The Devil Served Desire (20 page)

"I like getting my hands into the dough, so to speak. Sometimes, I miss the little stuff in running the restaurant. I get so busy with phone calls, bills, employees fighting like two-year-olds."

"I know what you mean." She moved to his left to load clean glasses into the cabinet. "There are days at the shop when we're so wrapped up in the business end that it feels like we lost the fun somewhere."

Dante's ears perked up. What was this? Detente? A common ground, built on business?

"So your dad started the restaurant?" she asked.

He nodded. "My father opened Vita when he came here from Italy. He loved the place, but he was never very successful with it. He could cook better than Wolfgang Puck and Julia Child rolled into one and he taught me how to cook, too, but he had no head for business."

"Not everyone does," Maria said. "When the three of us started Gift Baskets, we divvied things up according to our skills. Clearly, I didn't get kitchen duty." She laughed and gave him a slight jab in the arm.

Dante wanted to smack himself in the head. Why hadn't he thought of it earlier? Maria was part owner of a business; he owned a business. Right there was the bridge he'd been looking for to cement the connection between them.

Besides the sex connection, of course.

"How'd you three end up in business, anyway?" He started in on one of Mamma's rooster-decorated serving platters.

"We all went to Suffolk and ended up meeting in business class. We were assigned together as a team for one of those projects where you have to invent a business. Being women, our idea involved cookies and chocolate." She laughed, turning the dish towel around and around in her hand. "We must have all been PMSing at the same time. But it worked
and
we worked. After college, we made the leap into business together. Never looked back. Never had second thoughts."

"So you
do
take risks?"

"With things I can control."

He handed her the clean platter, but didn't let go of his end. Yet. "You never really control anything. Not in business and not in life."

"I like the illusion."

"Another thing we have in common." He grinned, then gently released the platter into her grip. "There are a lot of days when it seems the employees run me, rather than the other way around."

She laughed. "All you need is a good manager. And a great business plan."

Dante returned to the sink and worked his way through the silverware. "For that, I'd need time. And in my business, it's the one thing I can't order off the menu."

She sighed, picking up a handful of the silverware he'd washed and began drying the pieces. "It's been a long day. I don't really feel like talking about work. Let's just do the dishes."

Plan A—shot down with a torpedo before it got a chance to do much more than leave the battleship. Guess he'd have to resort to Plan B. The sex connection.

Gee, pity.

Before he could do anything more sexy than suds a plate, Biba Pagliano entered the kitchen. She stopped at the window and pulled back the curtain. "Oh, would you look at that," Biba said. "It's raining. Maria, you can't walk home in that. You'll get sick."

It was, indeed, raining, Dante saw. Not hard, but strong enough to require an umbrella and a fast walk.

"Mamma, I walk in the rain all the time. I won't drown. And, I only live four blocks away."

"You'll catch a cold." Biba let go of the curtain and stepped back, directing a hinting look at Dante. "You don't even have a raincoat with you."

"Let me drive you," Dante said. It would give him some moments alone with her. Maybe he could build that bridge he'd been trying to work on all night. He wasn't winning the war with Maria yet.

But he wasn't a man who gave up easily, either.

"You don't have to."

Dante squeezed out the sponge and put it on top of the sink, then pulled the plug and let the water drain from the now-empty sink. "It would be my pleasure."

"It's not a long walk. Really. You don't have to go out of your way."

"Maria, hush." Biba waved at her. "If the man wants to drive you home, let him be a gentleman."

Maria shot her mother a glare. Mamma and her matchmaking had leapt up notches unknown now. She'd gone way beyond grocery clerks. Now she was blatantly asking Dante to make a pity drive.

"It's not out of my way at all." Dante grinned. "Besides, I've learned it's wise to always take a mother's advice." He gave Mamma a wink.

And Mamma blushed, actually blushed, like a schoolgirl smitten by his charms.

Maria glanced out the window and saw God had taken Mamma's side, too. The rain had started pouring down in sheets. Clearly, Maria was outnumbered. "All right, you both win." She gave her mother a hug as an apology for the way she'd been acting.

Mamma beamed. Probably calculating the cost of catering in her head. "Go, go," she said, shooing them out of her kitchen. "I finish drying." Mamma took the dish towel right out of Maria's hands and bumped her with her hip, sending her stumbling toward the door.

A second later, Dante and Maria were outside the house, under Mamma's bright pink umbrella, dashing toward his car. "I want to apologize," Maria said once they were inside.

"For what?"

"For my family. They're a little... overbearing at times. And beyond obvious in their attempts to get me married off."

Dante smiled. "I thought they were great."

"Have you been drinking?" He might find them entertaining for a one-meal performance but over time, her family was like the Ringling Brothers without the ringmaster.

"Only the wine at dinner." He turned the key and the engine revved to life. "Even when my dad was alive, my family was nothing like yours."

"There are days I'd love to have a 'normal' family. One you can actually introduce to friends without being afraid they'll have them fill out a marriage license at the dinner table." She pointed at the street sign ahead of them. "It's shorter if you take a right here."

He obliged. "They only have your best interests at heart."

"They don't listen to what I want." She sighed.

"What parents do?"

She laughed. "Maybe the ones on Mars. Certainly not the ones that live in the North End."

He chuckled softly at that. The wipers on the Honda swished back and forth, sluicing the rain from side to side. Dante reached up a hand and rubbed at the back of his neck. He sighed. "What a week."

"Long days at the restaurant?"

"They all are. It's part of the business."

"You need a vacation."

He let out a short, dry laugh. "I gave those up for Lent. And Easter. And Christmas."

"The rewards of entrepreneurship, huh? It's the same for us at Gift Baskets."

"Yeah. Being an owner isn't all it's cracked up to be." He pulled into a space two cars up from her door. "Here we are."

"Listen ..." She let her voice trail off and considered him in the dark. Beyond his looks, he was a man who understood a part of her no one else did. She'd never talked business with a man before and been listened to. Like an equal.

She'd enjoyed it. Though she'd rather eat pine bark for a year than tell Mamma that.

"Did you want to ask me something?" Dante said.

She took a breath, then went against her own plan not to think about him or see him again. "Why don't you come up for a little while? Have a cup of coffee? A glass of wine?"

One drink didn't constitute a date, she told herself. Or a prelude to marriage.

His smile seemed ten times more intimate in the soft light cast by the street lamps. "A little dessert?"

She put up her hands. "I’m not having any of that I've sworn off desserts."

"A bit of sweets isn't always a bad idea," Dante murmured.

Oh, damn. When he used that low, sexy voice of his, thoughts of business fled her mind like dirt at a Hoover convention. Her gaze met his and she stopped thinking about anything with calories. "I’m not the kind who can stop at just one bite."

Dante leaned forward, and for a second, she held her breath, until he reached into the backseat. "Are you sure? I've got a box of Sicilian ricotta cake here. I meant to bring it to your mother's house for after dinner. But I forgot it in the car."

"I... I shouldn't." The white box of delight in his hands teased at her.

If he came up, with that dessert she wouldn't get one word of business conversation out. Hell, she'd be lucky if her mouth connected with anything other than him and what was in that box.

"Shouldn't? Or won't?" He untied the string on the box, with slow, sensual movements. As if he were slipping off her dress.

Oh, shit. There went the last of her resolve.

"Can't," Maria gasped. She scrambled for the door handle and hopped out of the car. The rain poured down on her head. She raised an arm to block it, but it did little good. With her free hand, she dug through her purse for her keys.

Damn, that had been close.

Inviting him in had been a bad idea. The kind that came from late nights and cloudy thinking. Maybe she'd been inhaling those soap bubbles. Or maybe the aroma of the risotto and veal had gone to her head. She had to get into her building before she turned around and grabbed him, begging him to end her misery once and for all.

But too late, he was already out of the car. An umbrella extended over his head and the cake box under one arm. He crossed to her, tipping the umbrella to cover her, too. "You're getting wet."

"I'm looking for my keys."

"We don't have to eat a single bite," Dante said. "We could just... talk."

"Cows have better bullshit than that."

"I'm serious."

She found her key and inserted it into the lock. Then she turned and took in his face. He wasn't looking at her breasts. He was looking into her eyes. Like he cared about her, not just her body.

But then she remembered last fall when her heart had been broken by David as surely as a Christmas ornament smashed by a Mack truck. Never would she let a man get that close again.

No matter what he had in his little white box.

"Good night, Dante," she said and started to turn back toward her door.

In one swift movement, he dropped the box and umbrella to the ground, then gathered her up against him and kissed her with the force of a summer storm. His hands tangled in her hair, his lips roamed over hers.

The entire thing was sudden and...

Wonderful.

Dante murmured against her mouth and cupped her head with hands that seemed to treasure her like a piece of china. When he did, something she'd thought had been dead for months sprang to life again. Emotion. Feeling.

Connection.

To hell with not getting involved, with keeping her heart protected as if it were a rare statue of the Virgin Mary. Dante's hands came around to cup her chin with a feather-light touch and for the first time in a very long time, Maria stopped feeling twenty pounds overweight. Stopped thinking if she was thinner or prettier, no one would ever cheat on her again.

Dante had done the impossible. Made Maria feel beautiful and desirable.

And ready to rumble.

Maria's Dating-Is-a-Chess-Game Mussels and Clams in Wine Sauce

2 pounds fresh mussels, in their shells

2 pounds fresh clams, in their shells

6 tablespoons olive oil

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 teaspoon dried red chilies, more or less to taste

1-1/2 cups of dry white wine

Chopped fresh parsley

Scrub, rinse and debeard the mussels and clams. Discard any with broken shells. Imperfect partners may be allowed in real life, but not in seafood.

In a large saucepan, heat the oil, garlic and chilies. Add the wine, then the shellfish. Cover and steam until the shells have all opened and the shellfish are ready to be honest about what's really inside them. Discard any unopened shells.

Sprinkle with the parsley and serve with the sauce on the side, as well as toasted bruschetta for dipping. Now that the mussels and clams are being open, maybe it's time for a little removal of the shell on your end, too.

She scrambled into her building and unlocked her door faster than David Blaine could make a quarter disappear.

"I believe I owe you a massage," Dante said when they entered her living room.

The thought of having a massage from those strong, thick fingers of his sounded like ten orgasms at once. She pictured him standing over her naked torso, palms working magic. Bringing the flesh to heated life.

Setting off fires in parts of her body that hadn't been inflamed in way too long.

Damn Harvey and his disappointing performance. Damn her hormones for working in reverse whenever Antonio was around. Maybe it was some weird kind of perimenopause. Mr. Right turned her off while Mr. Wrong made her pant like a St. Bernard in St. Tropez.

"Let me guess what you want," Dante whispered, moving into position behind her, his hands now on her shoulders. The fabric of her shirt became a semiconductor, transmitting the heat of his touch directly to her brain.

His fingers didn't just rub. They danced along her collarbone, her shoulders, along her neckline, doing the rumba and the tango, with a little waltz added in. Everything inside her sprang to life, dancing in time with his touch.

This wasn't any ordinary massage. And her reaction was going beyond hormones. A surge of fear ran through her.

"We shouldn't—"

"Shouldn't what?"

Fall in love. Get married. Make plans beyond today.

"Do—" and then the thought was gone, lost in a heated rush of anticipation as his hands moved to her shoulder blades and then slowly down her spine.

Inch by inch. One vertebra at a time. Caressing and heating, easing every ache that had ever existed in her back.

And a few that didn't.

"You're so good." The words came out in a half moan, half whisper.

"You have no idea," he said softly, then leaned down and pressed his lips to her neck.

An electric thrill coiled through her, whipping against her nerve endings, as if she'd just touched a downed power line. She should—