“Antonio, it was so nice meeting you. You’ll have to come out to Long Island with Libby sometime for dinner.”
“Mom . . . ,” I warn, but she ignores me and continues on.
“Or brunch. Really, whatever works around your schedule.”
“Mom.”
“I’d like that, Katie,” he tells her.
I wonder if she told him to call her by her first name or if he just did that on his own.
“Well, then. It’s settled. The next time you both have time, we’ll plan for it,” Mom says.
My jaw clenches. This must be what Mac and Fawn felt when Mom was all up in their business.
“Sounds good,” Antonio agrees.
I grab my black slouchy leather bag with loads of tassels hanging from the seams and hook the strap over my shoulder.
“Good.” Mom moves around me to give Antonio a hug, and I roll my eyes at the back of her head. I hold back a sigh when she turns to face me. “Call me when you get home.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Maybe I should just stay here tonight. You know . . . we can have a sleepover. That would be fun. We’ve never done that before.”
Oh god.
“Mom, you need to get home to Dad. He would not be okay with you having a sleepover.”
“He would be fine with it.”
“When was the last time you slept in a bed without him?” I counter.
She looks up at the celling, trying to come up with an answer to that question.
“Right. Like I said . . . you need to get home to Dad after your dinner with Miss Ina.”
“Fine. But you still need to call me tonight when you get home.”
“Remember what we talked about earlier?” I ask quietly.
Her eyes narrow on mine, and she grits out, “Yes . . .”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I say, repeating my earlier statement.
“Fine. Call me tomorrow.” She lets out a huff before putting a smile on her face that she aims at Antonio. “She can be a little hardheaded at times.”
“Mom!”
“What?” She turns to look at me, and I glare at her. “It’s the truth, honey. You’re sweet as can be, but you really are hardheaded.”
Hearing Antonio chuckle, I transfer my glare to him.
He grins at me.
Whatever.
“We should go,” I mutter.
He wraps his fingers around mine, giving them a squeeze before opening the door.
“Love you,” Mom says, stopping to kiss my cheek.
“I’m wondering if that’s true,” I grumble under my breath.
She smiles, then heads down the steps. Following her out, I wait until Antonio is out of my apartment before I lock the door and start down the steps with him at my back.
When we reach the first floor, he takes my hand. This startles me, and I look up at him.
“You really do look beautiful,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“And I really like your boots.”
The roughly spoken compliment sends a shiver down my spine—and a different kind of shiver though my girlie bits.
“Uh . . . thanks,” I repeat.
He shakes his head, smiling.
Hearing someone clear their throat, I look to the right and see Miss Ina and my mom waiting just inside of Miss Ina’s apartment. They’re both watching Antonio and me with completely opposite looks on their faces. Mom looks like she’s watching a real-life movie star leading his woman down the red carpet at a Hollywood event, and Miss Ina looks like she’s wishing she could rush across the space, snatch me from Antonio, take me into her apartment, and strap a chastity belt around me before throwing away the key.
“Have fun tonight, guys!” Mom calls out.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes at the overly chipper sound of her voice.
“Not too much fun, Libby Reed!” Miss Ina says.
Her eyes go to Antonio and narrow with a scary-old-lady look. Clearly, she would melt him into a puddle if she had that ability.
“Bye! Have a good dinner tonight.”
I wave at them over my shoulder while I tug hard on Antonio’s hand to get him to hurry up. I’ve already had to deal with him and my mom being in the same space—I don’t want to know what Miss Ina might say if she has a chance to talk to him.
“In a hurry?” he asks, chuckling.
When we make it outside, I look up at him once. I notice that, even in my heels, he’s still much, much taller than I am.
“You met my mom.”
“I did.” He smiles.
“That was bad—but not as bad as it could have been. Mom was on her best behavior.”
“All right.” His brows pull together slightly.
“Miss Ina is a wild card. If we had stopped to talk to her, she’d probably have demanded to chaperone dinner tonight—just so she can make sure I keep my virtue intact.”
“I see.”
His eyes change. Not in a bad way, but in a way that I don’t exactly understand—until he turns toward me, rests his hands on my waist, and pulls our hips closer together.
“Your virtue is safe tonight,” he says in a deep voice that makes my toes curl.
“I . . . Okay.” I swallow.
“After tonight, all bets are off,” he growls.
I feel the vibration of those words skim over me like thick honey.
Oh my god.
My knees actually get weak, so I grab on to his jacket to keep standing upright.
“Antonio . . . ,” I breathe.
“Fair warning.” He bends his head and kisses the tip of my nose, then stands back and sticks out his arm into the street. A cab pulls up after half a second, and he opens the door and helps me in, then gets in with me.
I listen to him give the driver the address to the restaurant, and my eyes widen slightly. It’s the same place where I had dinner with Walter.
“You okay?” he asks, pulling my attention to him.
“Fine.” I try to smile at him, but his eyes narrow on my mouth.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” I keep my weird, awkward smile in place while I lace my fingers together in my lap to keep from twisting my hair.
“Have you been to Keens before?”
“I . . . Yes.”
“Did that guy take you there?”
Staring at him, I wonder if I should lie about it. Then I figure I probably shouldn’t.
“Yes . . . ?” I answer quietly, my admission sounding more like a question.
The muscles in his jaw jump, and he turns his head to look out the window. Leaning toward him, I rest my hand on his thigh. I try to ignore exactly how hard it feels under my palm. It takes a second for his eyes to come back to me, but when they do, I speak quietly.
“I kept thinking about you when I was at dinner with him,” I admit for some stupid reason.
His eyes flare with surprise.
“I . . . I knew even before dinner was over that there would never be another date with him, no matter how nice he was. For some stupid reason, I’ve had a crush on you forever.”
“What?” he whispers.
I wonder why the hell I just told him that, and why I didn’t keep my big mouth shut—at least about the whole crush thing.
“Have a good night. I’m going to jump out of the cab into traffic now,” I whisper back.
I start to look away, but before I can, his hand wraps around the side of my neck. Next, his fingers slide up into my hair, twisting it. Tingles shoot across my scalp as his mouth crashes down on mine. I gasp in surprise as his tongue thrusts between my parted lips and the familiar taste of him explodes on my tongue. Needing to keep myself here on Earth and not floating away, I clench my fingers into his sweater. I kiss him back, enjoy hearing him rumble when my tongue touches his.
God, I forgot how good it feels to kiss him, how good it felt when he nipped my lips and licked into my mouth.
I forgot how turned
on he could make me with just his mouth on mine. Moaning, I slide one hand up his chest and latch on to his hair. I hear him groan in approval.
“Fuck, but you can kiss,” he says as soon as he rips his mouth away and rests his forehead against mine.
“Ditto,” I breathe as I pant, begging my lungs to fill with oxygen.
I slowly pull my eyes open to find him looking at me.
“So damn cute,” he groans, closing his eyes and touching his lips to mine softly. “You’re not jumping out of the cab, Libby. I don’t give a fuck if that guy took you to Keens—we’re having dinner there tonight since it should have been me taking you there in the first place.”
He releases my hair, then wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me across the leather seat and deeper into his side. My stomach dances and my heart leaps. I’ve been called beautiful my whole life, so it no longer means anything to me. I know I’m pretty, but I’ve always wanted to be more than that to someone. So him telling me I’m cute is probably the sweetest thing he could have said. He also said that he should have been the one to take me to Keens, which I really hope means he would have wanted to take me even back then when I didn’t think he liked me.
With a new kind of hopefulness in my chest, I sit close to him and try not to smile like an idiot—even though that’s exactly what I want to do.
Once we arrive at the restaurant, he pays the cab driver and then helps me out of the back seat by taking my hand and keeping hold of it. When we get inside, he leads me through the crowd gathered near the door and over to the hostess. It’s the same hostess who was here the night I had dinner with Walter. I wonder if she remembers me, then wonder if she remembers that I was here with a different man. Then I wonder if she thinks I’m a little bit loose for being here with two different men just weeks apart.
“I love your belt.”
She startles me, and I come out of my head and focus on her. “And your boots. Did you get them from Nordstrom?”
“No, I found both online—secondhand,” I admit.
“Really?” she breathes with wide eyes, like I just told her Santa Claus is real and he’s going to drop off a bag of diamonds at her house tonight.
“Yeah. I . . . Do you want the website?”
“God, yes. I know that belt cost like four hundred dollars, and those shoes close to the same, so if I could get them for a discount, that would be awesome.”
Okay, so she knows designers at a glance, which is impressive.
Feeling Antonio tense at my side, I wish she would stop saying how much my outfit cost retail—even if I didn’t pay close to that for the belt or the boots.
“Do you have a pen I can use?”
She pulls one out from behind the stand and gives it to me along with a napkin.
I quickly write down the website and hand it back to her. “They get new stuff every week, so you just have to keep an eye out if you’re looking for something specific.”
“Awesome.” She smiles, and I smile back.
“Reservation for Moretti,” Antonio says in a tense voice.
Her eyes fly from mine to him and widen once more—this time with nervousness.
“Right. Sorry about that.” She shoves the napkin into her pocket and then looks down at the iPad and does some clicking before grabbing menus. “If you’ll follow me?” She smiles at us, then starts into the restaurant.
Antonio’s hand settles into the small of my back as we walk, and I let out a relieved breath at his touch. It’s starting to become crystal clear that he has an issue with money—or with money being spent on clothes and shoes. That probably doesn’t bode well for us, since I like spending money on clothes and shoes. Then again, I work hard for the things I have. When we reach the back of the restaurant, I wonder if someone is playing some kind of twisted joke on me—it’s the same table Walter and I sat at when we were here.
“Let me help you with that,” Antonio says as I start to take off my coat.
I bite my lip as he slips it from my shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He hangs it up on the hook near the table, then does the same with his own before pulling out the chair that’s not facing the restaurant for me.
Once we’re both seated, the hostess smiles at both of us as she sets down our menus on the table. “Your waiter will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you.” I give her a small smile, and she smiles back before taking off.
Looking around and nibbling my bottom lip, all I can think about is that I’m not sitting facing the restaurant.
“This isn’t the good seat,” I blurt out stupidly.
Antonio’s eyes meet mine.
“What?” he questions, placing his napkin on his lap.
I sigh.
“I . . . well, everyone knows the good seat is the seat with the view of the restaurant.” I wave my hand around the room.
“You’re in the safe seat,” he says.
I tip my head to the side in confusion and then ask, “The safe seat?”
“I have the view of the room. If something happens, I’ll know first and will have time to get you to safety before anything can happen to you.”
Holy crap.
“Oh,” I mumble.
“Jesus, have you always been this cute?” he asks.
My chest starts to feel warm at his question.
“Um . . .”
“You have. Fuck me for being so stupid and not seeing it.”
“Um . . . ,” I repeat.
He smiles at me, then takes my napkin and hands it to me. I place it in my lap. We both order drinks when the waiter comes over. I have a glass of wine; he asks for a beer.
“I’m starving. I hope they actually have human-size portions of food at this place,” he says, picking up the menu and looking at it when the waiter walks off.
“You haven’t been here before?”
“No. Mom recommended it when I told her I was taking you out.”
“What?” I feel my eyes grow to the size of saucers.
“I told her I was taking you out, and she said I should bring you here. She said that the food’s good, that you’d like it.”
“Your mom knows that we’re out on a date?” I whisper.
“Yeah . . .”
“Oh my god,” I keep whispering.
His smile turns into a grin.
“She’s happy.”
“I bet she is,” I mutter.
He throws back his head and laughs—loud. Seeing him do it makes the warmth in my chest spread. I don’t think I have ever seen him laugh that freely, so knowing I made him do it makes me want to do it again and again.
“I love your mom, but she can be just as bad as mine,” I inform him as I pick up my glass of water and take a sip.
“Not sure about that, Princess,” he says once his laughter has died down.
“I am.”
“Babe, your mom doesn’t know me from Jack who works at the corner store, but she invited me to come out to Long Island for dinner or brunch.”
“This is true,” I agree. “Then again, my mom knows that I had a crush on you.”
“Had?”
“What?”
“Twice now you’ve said you had a crush on me. Past tense. Meaning you don’t have one anymore,” he explains.
“I . . . you . . . I . . . ,” I stammer. “You’ve kind of been a jerk.”
My softly spoken words taper off while the muscle in his jaw ticks.
Crap. Now why the hell did I say that?
“Right,” he says.
I look down at the menu in front of me, wishing we could go back in time a few minutes.
“I was an asshole,” he says.
My head flies up, and our eyes lock. “I made assumptions I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry about that,” he says.
Seeing the honesty in his eyes, my body relaxes once more.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I won’t do it
again,” he says firmly.
“What changed?” I ask, noticing that his eyes become intense when I do.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you, Libby. Fuck. I’ve imagined you in every position possible, but I wouldn’t let myself go there because . . .” He runs a hand through his hair, looking away before looking back at me. “Those reasons are for another time. Not tonight. But like I said, I made assumptions, and I was wrong.”
“Okay, but what changed?” I ask again.
What he just said makes it sound like all he wants is to sleep with me.
“Everything,” he says.
Like that answers my question. It doesn’t, so I blink at him.
“Everything?”
“There’s a lot of things about you that I didn’t notice until you started helping out at the shop.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling disappointed.
I drop my eyes to my menu.
“You’re the hardest-working person I know.” He grabs my hand. “You give all of yourself to everyone around you. You make each pizza like you’re creating a piece of art. You’re good to my parents and obviously good to yours and your sisters. You’re sweet to the bone. Hell, even your neighbor looks like she wants to protect you from the world when she’d probably break a hip if she tried.”
“Miss Ina is a wild card,” I whisper, having nothing else to say. His words have rocked through me, throwing me off-balance.
“No, she cares about you. She wants to protect you from anything that might cause you harm. People like you are rare these days. Those who know how rare the qualities you have inside you are will always go to great lengths to protect them.”
“I think you can stop talking now,” I tell him, feeling so full of warmth from his sweet words that I’m afraid I might burst at the seams.
“I’ll stop talking as soon as you tell me that you know I want more than to just fuck you.”
“What?” I whisper as my mouth drops open in surprise at his crass words.
“I saw that look on your face, baby. I know exactly what you were thinking. Now I need you to tell me that you hear me when I say I want more than that from you.”
“I hear you,” I agree as my heart thunders away in my chest and my mind screams.
Please don’t let this be too good to be true.
Chapter 8
Tossed Into Love (Fluke My Life Book 3) Page 9