wild home version of her. On the weekends she was in the middle. Relaxed and casual and so stunning it almost hurt to look at her.

It was getting out of hand, he had to admit. His feelings for her. He’d thought that indulging in her would quench the thirst he felt for her. But if anything, it had increased it. The tastes he was getting never seemed as if they would be enough.

He didn’t think she was necessarily using him to forget Gio anymore, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t have feelings for him. Even so, he sensed how things had changed between them. Just as Aurora was inside him, he’d found a place inside her. She enjoyed him in an elemental way, both in bed and out.

Unable to stand the distance between them a moment longer, he stepped closer to where she slept on the couch. As if she felt his eyes on her, she stirred, the long, golden column of her neck exposed against the early evening light.

Her eyes came open, blinking slowly, as if she were trying to figure out exactly who he was.

“Oh. Hi.”

He cocked his head to one side, unable and unwilling to fight against the wave of tenderness that rose up inside him.

 

* * *

 

“I’m glad you’re back,” Aurora said as she struggled against the fatigue that weighed her down. Something about this stage of pregnancy had her dragging. She’d actually fallen asleep at her desk chair the other day. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You look cute all fuzzy from sleep.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Normally you’re gorgeous, flawless. But you’ve got lines from the pillow on your cheek, your eyes are all heavy, your hair’s all messy and you just look cute.”

Aurora raised an eyebrow, unsure whether to be insulted or charmed.

But she didn’t have long to debate because seconds later, Dante’s hand snaked up her folded leg and just under the bottom hem of her dress.

Her breath caught in her chest.

He slid himself with the grace of an athlete on top of her, and she found herself absolutely drowning in a kiss. A kiss that bent all the rules of space and time for her. He was at once both comforting, calming, and deeply thrilling. Aurora was vaguely aware of the fact that she could barely feel her feet, that her hands had slid bonelessly from his cheeks. But she couldn’t think much past the slow slide of his tongue against hers, of his teeth at her lip.

When the light changed, darkened and deepened, Dante rose with her in his arms. He carried her through the house and neither of them spoke. They’d kissed long enough that night had fallen without either of them turning on any lights and they didn’t want to break the spell of it. They were warm and fuzzy and wrapped up in one another. The arousal that they’d just pulled from each other was a long, languid slide, devoid of the urgency that was so common in the way they usually touched one another.

When Dante laid her on the bed, stripped her clothes and then his own, Aurora said nothing. There were no words for it. When he speared his hands through her hair, took her lips in yet another waterfall of a kiss, Aurora said nothing. When his hand slid down the smooth plane of her back, over the curve of her ass, found her aching wetness, she said nothing. All she could do was feel and feel and feel.

But when he slid into her, she had to speak. There was one word that she simply had to say, like it was a spell that would keep the night from ever ending.

“Dante,” she whispered into the dark, into the warm skin of his shoulder, her eyes squeezed tight and her hands in fists on his back. “Dante.”

 

* * *

 

Dante froze before he reared back to catch her eyes with his. It was the first time she’d ever said his name during sex and it shook something loose inside of him. It was the first time he could be certain that she was thinking of him, and only him, while he was loving her body.

“Say it again,” he demanded, his harsh voice a striking contrast to the tender way he held her.

“Dante.”

The gentle, languid feelings that had been flowing through him heated, crystalized, sharpened. He found he didn’t want to take her on a lazy river of passion. She’d said his name, stared into his eyes and now he wanted to eat her alive. His body demanded it.

Dante pulled out of her and Aurora gasped, moaning at the loss of him. He didn’t make her wait long. Grasping her waist, Dante flipped her body around, and settled her on her hands and knees.

He took one necessary second to whisk a hand along her spine, smooth a palm over her glorious ass. But then he found he couldn’t wait another moment. Dante lined himself up and plunged back into her.

Aurora moaned, her hips pushing back into him and grinding against his body like she couldn’t get close enough.

Dante fell over her, his chest to her back, his hands on either sides of hers, his mouth at her ear.

“Say my name,” he commanded as he rutted into her from behind.

She trembled with each of his punishing, delicious thrusts, her body scooting forward on the bed.

“Dante,” she whispered on an endless moan.

Looking to the side he caught sight of them in the floor length mirror on the open door of his closet. He turned her head to look as well and she moaned and seized, her orgasm washing through her the second she caught sight of the animalistic scene.

His body, taut and lined, looming over hers, his muscles heavily shadowed in the moonlight. And her body, trembling, soft and taking everything he gave her.

Dante rutted her through her orgasm and on toward another. He dropped his head toward her ear and Aurora twisted her mouth to catch his.

“Dante,” she whispered into his mouth.

It was enough to send both of them over the edge again. She was telling him that it was him who was fucking her, both in her body and in her mind. And as he exploded inside her, Dante realized that it was all he’d ever wanted.

 

* * *

 

“We have to get out of bed!” Aurora insisted the next morning. They’d been making out for damn near an hour. Dante was currently in the process of licking and sucking at that place on her neck he favored and she didn’t think she could take another second.

He’d fully distracted her last night with all the sex and she was acutely aware of the major bomb she was about to drop on him. She just wanted it to be over.

Plus, she was starving and needed breakfast bad. Her stomach growled, loudly, to prove it.

Dante looked up at her, grinning. “You hungry, baby?”

“What do you think?” she asked, grinning right back and scooting to the edge of the bed.

She stretched, let her hair fall over her back and couldn’t help but smile when she felt his fingers draw a picture on her back. It was like he couldn’t go more than a few seconds without touching her.

“Plus,” she said, looking over her shoulder at his sleepy face. “We’ve gotta make ourselves semi presentable for when Michelle gets back.”

“She won’t be back until this afternoon.” Dante frowned and swung his legs out of bed. “I hope she’s having fun. She said she’d call if she needed anything. But it’s her first sleepover in a long time and…”

He trailed off, thoughtful. Aurora scooped one of his t-shirts from the dresser and carefully chose her words.

“For someone who draws such careful lines in the sand, you sure worry about her the way a father might.”

Dante’s eyes snapped up to her as he tugged on some boxers. “You know, lately, some of those lines are starting to get a little blurry for me. The line between brother and father.”
“Oh?” Something tripped in Aurora’s chest like a stone skipping across a lake.

“She told me the other day that she thinks of me like a dad. It shook me up.”

“Why?” She followed him downstairs to the kitchen. He sat her up on the counter where he could look at her all he wanted and started to pull stuff out of the fridge to make them breakfast.

“Because I’ve always been so sure that I’ll never be a dad. Because of my dad.”

“He… is a bad guy?”

Dante seemed to weigh his words carefully. “Honestly, I don’t know much about him as a person. But as a father? Well, yeah. He was a bad father. Neglectful, bored, annoyed. He treated me and my mother like we were the highest degree of burden. I would say that he withheld love, but honestly, I don’t think he even had any love to withhold.”

“Dante,” Aurora whispered, horrified for what he must have gone through.

“I had no template for how to be loving or attentive.” He pulled out some pans and poured her a cup of coffee. “So when Michelle first came to live with me, I found myself doing things my dad might do or say. And it horrified me. I realized that I was trying to be her father. And unfortunately, the only kind of father I can be is like my own dad. But when I changed the way I was thinking about it, called myself her brother instead, well, it gave me a chance to start from scratch. Have a new roadmap.”

“That makes sense,” Aurora said slowly. “But now…”

“Yeah. Now things are kind of changing. She’s old enough that she understands what’s going on. I’ve started realizing that it matters less how I think about it and matters more how she thinks about it. If she’s thinking of me as her dad, then I guess in a lot of ways, I’m her dad.”

His voice was deep and calm, but Aurora could hear the gravity of his words, how much it shook him to say the words out loud.

She swallowed coffee down her dry throat. “Does it make you think about having children of your own?”

Dante opened his mouth to answer just as his cellphone chirped on the counter beside him. He picked it up and answered.

“Hey squirt.”

Aurora watched as Dante’s eyes rounded and then quickly narrowed. “Okay. Sit tight. I’ll be there in ten minutes. We’re going to have to go to the hospital. Don’t argue. And when you’re completely fine and on your way home and we’ve averted a heart attack for me, then we’re going to have a real long talk about what the hell you were doing jumping on a damn trampoline in the first place.”

Aurora winced and jumped up immediately from the counter. She hurried upstairs to grab his pants and shoes and shirt for him. The conversation they’d just had burned on the tip of her brain. She’d been so close then, so terribly close, to just telling him. But she swallowed the words back. He had Michelle to take care of now. And there was no way Aurora was getting in the way of that.