Perilous Curves Collection (BBW Romance) (13 page)

Bypassing Dante where he stood in the entry room, I went into the kitchen, filled the tea kettle and put it on the stove. Dante came into the room. Trying to ignore him, I returned to washing dishes while I waited for the kettle to work up a steam.

"How long has your mother been like this?"

I shrugged. "A month before I opened the office here in Masonville, I was talking to her on the phone and it sounded like she didn't know daddy was dead. When I said something about it, she started sobbing uncontrollably. I called a neighbor to come over and watch her and got on the next plane."

I was ready to cry myself. I turned my back on Dante, pretending to sort through momma's selection of teas. He wrapped his hands around my shoulders, his forearms resting flat against my arms and his chest pressed against my back.

"Don't."

He kissed the back of my neck and then once on each side. When I started shaking, he wrapped his arms around me, trapping mine in his embrace.

"I'm sorry, I should have checked in," he whispered. "It's my fault you stayed away."

I wanted to be furious at his presumption and tell him he should get over himself because I had, but it was true.

"I wanted to contact you so many times..."

I pushed at his hands but he wouldn't budge.

"At first, after the divorce, when you didn't go through with the engagement to Dumont, I stayed away because I had nothing to offer you."

Wrong, I thought angrily, even broke and taking care of a toddler, he was the only man who had something to offer me. Desperate not to lose control like I had back in the office, I tried to twist my way out of the embrace. My struggles only put me face-to-face with Dante. "I don't care why you stayed away," I told him hotly.

"Then why are you crying, Liv?"

My back was to the refrigerator and he pushed me up against it, his hands around my hips. He kissed me, just at the side of my mouth. "Every time I looked to see what you were doing, where you were at, I wanted to call you, to show up. No husband, no kids..." He shook his head, smiling sadly as he reached up and freed my hair from the tight bun. "Was it stupid to think you were saving a place for me in your life all that time?"

It wasn't stupid, but I would die before I admitted it to him.

"Before I could get the nerve up, I'd look at Alex and wonder what would I tell him? That I wasn't his dad, that his mom had wanted to abort him...that she basically sold him to me when he was three?"

I closed my eyes. Alex still didn't know. Gabriella didn't want him to find out. Even if Dante was being honest and not just trying to seduce me into staying on the case, would he still hesitate to tell Alex when the boy was free?

"Liv?" His mouth moved over mine, his tongue darting out to tease my lips open.

I shook my head, pushed at his chest. I couldn't afford to surrender to him again. I'd lost two decades of my life because I hadn't been able to get over him. When this case was done I would start life over. I couldn't do that if I still had the taste of him on my tongue.

"Why'd you come here tonight?"

Dante looked like he was struggling to remember. He was touching foreheads with me. His hands moved to capture mine. It reminded me of our early negotiations, his lower body hard against my plump flesh as I tried to control his roaming hands. The engineering student and the pastor's virgin daughter.

I hadn't stayed a virgin long.

"Why?" I repeated.

"You weren't telling me the truth this morning," he answered, letting go of my hands and tilting my chin up so that I either had to close my eyes or meet his gaze.

"Because you think it's best for Alex--" he started.

"Because I
know
it's best for Alex." The kettle started whistling and I pushed past him to turn the burner off and start momma's tea steeping.

"Then just tell me you're holding something back if I ask. Don't lie to me. There's been too much silence and lies in our lives." He tried to put his palm against my shoulder but I quickly moved out of the way. "Does Alex know what it is?"

I shook my head, "Not unless Malkin told him."

I glanced at him, saw he was chewing on his bottom lip. I turned and finished making momma's tea. "I've got to take this to her."

I took the cup into momma's bedroom, gave her one last kiss for the night and stepped back into the hallway. Closing her door, I turned to see Dante standing outside my bedroom.

I tried to brush past him but he hooked an arm around my waist and drew me to him.

"You're leaving," I told him in a terse whisper. When he didn't let go, I brought a palm up to leverage off his chest. My fingers carelessly brushed his nipple, the tip a small bullet. He took a deep breath in, slowly blinking once before his other hand seized my hair and his mouth came down hard on mine.

I fisted the fabric of his dark blue t-shirt, fighting to control myself so I had any hope of controlling him. His foot swept to the side, pushing my bedroom door open. Starting to panic, I beat my fist against the steel plate of his chest.

Dante eased back, his strong hands and thick arms still controlling me.

"Don't you dare start a fight in my momma's house," I hissed under my breath.

He didn't like that. His mouth quirked and then he kissed me again, squeezing me tight. He let me go, just long enough for me to come up for air. "I don't want a fight, love."

Another possessive kiss from Dante threatened to take my knees out from under me. I pushed against his face until he abandoned my mouth in favor of my throat. I squirmed, my body starting to tingle. "I want you out!"

"Not happening." He maneuvered me through the doorway and into my room. The door closed softly behind us. "Not tonight, not after Alex is free. You're still my girl, Livvy."

"Like hell I am." I shook my head, hard and furious. I tried again to walk past him and again he hooked me to his side.

His lips brushed my ear. "You still come like my girl."

He kissed the corner of my jaw. "Still moan like my girl."

One escaped me and I bit down on my lip before another traitorous sound could escape.

Hearing it, he chuckled, his hands starting to roam my body now that I wasn't fighting to get free. His fingertips slid down my hip and across my thigh to curl against my lower lips. "I bet you're all wet like my girl, too."

My breathing gave a little hitch, too many conflicting emotions threatening to overwhelm me. He eased back again, holding me a little away from his body as he studied my face. "Do you enjoy hating me, love?"

There was no sarcasm in his voice, just sorrow. I shook my head. "I don't…"

He closed the distance between us again kissing my throat as he continued to interrogate me. "Don't hate me or don't enjoy it?"

"I don't hate you," I said after a few more seconds of thinking about it.

Slowly guiding me toward my bed, he looked incredulous. "I think you do."

I shook my head a little more vehemently, metaphorically walking straight into his trap.

"If you hate me," he said and tugged my blouse loose from my dress pants, "then you don't care if I walk away."

I cared alright. He thumbed the button on my pants open and I tried to capture his hands. Too slow, he captured mine instead, one big hand wrapped around both my wrists as his other hand pressed on my shoulder until I was off balance and dropping to sit on my bed.

"But if you don't hate me, then why are you fighting what your body so obviously wants?"

"It doesn't," I protested even as he thumbed the swollen tip of my nipple that tented the fabric of my bra and blouse.

Maintaining the slow, steady push on my shoulder, Dante leaned over me, manipulating my body until my back was flat against the mattress and he was half draped across me. His fingers woven in my hair, he held me in place while he leisurely undid the buttons on my blouse.

No longer studying my face, his mouth returned to my throat, tenderizing my flesh with kisses and licks. My blouse unbuttoned, he unsnapped the front closure of my bra and abandoned my neck entirely.

"I'm going to suck these," he said, palming one free breast and teasing the nipple. Slowly sliding off the bed, he hooked the beltline of my pants and started to pull them from me. "And I'm going to taste this sweet pussy, love."

His hands busy untangling my legs from the pants, he pressed his mouth against the front panel of my underwear and exhaled sharply, the air hot and moist as it reached my skin. I moaned lightly, my mind not my own as I lifted my hips and let him pull the underwear off.

Dante buried his nose in the soft fur of my sex, his tongue parting my labia to lick a meandering line up and down my clit. Rising up again, he coaxed me into the center of the bed and stripped his t-shirt away before freeing me of my blouse and bra.

Mesmerized by the black hair over his golden skin and the ripple of muscles along the front of his torso, I ran my hands over his chest and stomach, eliciting a moan from him. Knowing I was too far gone to refuse him this time, I reached down for the top button of his jeans.

He stopped me, bringing my hands to my side while he rubbed the thick denim seam of his zipper against my mound and whispered in my ear. "I want you coming until you pass out, Liv. I want you so spent from my fucking you, I have to carry you to your car in the morning."

He slid down the bed, kicking his boots off as he descended. Coaxing my thighs apart, he nuzzled my mound again, the soft brush of his nose and mouth making my back arch and my hips jerk with need.

"Settle down, jumping bean," he teased with the half-forgotten nickname. He placed his big palms against the seam where my mound met my thighs. Exposing my wet inner lips to his inspection, his thumbs pulled my thick and swollen labia apart.

Keeping my labia spread, Dante ran his tongue along their sides, intentionally avoiding the hard spine of need that jerked and trembled whenever his tongue ventured close.

"Such an achy little clit," he purred before latching onto it and sucking.

My hand flew up to my mouth, my teeth biting down on my knuckle to stifle a pleasure-soaked scream. His mouth wedging my lower lips apart, one thumb started its thick exploration of my cunt by running the paid around the tight circle. My muscles contracting, I groaned against my hand.

His thumb dipped down, the pad slick with my juices. Massaging the pucker of my ass, his tongue trailed down from my clit to lick the outer ring of my cunt. "Do you still like the same things, love?"

I stayed quiet, knowing only that I didn't want him to stop any of the things he was doing. My hips danced, muffled moans fought against my lips as the tension between my legs climbed higher. Dante returned to attacking my clit with his lips and teeth, his thumb still teasing my ass. I pressed my mound up, whimpering with pleasure as I inched closer to release.

Two fingers slid into my pussy, the tips curving up and pressing against the forward wall. He took firm, curling strokes inside as his mouth suctioned more tightly to my clit, his tongue taking hard slow licks up and down its length.

"Dante…" I sank my fingers into the thick hair then wrapped them around the back of his head so he wouldn't stop. Three deep gasps in, no exhaling, and then I froze one second…two…

My body vibrated. Desperate strangled moans punctuated the erratic dips and thrusts of my mound as I clenched him more tightly to my pussy and surfed the crest of my climax.

I released him, my ass hitting the mattress as all the air rushed from me and I gulped more in. Dante surged halfway up my body, stopping when his head was even with my breasts. True to his earlier promise, he started to suckle at them, his mouth on the nipple and his fingers still between my legs -- both tenderly driving me insane.

His fingers left me, his body angling left then right as he stripped his jeans away. Catching the other nipple between his teeth, his fingers pressed back inside to slowly rock in and out. His body moved higher, his head even with mine, fingers still dipping-twisting-teasing until my vision blurred.

"I want you in me," I whispered.

"Not yet," he whispered back. "I want you to come for me again. I want you looking in my eyes when it hits you. I want you to see how much I love you when you're riding that wave, Livvy."

He had me at the threshold again, his gaze intense as his fingers probed more deeply. Hitting a prime spot that made my eyes roll back, he attacked it gently, over and over, the pattern varied every few seconds to produce another moan or eye roll.

"I never lied about loving you, Olivia." He kissed me, slow and tender, still stroking, stroking, stroking. "I never had to muster up desire for this sweet, soft body. I have always wanted you."

My hips jerked again.

"Look at me, Liv."

I obeyed him, submitting to his will and gazing into the big dark pupils that crowded his eyes. I watched them pulse as my cunt contracted around his fingers over and over and my hips crested and dipped, surged and retreated.

"I love you, Livvy." He entered me, his fingers out in a heartbeat and his thick hard cock ensconced all the way in as I continued climaxing around the throbbing shaft.