The Devil Served Desire (21 page)

Stop thinking, that's what she should do. Because if she thought about one more reason why she shouldn't kiss Dante, she'd be—

Oh, God. Now he was kissing the hollow of her throat. The T-spot. That one little secret place they never wrote about in
Cosmo
.

Maria groaned and collapsed onto her love seat, placing one hand on each side of Dante's face and hauling his mouth down with hers before she could think twice about it.

And then
she
kissed
him
, her mouth wide against his, her tongue seeking more than the tease he'd given before. In bed, she was a woman who took what she wanted—and gave even more in return.

And right now all she wanted was him. For Christmas and her birthday and Flag Day in Aruba.

Dante pulled her to his chest, his arms wrapping around her back, pressing her breasts tight to his torso, the feel both agony and pleasure. She hauled him closer on the sofa, so his entire body now lay across hers.

He was hard and he was hot. His mouth roamed across hers, nipping and tasting at one time, then consuming the next. She rode a roller coaster of sensuality, her senses careening around corners, escalating her desire for him like a shaken champagne bottle about to be uncorked.

He pulled back, an inch, maybe two, from her mouth. "I want you, Maria."

"I want you, too."

"But not like this."

She blinked. The air in her apartment seemed to become very still and heavy. "What?"

"
When
we make love," and he emphasized the when with a gentle swipe of his finger across her lips, "I want it to be because you are madly in love with me."

She drew back. "I don't fall in love."

Not anymore.

"You're a terrible liar."

"I don't fall in love," she repeated. "So don't hold your breath waiting."

"I intend to prove you wrong." He grinned, his face so close to hers the smile seemed like it could be her own. "And that's going to be damned fun."

She swallowed. His argument made sense—and that's what scared her. Would her mind sabotage her as easily as her body had? She
couldn't
fall in love with him. He represented everything she didn't want in her life. Everything risky she couldn't take a chance on again. Her heart couldn't do that a second time. "This isn't a game, Dante," she said, as much to herself as to him.

"Everything between a man and a woman is a game of sorts."

"In games, there's always a loser. And I don't intend to be the loser."

"Sometimes, everyone wins."

She scrambled off the couch and got to her feet. "That's a bunch of crap. That's why they call them 'fairy' tales because the only people they come true for are imaginary little sprites who live in the woods."

He rose and crossed to her, his touch now a tender one on her shoulder. "What's made you so bitter?"

"I'm not bitter. I'm realistic." She turned to him. "What made you such a dreamer?"

He shrugged. "I believe in happy endings."

"Then why don't you have one of your own?" She took a step closer. "You work a million hours a week and from what Franco has said, barely date at all. How were you going to get that fairy tale? Were the mice going to deliver it to you?"

Dante heard the harshness in her voice, springing from some well of past hurts. Some other man had put that sound into her words. Not him. So he didn't take offense.

And he didn't walk away.

Instead, he grinned. "No, an angel was going to stand under a streetlight across from my restaurant and make me realize I'd been working way too much lately."

Maria pivoted away from him, crossing to the windows at the rear of her apartment. Below her, the narrow streets were dark and empty, shrouded by the rain.

In a month or two, the neighbors would be out there, sitting in their lawn chairs, enjoying the warm nights. The men would be smoking and gesturing wildly as they argued politics or sports. The pigeons would dart in and out hoping for a crumb, life in the North End would go on, as it had for centuries, as if nothing had ever happened to break her heart in this second-floor one-bedroom apartment.

Maria swallowed. "I’ve heard that line before."

"From who?"

When she didn't answer, he came closer and wrapped his arms around her waist. How she wanted to lean into that embrace. To trust. To believe in him and everything he'd said. "Who hurt you, Maria?"

"It doesn't matter. A man. Men." She bit her lip and shook her head. "Men who think they can talk a sweet game, make me think they believe in that forever and ever ending. Then it turns out they have a little extra something on the side. A backup plan."

His hand moved to her hair, the caress soft and agonizingly tender. He leaned down, his mouth again at her ear, soft, quiet. Teasing. "With you, the only backup plan a man needs is a way out of checkmate."

Despite herself, she laughed. She turned to face him, finding an answering smile on his lips. Damn him for making her laugh. He'd broken the tension and somehow jerked her out of a damned good pity fest with one sentence. "What am I going to do with you?" she said.

"Let me win my dignity back."

"Dignity?" She grinned. "After that pitiful loss to me, you might as well give up any hopes of dignity."

He trailed a finger along her chin. "I was distracted."

Hell,
she
was distracted after that touch, but she kept her cool. Barely.

"And you aren't now? After that?" She gestured toward the love seat.

"Oh, no. I'm
much
more focused now."

"Right."

"Come on, let's play again."

The way he said it didn't imply a chess game. He meant more. Much more. After all she'd just said and felt, she should say no. She had made her position clear. If she wanted to stick to her love guns, she'd push him out the door now and—

Go to bed alone. Frustrated. Cold. And sans one orgasm.

"I'll just beat you," she said, hedging.

"I don't think so." He grinned. "I've been studying."

"What?
Chess for Dummies
in your spare time?"

He grinned. "Actually,
The Kama Sutra Pop-Up Book
."

That particular title brought up mental images that would add a tinge of blush to the
New York Times
bestseller list. "You're kidding."

"Play me and find out."

The double entendre set off the electrical storm in her gut again. She shouldn't.

But damn. She had even less willpower when it came to sex—and that deep, tempting voice of Dante's—than she did against manicotti.

For a second, she wanted to believe he was different from David and all the other men she'd met. That the words he'd said were real. That after she'd changed her life to accommodate him and started believing in forever, he wasn't going to turn out to be some cretin who ordered her around like a Merry Maid on retainer. Or a nympho who kept a stable of women on the side so he could ride a different pony whenever his saddle got itchy.

Maybe … Dante was different. Or maybe she just wanted to think he was for tonight. Because it was raining. And she was cold. And lonely.

And he had made her laugh.

"One game. No more." The words were out of her mouth, as if her brain didn't have anything to do with her voice box.

He took her hand and led her to the chess table. "This time, let's make it
really
interesting."

"How do you propose we do that?"

The corners of his mouth lifted up into a devilish smile. "Naked chess."

Dante's Hurry-Up-and-Get-Naked Broiled Shrimp

24 large shrimp, peeled and deveined

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (use a damned food processor; it's faster)

3 tablespoons chopped basil

1 tablespoon fresh parsley

1/2 tablespoon pepper

Juice of one lemon

4 tablespoons olive oil

If you don't have time for deveining the shrimp, have it done at the fish store. All you need is a quick snack, not a two-hour detour from what you were doing. Mix the shrimp with all the ingredients in one bowl, throw it in the fridge and leave it to marinate for
at least
eight hours.

Preferably overnight.

When you come up for air again, preheat the broiler, then slip the naked shrimp onto skewers and brush with remaining marinade. Cook for about three minutes, then turn and cook for three minutes more. Eat in bed.

But be very careful where you leave your skewers.

Dante saw Maria's reaction and knew as much as she said she didn't want him—

She did.

Everything in her eyes and her body language belied her words. Like a mutiny against her mind.

Good. For a minute there, he'd been worried. And he wasn't a man who'd ever worried before about what a woman thought—or whether a woman would be interested in him. But this time it was different.

Because she was different. Feisty, yet kind. A woman who said she didn't care, yet loved her family with a fierceness that spoke of volumes of love somewhere deep within her. A smart woman who ran a successful business and had been able to save his own butt once already.

"What exactly is naked chess?" she asked.

"Well, one of us gets naked." He'd proposed the idea, not quite sure what the hell he meant, only knowing it sounded damned good.

"Oh, gee, let me guess who." She shook her head. "Men are so predictable."

"If you want, you can get me naked instead." He gave her a suggestive smile, which she waved away. "Okay, here are the rules. Every time somebody calls 'check,' the checked person has to remove a piece of clothing."

"That's not naked chess."

"It's not?"

"No. It's strip chess." She grinned and set up her own pieces. "You know I'm going to beat you again."

"Not necessarily."

"And take great delight in seeing what you look like beneath that apron."

"I'm not wearing my apron right now."

"I was speaking rhetorically."

"I know." His gaze locked with hers for one long moment. "Your move first."

She slid a pawn forward; he did the same. This time, though, Dante studied the board and didn't let her distract him.

A few moves later, beneath the table, she crossed one leg over the other, her shoe dropping to the floor with the movement and her foot drifting up against his leg. "Oh, sorry."

He grinned. "Sure you are." He slid his bishop forward. "I believe that's check."

"No. Not already. It can't be."

"Yes, it is." His grin widened. "Take something off."

She studied the board, then him. "You've been boning up."

He arched a brow. "More than you know."

She looked at the board once more, then finally conceded that he had her king in a corner. "Fine. I'll strip. But it will just make it more distracting for you."

"Oh, I don't think so."

"Wanna bet? Watch me." She reached down to her waist, tugged on the stretchy dark pink shirt and then yanked it up and over her head. She flung the shirt away to the left but Dante didn't bother to look where it went. His eyes had never left her chest.

He gulped. Holy Mother of God. Her breasts perked above a lacy red bra, the nipples teasing beneath the delicate floral material. Perfect round globes, begging to be touched. Her skin was like honeyed milk. And all he wanted to do was drink.

She wiggled a little in her seat, clearly enjoying the effect she was having on him. In concert, her breasts did a tiny little jig.

Why had he thought this was going to be a good idea? What hormone-induced frenzy had cooked up this idea in his mind?

"Now, let's see who gets checked next," Maria said. And she moved her king out of the reach of his bishop.

Dante swallowed hard and tried to go back to the chess moves he'd had planned out in his head.

His brain was a blank.

"Your move,
Dante
," she said, placing special emphasis on his name.

Stare at the board. Not at her. Or you'll be down to your boxers quicker than Warren Beatty in his heyday.

He redoubled his concentration. Kept his gaze on everything but her. And two moves later was rewarded with another check.

"No way. That's impossible! I was just about to do that to you."

He smirked. "Beat you to it. Again."

"On purpose?"

"Maybe."

Now he did allow himself to look at her again, his eyes drinking in her skin, her sweet generous chest, her full, open mouth. His breathing escalated. He wanted to groan. To leap across this table and tell her to hell with his stupid little rule about her falling in love with him first. To just have her now. And end this agonizing want that curled within him like a lion in a too-small cage.

She glanced up, caught him looking. "Distract you enough?"

"I barely noticed." He made a big show of peering over the table and pretending he was taking his first look at her. "Oh, I see now. What color is that... red? I can barely see."

"Liar."

He just grinned. "You, my dear, need to strip again. Sorry, but them's the rules."

She bit her lip, considering. "I could take off the bra—"

Oh, God, yes.

"But no." She put a finger to her lip, mocking serious thought. "I’m sure that wouldn't work because you said you barely noticed my chest."

I noticed, I noticed. It's imprinted in my memory.

"Or, I could do something a little more... devious." Beneath the table, she moved her hand and lifted her hips, then sat down again and tossed another, much smaller piece of clothing to the left.

Something lacy. And the same color as the bra.

Oh, God.

Her panties.

"That's ever so much more comfortable." She smiled right at him before moving her king out of conquering range. "Your move."

"Uh, yeah." He cleared his throat. Directed his attention away from her breasts and back down at the board. But it didn't work this time. All he could see was what he imagined beneath the table. The image of what was hidden, or rather, no longer completely hidden since she'd tossed the panties onto the chair in the corner.