He leaned in and rubbed his thumb over my chin, just below my lower lip. I resisted the urge to moan or whimper or suck on that thumb—all seemed like appropriate responses to a man like this touching me.
“You, my dear Charlotte, may ask me anything you like.” He flashed a cocky little half smile.
Meaning, I could ask, but he wouldn’t necessarily answer.
“Do we have a deal?” he added.
Sleep. I needed to sleep. Just one night of peace and safety. I would go insane if I didn’t get it. And the thought of this beautiful man keeping me safe and sound while I did it, well… “Deal. Thank you, Tommaso.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tommaso insisted on driving me home, which, after I hit my head, wasn’t a surprise. Neither was his hundred-thousand-dollar car—black, sleek, sexy, just like the suit he now wore. He’d changed somewhere between the time he left me in the first aid room and checked out of his room.
“So, uh…” I ran my hands through my hair, self-consciously patting the knot on the back of my head to make sure it wasn’t actually the size of a basketball.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.
“Oh. Yeah, feeling fine. I just…” I’m at a loss for words. Why had he changed? Now he looked even hotter, and I was questioning my decision to let him in my front door along with my ability to keep my hands to myself.
“Yes?” he said, his voice deep and low, filled with masculine confidence.
“So this is the real you?” I swept my hand through the air in his general direction.
“Yes.”
“And the preppy golf clothes you’ve been wearing around the resort or the leather pants from last night?” I asked.
“I was making do until my own clothes arrived.”
“Oh.” I bobbed my head. It made sense. From the moment I saw him, I thought he looked out of place. His sherbet clothes reminded me of a Batman doll that had been dressed in a My Little Pony tutu. And I wasn’t talking about the doughy ’70s Batman in the blue underwear with the awesome yellow utility belt. No, sir. I was talking Superman-assassin. Rusty-bucket-of-nails-voiced Batman.
“So, what exactly do you do for a living again?” I asked, my tone unintentionally critical.
“I thought I was the one asking all of the questions?”
“You said I could ask anything I liked.”
“Indeed, I did,” he admitted.
I waited, but he kept his eyes glued to the road, saying nothing.
“Fine.” I let out a little breath. “Don’t answer, but just know that maybe you’re not the only one who’s interested.” Why had I said that? I needed to keep my flirty urges in check, but it was so damned difficult.
He flashed a glance my way, quickly returning his eyes to the road and then checking his mirrors like he was watching for something. Or someone? I already felt safe enough to take a nap.
“What kind of interested?” he asked.
“Is this one of your ten questions?”
“No.”
“Then I’m afraid I can’t answer.” I smiled and looked away. Did he have any clue what he did to me? My stomach felt crazy inside—flutters and rolling waves. And dammit, did he have to smell so good? His Mercedes—completely showroom-floor immaculate, by the way—smelled like a delicious mixture of spice and leather, male and new car.
He was silent for several long moments. “All right, Charlotte, here’s my first question: Why the big wall around you, metaphorically speaking of course?”
“You think I’m closed off?”
He continued, “It’s obvious that you don’t lack confidence in yourself, and you’re friendly enough, but you keep everyone at arm’s length. You don’t share anything personal, do you?”
He sure didn’t waste time with the big questions, but I wasn’t ready to answer. It was too complicated and… “Can I table that question?”
“We had a deal.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer. I just prefer us to work up to the more difficult topics.” I pointed to the left, toward the stretch of road leading out of town. “Turn here.”
“You live pretty far out of the way,” he said, taking in the barren desert surroundings.
“I like my privacy,” I lied. What I really liked was living in my fortress—it was the only way I could relax at night.
You mean, it used to be the only way you could relax. Nothing seemed to help anymore. Mainly because I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad, something evil was coming for me. Again.
God, please don’t let me end up like my mother. Not that I didn’t love her—I did. More than anything. But I hadn’t been able to save her. No one had.
Twenty minutes later, we turned down a dirt road and came upon my chain-link fence.
“Well, this certainly is…private,” he said, checking out the open desert surrounded by rocky hills off in the distance. He then noticed the barbed wire at the top of the fence, too. “A woman’s touch?”
“I live alone out here and there are a lot of animals.” He was onto me and my crazy.
I got out of his car to unlock the thick chain holding the gate together.
“Must be some very big animals,” he yelled through his window as I rolled back the gate.
“Huge!”
He smirked at me, a sign that he knew I was lying, and then drove in, waiting for me to lock the gate behind us.
As I walked toward his car, a cold chill swept over me. Shit. I swiveled on my heels and looked through the gate toward one of the hills off in the distance. Someone or something was watching. I could feel it.
“Charlotte?”
I turned my head and saw Tommaso standing just outside of his open car door, looking at me with concern.
“Uh…it’s nothing. I just thought I—never mind.” I marched toward his car and got inside.
He slid back into the driver’s seat. “What did you see, Charlotte?”
“Is this one of your ten questions?”
“Should it be?”
I didn’t want to tell him the truth about why he was really here. But another part of me felt like he might understand. In fact, I found myself wishing he might. My two best friends, Mike and Susan, had moved away to San Diego a few years back to start their vegan café. We still spoke at least once a month, but even so, I never told them what happened to me. Only my mother knew, and I sometimes felt like that was her ultimate mental demise—she hadn’t been able to protect me.
“Maybe,” I replied, feeling discombobulated in his presence. Everything about him made me feel all messy inside and unlike myself. Possibly a good thing.
“Then I’ll put it on the list.” He closed his door, hit the gas, and we continued down the dirt road that led to my house.
~~~
“I think I’m going to have to change my profession,” Tommaso said as we entered my two-story, modernist home with a smooth poured-cement exterior, sharp angles, and stone façade on the first floor to hide the steel shutter inserts.
“And your profession again is…?” I waited for him to fill in the blank as I lugged in my golf clubs I’d insisted on carrying myself, setting them against the wall next to the front door.
“A little of this. A little of that,” he said casually, standing in the steel-reinforced doorway, checking out my foyer and living room just off to the right—limestone-colored tile, a few indoor palms, and two soft beige couches facing an extra-large glass brick fireplace.
All right, so he’s not going to answer. But it had to be something interesting, I guessed. He had an air about him that screamed investor slash James Bond slash…Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Weird. Why the hell did that come to mind?
“It’s beautiful,” he said.
He stepped all the way inside, and I closed the front door, locking it with the heavy bolt. “I inherited some money after my mother died. She was a financial analyst and invested well.” With the money, I’d made my home into my modern fo
rtress.
“Why so dark, though?” he asked.
“Oh. Sorry.” I headed into the living room and pushed the button on the wall. The sound of motors churning filled the room, so did the light. “Security blinds.” I smiled awkwardly.
Tommaso cocked a brow and then walked into my living room to get a better look. “I would ask about the apocalyptic-bunker motif, but I’d hate to prematurely spend one of my ten questions.”
I flicked my index finger at him. “Good call.”
With his hands on his waist, he spun around, taking everything in. There wasn’t much. On the other side of the living room was an open doorway leading to a small dining room with a steel-framed skylight above my solid granite dining table. To the other side of that room was my kitchen—cement countertops, commercial-grade appliances. Simple. Sturdy. Clean. The upstairs was just as sterile, but I liked it that way: uncomplicated. So unlike my life.
“I like your paintings,” Tommaso said. “Reminds me of Napoli, my home.”
On the wall beside the fireplace were the only two things in the house that didn’t really belong to my sterile decorating style. They were large paintings of the Italian countryside I’d found at a gallery in San Diego while visiting my friends Mike and Susan. I’d known Mike as long as I could remember—my best friend since kindergarten. Susan I’d met in high school—we both waited tables at a local coffee shop. Ironically, the two were my best friends, but we never hung out all together. Not even at school. Then one day, Mike invited me to a party, and I brought Susan along. The two of them were inseparable ever since and now had two kids. As for the paintings, I had no clue what possessed me to buy them—I wasn’t into art—but I hadn’t been able to resist. I’d felt drawn to them, like I knew I’d go to that place someday. Yes, I was beginning to wonder if I would go with this man.
“So that’s where your accent is from,” I said. “I couldn’t place it.”
“I’m from a small village near Napoli, but my family is deceased now.”
I wasn’t sure I understood. “You mean your parents?”
He spun around slowly, inspecting the ceiling and windows as if memorizing the lay of the land. “No. My family—brothers, sisters, their children—every last one of them.”
He’d said it so casually, I wondered if I misheard him. “Everyone?”
“Everyone,” he confirmed.
Jesus. “What happened?” I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t help it.
Still standing in the center of my sparsely decorated living room, he gave the side of his mouth a little scratch, possibly debating how much to share. “A very tragic event, one that’s probably best to talk about another time.”
And…no sharing. Okay. I didn’t want to push, so I dropped it. I could very much understand not wanting to relive painful old memories.
“So, now what?” he asked.
A loud hiss echoed through the room.
Tommaso’s eyes toggled back and forth. “What was that?”
“My cat, Bitch Pants.”
His brows pulled together. “You named your cat ‘Bitch Pants’?”
What else? I rescued her from certain death. She hated me with every hair on her cantankerous body. “It’s complicated. But my chickens are pretty friendly. Would you like to meet them?”
“Do they hiss like a demon from hell?”
“No. They cluck—really, it’s more of a ‘gaaawk, gaaawk’ rather than a cluck. I think because they’re cold all the time.”
“Should I ask why?”
No. He really shouldn’t because then I’d have to explain how they were featherless due to a stress condition caused by inhumane treatment. And how I had tried to knit them sweaters and heat their coop, but they only picked the sweaters apart, and the space heaters freaked them out. My next big project was to build them a little house with central heat and AC.
“Maybe I should finish showing you around,” I said. “Then we can head upstairs to my bedroom.”
He gave me a look. A sexy look. Of course, everything he did was sexy. Even the way he just stood there doing absolutely nothing in his elegant black suit, with his messy black hair, olive skin, and “don’t fuck with me” posture. Such a turn-on.
Maybe inviting him here was a mistake. I already liked the feel of him in my home, like he belonged in my life somehow. But that would be silly. We’d just met.
Yet you invited him to watch you sleep at your house. That’s not at all strange.
Shut it, I told myself. He said yes.
“I meant so I can sleep,” I finally clarified.
He nodded his head. “Yes. Sleep is lovely. But you hit your head today and haven’t eaten since lunchtime. Let me prepare you dinner before you go into hibernation.”
He offered to cook for me. Considering his very refined, masculine vibe and very expensive clothing, I hadn’t chalked him up for a cooking man. Hot!
“I’m fine. I promise. Oh—but you,” I rolled my eyes at myself, “you’re probably hungry. Let me make you something.”
“I am not about to allow a tired, injured woman, who’s asked for my assistance, to wait on me.”
“But you’re a guest. It would be wrong to…” My voice trailed off as he removed his blazer and tie and threw them both over the back of my beige couch before rolling up the sleeves of his dark blue shirt. I swallowed down the lusty-lump in my throat, taking in the view of his muscular forearms.
“Or I could let,” I croaked, “you cook.”
He smiled. “Just show me to the kitchen.”
“Right th-this wa-way…”
He followed me through the dining room, and I was hit by a strange woozy sensation. Then, for just a moment, I felt his eyes on me, like we were touching, yet…we weren’t.
What the hell? I stopped, unable to breathe, and then turned and looked up at him. The sensation hit me again, more intense this time. He stood three feet away, but he might as well have been naked, pressing himself against my body.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I shook my head no.
“What’s the matter?” He flashed an alerted glance over his shoulder, then the other, before turning back to me.
“Who are you, Tommaso?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do I have the feeling that you’re not at all who you seem?”
“Because I’m not.”
I waited for more.
He shook his head disapprovingly. “You ask me to tell you everything, my dear Charlotte, yet you haven’t exactly been forthcoming.”
True. Fine. Let’s do this. I lifted my chin and sucked in a fortifying breath. It was crazy to want to open myself to this man I didn’t know, but something inside kept gnawing at me: Do it. Do it! “I keep people at a distance because I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Not of people. Of the…the…”
He reached out and squeezed my arm. “Charlotte?” he pushed.
“I’m afraid of the monsters.” God, I sounded like a fucking child who’d watched too many scary movies. Totally laughable. Only, he wasn’t laughing.
“You mean your nightmares,” he said.
“I think I dream about them so much because they’re real.” I knew they were real.
His expression didn’t change. Not one little bit. “Perhaps they are.”
“So-so you believe they exist?” I asked.
“Indeed, I do.”
I couldn’t believe this.
“They’re called Republicans,” he added.
“What!” I huffed and pushed him.
Laughing, he held up his hands. “Sorry. I meant Democrats?”
“Ohmygod.” I turned and headed for the kitchen. “What an ass.”
“Charlotte, I was merely joking to lighten the mood and help you relax. But I believe you. I truly do.”
“Right.” I entered the kitchen, trying not to lose my cool. “You know, for a moment there, I thought I could trust you. But c
learly my sleep deprivation is getting to me.”
“You can trust me. I, too, have encountered my fair share of challenges and pain that haunt me. And like you, I wish to overcome them. Maybe that’s what’s brought us together.”
There wasn’t an ounce of fear, whininess, or despair in his tone. He spoke about his past like it was a mountain he wanted to scale with his manly arms and legs, and when he got to the top, he’d beat the fuck out of that mountain and call it his bitch. Whereas…
“I’m just trying to survive here, Tommaso.” And not feel like a moron for admitting the truth about what really scared me.
He smiled. “Then let me cook you dinner, Charlotte. It’s as good as any place to start.”
Dang, he was good. Such a charmer.
“Do you always get your way?” I asked.
“Not frequently enough.” He stepped around me and headed for my fridge, leaving me hanging onto his words. “Now let’s see what Charlotte has in her fridge.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“This. Is. Amazing,” I said, spearing a piece of prosciutto—normally my favorite for sandwiches—mixed into the creamiest spaghetti I’d ever tried in my life. It was so decadent that I felt like I should be wearing a sequin evening gown and have my hair up in a fancy twist. Instead, I still wore my unflattering khaki golf slacks and white golf shirt.
Wowwy, glamorous me. The funny part was, I didn’t actually feel uncomfortable like this. I’d given up primping or making myself girly nice years ago. Yeah, I bathed and brushed my hair and everything, but I did what I could to tone down the sexy. Sadly, it made very little difference. The men at work still hit on me, which was odd. I was a normal-looking woman. Not ugly, not raging hot either. Just…normal.
“It’s an improvised version of my mother’s recipe,” Tommaso said, watching me intently from across the charcoal gray granite table.
“Were you close to her?” I took another bite and washed it down with a sip of Cab—one I’d been saving for a special occasion. In my world, having dinner with an unfathomably gorgeous man like Tommaso qualified. He felt like a breath of fresh air mixed with sunshine.
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