I nodded. “It was more like a demand, but yes, he’s coming over at six after some tournament.” After I had hung up and gotten over being pissed off at Karlton, I had wondered what he had meant by tournament.
“Ryker went with them. He was competing in weapons, and I think Dante was going to do sparring,” Hadley remarked.
“Dante was fighting?” I asked. Not that I cared.
“Yeah. Roman went with them too. I know Dante and Roman are going to compete in some big tournament in a couple of weeks. Kellan said they were hitting up this small one to get some more practice in,” Molly explained.
“Isn’t he too old to be fighting?” Karlton asked.
Sage burst out laughing, and Molly shook her head.
“He isn’t that old, Karl. He’s only two years older than you are.”
Karlton put his hands to his chest and fluttered his eyes. “And I can tell you right now, the only thing that I am fit enough to compete in is a hot dog or chili eating contest.”
“So classy,” Sage muttered.
“Now that is one contest I could get down with,” I laughed.
“Classy goes out the window when food is involved, sugar,” Karlton tsked.
“You know, you really are a bit crazy,” Sage snickered.
“Dammit, we got off track again,” Karlton scolded. “We’re supposed to be convincing Kennedy into giving Dante another chance, not talking about my amazing eating skills.”
Hadley sputtered and slammed her milkshake on the coffee table. “I just had the most vivid image that I never want to have again that involved Karlton and another kind of eating.” She visibly shivered.
“Oh heavens, no need to be thinking about that. It’s been ages since Uncle Karlton has had any kind of fun like that in his life.”
“Well, if you call yourself Uncle Karlton, that might be the reason why you ain’t getting that kind of fun,” Sage muttered.
“And just what would you know about that?” Molly asked. “You ain’t dating anyone either.”
Sage fluttered her eyelashes and patted her hair. “My dry spell is no longer like the Sahara.”
“Shut. Up,” Molly hissed. “And you didn’t tell me?” she asked, offended and hurt.
“I’m not talking about it. It was one time, and that was it.” Sage motioned to zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key.
“Oh hell no, you are not going to get away with that. You are going to spill that right now,” Molly insisted.
“Stop, stop, stop. I agree we’re going to come back to you Miss Sage, but first, we need to figure out Kennedy,” Karlton pointed out.
Hadley fell onto her back on the floor and stretched out. “There isn’t anything for us to do, Karlton. Kennedy needs to do it all on her own.”
“But she said she wasn’t going to do anything,” Karlton hissed.
Hadley sat up and leveled her gaze on me. “You’re going out with him tonight, right?”
I set my plate down and wiped my hands on my pants. “Well, yes, but he really didn’t give me a choice.”
Hadley and Molly laughed. “Oh, she’s going to do something about it, even if she says she isn’t going to.”
Karlton’s gaze landed on me. “I don’t agree with this tactic, but since you two have fallen under the spell of two karate hotties yourselves, I’m going to have to trust you and hope he works his ninja magic on her.”
“Can you guys please not talk like I’m not even here?” I insisted.
Hadley laid back down, and Molly and Karlton started quizzing Sage on who the man was who managed to bring water to the desert.
The timer on the next pizza sounded, and I walked into the kitchen.
After I had slid it onto the cardboard circle and sliced it up, I stayed in the kitchen wondering what in the hell I was going to do when Dante showed up.
More importantly, what was I going to wear?
Lord help me, I was going on a date with Dante. A real date.
**********
Chapter 15
Dante
“What happened to your face?”
Not exactly the hello I was looking for, but when you show up to date with a black eye, I guess that was the response you get.
Kennedy stepped back from the door and I was speechless. Holy hell, she was gorgeous.
“Earth to Dante.” Kennedy waved her hand in my face and fidgeted from one foot to the other. “Your lack of answer is making me nervous.”
I slightly shook my head and stepped into her apartment, right into her space. “What was the question?” My hands itched to reach out and touch her skin. She had enough on display that it wouldn’t be hard to find a spot to worship.
For the record, I had never wanted a woman as much as I wanted Kennedy at that moment. I didn’t know fashion or the names of the clothes she was wearing, but I knew that she looked sexy as fuck.
A black skirt that hit three inches above her knee.
A white slouched shirt that showed off her perky breasts and has sleeves that hung off her shoulders.
Black sandals that encased her feet with laces that wound up her legs and tied in a perfect bow. Sexy Gladiator sandals.
“What happened to your face?” she asked again.
“It’s nothing.” My gaze landed on her bare shoulders, and I wondered how soft her skin was.
“Erg, yeah, because you normally have a black eye and a cut on your cheek.” She reached up and gently touched my cheek where I had put a small white bandage on. I couldn’t get the damn cut to stop bleeding, and I didn’t want to be dripping blood all night. “Did you at least clean this?”
“It’s really nothing.” If she was concerned about this, I didn’t want her to see me after I fought at the Amex. Today, I had taken an elbow to the eye, and the one time I had gotten taken down to the mat, I hooked the corner and cut my cheek. But I had managed to get first place. They were a lot tougher today than I had figured they would have been.
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.
I silently moaned as she pushed her breasts together, and I could see perfectly down the gap between her shirt and her lush flesh. Lord have mercy. Kennedy was damn near perfect, and I was one lucky SOB to be here with her.
“Well, I’m ready to go.” She dropped her arms to her sides and shrugged. “Since your mangled face is not a concern to you, then it isn’t to me.”
“Honey, it’s nothing.” I took one step closer to her and rested my hand on her hip. “Although your concern is definitely welcome, I promise that I have had much worse before.”
“Well, that isn’t much comfort,” she huffed. Her body went rigid when my hand touched her, but she didn’t move away.
“How about I show you how well I am?”
She rolled her eyes with a slight smile on her lips. “Is that what your hand is doing right now? Showing me how well you are?”
My other hand grabbed her hip, and my eyes locked with hers. “Just making sure you don’t change your mind and shove me out the door.”
A giggle erupted from her lips. “I think you’re safe from that.” She cleared her throat. “So, where are we going tonight?”
“It’s a surprise.”
She quirked her eyebrow and squinted. “Is that code for you’re winging it?”
Hell no. I knew exactly what we were going to do. “Got it all figured out, honey. All I need is for you to get in my car and you can find out what it is.” I grabbed her hand and raised it to my lips. “What do you say?”
She shivered when my lips touched her hand and her eyes fluttered. “I guess I say let’s go.”
**********
Kennedy
“You can’t do that!”
“Yes, I can. How the hell do you expect me to hit it with it that close to the wall?”
“I guess you shouldn’t have hit it there in the first place and you wouldn’t be in this little predicament, now would you?” I propped my hand on my hip and leaned agai
nst my putter. Yes, my putter.
Dante’s big surprise was mini golf two towns over at Pirate's Booty Golf and Go Carts.
“How would you know the rules of golf? You’re a yoga instructor.”
“And how would you know the rules of golf? You’re a karate instructor with a black eye. A black eye that does not bode well toward your claim that you’re a good fighter, may I add.”
Dante moved his ball away from the wall and tapped it into the hole. “I suppose you had to drive the golf cart while your dad and mom struck business deals.”
I smiled. “No. I was actually on the golf team in high school. I tended to join any sport I could to be out of the house as much as I could.”
“But I’m sure your parents came to all of your games, though.”
I shook my head and moved onto the next hole. “Hardly. The only time they were there was when it didn’t fall on one of their important meetings or if I was playing against one of their client's kids.” I set down my ball and lined it up with the hole. “I liked it that way.” I whacked the ball and sent it rolling towards the hole.
“Was it really that bad with your parents?”
I straightened and turned around to look at him. “No, it actually wasn’t. My parents were just unlucky to have a child that didn’t share any of the interests that they had. They like to sit around talking about how amazing they are while I would rather talk about anything but myself.”
“Kind of like how I’m making you talk about yourself right now?” he smirked.
“Well, this is a bit different. They like to brag about how much money they made last year and whether or not they should trade in their six-month-old car for the newer one coming out next month. You know, the usual.”
Dante laughed and set his ball down in front of me. “There ain’t a damn thing about that sounds usual to me.”
“Well, unfortunately, I grew up around people who cared more about their net worth than how their families were.”
“Well, thankfully, it doesn’t seem like that wore off on you, although you can be a bit of a stick in the mud about other things.” He whacked his ball and sent it sailing over the green where it bounced off two rocks and plopped into the water hazard.
“Two things,” I laughed. “You suck at golf, and I am not a stick in the mud.”
Dante shook his head and sauntered down the green toward his rouge ball. “I don’t suck. I just don’t know how to harness all of the power I have, and you are a stick in the mud. I know that money doesn’t matter to you, but you still have the air of being important about you.” He kneeled next to the water and reached in, fishing for his ball.
“That’s ridiculous. Everyone feels they are important. You do too.”
Dante grabbed his ball and tossed it on the green next to the hole. “Maybe I used the wrong word. I think it’s more like you always seem like you have your panties in a bunch ‘til you chill out and realize you don’t need to stress out over everything.”
“I do not.” I never acted like that.
Dante lined up his ball and tapped it into the hole. “Mark me down for two, and yes you do. Take, for instance, answering my call or texts. It took me three days to finally get you on the phone.”
“Well,” I stuttered, “I was busy. I’m sorry I wasn’t at your beck and call.”
“I don’t want you at my beck and call. I just want to be able to call you and know that it’s not going to take a week to talk to you.”
“Did you take me out tonight so you could tell me everything you don’t like about me?” I tapped my foot, regretting getting all dressed up for Dante. Damn Molly and Hadley for talking me into actually looking like I put in the effort.
“It’s not something I don’t like.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You are so damn confusing. And by the way, I’m not putting you down for two. You get a three.” Ha, that should show him.
Dante shook his head and grabbed his ball from the cup. “You were busy, but not the kind of busy you mean. You were busy trying to talk yourself out of going out with me and giving me a chance.”
“We aren't going out. This is me getting to know my decoy.”
“Another thing you get your panties in a twist about,” he grunted.
I smacked my ball around the hole until I finally got it in the cup after five tries.
I stormed over to the next hole, this one with a big rock right in the middle of the green. “I really think you should stop talking about my panties and what gets them in a twist.” I set down my ball and lined up my shot. I looked over my shoulder at him. “You sir, are not one of the things that are worthy of twisting my underwear.” I whacked the ball and hit the rock dead center. My ball ricocheted into the hole next to ours. “Shit,” I muttered.
Dante advanced on me and out of the corner of my eye, I saw he was right next to me. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, and his lips grazed my ear. “You’re right, honey. I’m not interested in twisting your panties, I’m looking to take them off.”
His hand splayed over my stomach and he pressed a kiss behind my ear. “Um…” I had no words to say. We had gone from me thinking he was a supreme ass again to his hands on me with the only thought being I hoped he didn’t let me go.
“Now, I’m going to tell you something, and this is where you tell me whether or not want me to get lost.”
I gulped and rested my hand on his arm. “I’m listening,” I whispered.
“I want you, Kennedy. And I know in your head, you’ve spun this all around thinking that I’m only here because I agreed to be your decoy, but I can tell you right now that impressing your mother is the last thing I am thinking about. The only person I’m thinking about is you. Stop thinking I’m here for all the wrong reasons and realize I’m here because I just want to be with you.” His lips traveled down my neck, and he pressed a light kiss to my shoulder. “Just as soft as I imagined,” he whispered.
I tilted my head, giving him better access. “I… uh…”
“Pretty sure the fact that you haven’t beamed me over the head with that putter and my hands are still on you means that you’re ready to let go and see where this is going to go.”
I turned around in his arms and looked up at him. My brain yelled at me to not listen to him, but my body was begging me to never move and just stay in Dante’s arms. “You don’t play fair.”
“I do, honey. You just need to chill out and just live. You may think that you don’t care about what your parents think about you, but I know you do. You wouldn’t be doing all of this if you didn’t care about them. Since you care about what they think, then so do I.”
“I thought you said you didn’t care about the decoy plan?”
His hand traveled up my body and cupped my cheek. “I care about what you care about, Kennedy. I’m gonna go to dinner at your mom’s house, but I’m going as your date and not as a decoy.”
Well, I guess that was like killing two birds with one stone. It would make my mom happy, but then I would also get a little something out of it too. “So you would be like my decoy with benefits?” I was splitting hairs here but I still wasn’t ready to say that Dante and I were dating.
He brushed my hair back and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “So stuck in your head,” he muttered. “If me being your decoy with benefits is going to keep you from running away from me, then I’m good with that.”
I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder. “So to recap, you’re my decoy with benefits, you’ll go to my mom’s with me, and you suck at golf.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around me and his body slightly shook with his chuckle. “I guess I can agree with all of that, except the last one. I can still prove you wrong.”
I pulled out of his arms and motioned to the next hole. “Then I guess you better go first, so I don’t intimidate you when I get a hole in one on the next hole.”
Dante crossed his arms over his chest. “I was kind of thinking we were done with
golf and we could start with the benefits part of this whole thing.”
I moved back into his space and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Just because we agreed that there will be benefits, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to earn those benefits.”
“Oh, is that how it’s going to be?” he chuckled.
“That is exactly how it’s going to be.” I reached up on my tip toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Put a little woo in it, ninja. It might get ya a little further.” I sauntered off to the next hole, my hips swinging a bit more than usual. I looked over my shoulder and saw Dante watching me with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Woo, huh?”
“Show me what you got.” I threw a wink over my shoulder and disappeared down the stone steps to the next hole.
If this was what Dante wanted, the only way he was going to get it was going to be under my terms.
He was still my decoy, but there was no reason why I couldn’t get to know my decoy better.
I heard his footsteps behind me, and goose bumps ran up my arms at the thought of him touching me.
So maybe we were going to get to know each other a lot better.
**********
Chapter 16
Dante
“Admit it.”
“I will never admit that.”
“Just say it one time and we’ll never talk about this again,” I insisted.
Kennedy shook her head and handed her putter to the kid behind the counter. “I highly doubt that you will ever let this rest.”
I held up the score card from the game. “If you say it, I promise I will not have this framed and hung in the entryway to my house.”
She laughed and grabbed the card from my hand. “You are absolutely insane. I still contest the fact that you won. I’m convinced you had an eraser in your pocket and doctored this.” Her mouth moved as she silently added up the scores for the sixth time.
“I swear that I didn’t do anything to that card.” I backed up to the counter and discreetly handed back the eraser that I had bummed off the kid when I had run to the bathroom on the seventh hole. He hadn’t seemed surprised at all when I begged him for an eraser. I must not have been the first person who absolutely needed to win a game of mini golf.
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