by Ember Casey
“Is that even legal? In what world is it okay to stalk someone like that? In what world? Is it really so important to get a picture of someone?” I’m hardly making any sense, I know, but I’m so mad that I don’t care. My legs wobble beneath me, but Dante catches me around the waist. His fingers grip my side.
I glance up at him. For the first time, I notice that he is probably as pissed—if not more pissed—than I am. His jaw is rigid. His mouth pressed tight. His neck is so tense that I can see the tendons through his skin.
“They’re going to hear about this, that’s for damned sure,” he says.
I blink. “From you?”
His hand tightens on my hip. “Yes. I’m not an unreasonable man. I understand that they have jobs to do, just as I have mine. And that our jobs depend on each other. But this is a step too far. And I’ll be damned if I let them harass you like this.”
“They’ll leave me alone if you ask them?”
“If they know what’s good for them. My family holds a lot of influence in this industry.” He still looks grim. “But I’ll be notifying my security company about the potential for trouble. If any of the paparazzi set foot on my property I’ll press charges, and most of them know that already.”
I relax a little at his words, but his body is still as tense as a bowstring.
He doesn’t say anything else as we move through his house, not until we reach the kitchen. There, he stops, but he still keeps his arm around my waist.
“How bad was it yesterday?” he asks, his voice too low. Too calm.
“There were a bunch of them outside my bakery,” I say. “And when I left, they followed me to my car. But I just tried to ignore them.”
He’s not looking at me but rather at some invisible spot on the wall. “You said you had to turn your phone off.”
“Some of them got my cell number. It was easier just to turn it off. We had to unplug the main bakery line, too.”
He’s still not looking at me. “They’re not all like that, you know. There are plenty of members of the press who are good, reasonable people. Felicia, who you just met, is one of them. I’ve made it my business to find the honest ones and build professional relationships that benefit both parties. But the ones who pull this shit… they’re jackals. They don’t see us as people. They see us as objects. As dollar signs. They have no qualms about harassing their targets or invading their lives.”
“They weren’t even the worst harassers,” I say. “You have some very avid fans, Dante.”
He finally looks down at me, his eyes wide with surprise. “What?”
I wasn’t expecting him to be shocked by that information, so I don’t know quite how to proceed.
“Your fans… I mean, I don’t know who they were, but I’m assuming they’re your fans. I got a lot of calls and messages from them once the name of my bakery was posted publicly.”
“What kind of messages?”
“I… mostly just asking when you liked to come by, or what you liked to eat, or when you might next be there.”
“You said they were harassing you.”
“It’s ridiculous, really,” I say, trying to make light of it and ease his mind a little. “I’m sure they’ll forget about me soon enough.”
“What kind of messages, Ash?”
No way am I going to tell him about the death threats, not when he’s like this. And I’m definitely not going to tell him about the crude, vulgar messages.
“Do we have to talk about this?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Our date has already been ruined. Are we really going to spend the rest of the night talking about other people?”
“If that’s how long it takes for you to tell me the whole truth, Ash.”
I close my eyes. “I just want to forget about everyone else.”
“That won’t make them go away.”
“How do you deal with it, then?” I ask. “How have you gone your whole life like this?”
“I’ve had a lot of practice. But I’m still not sure it’s prepared me for this. For watching you have to endure it.” He tugs me closer. “I wish you would tell me the truth, Ash.”
How can I deny him? Even though I know it will upset him, even though I know that there’s nothing I can do, I want to be honest with him. I open my eyes.
“Some of your fans aren’t exactly happy that you’re dating someone,” I say. “And they had some very strong opinions about whether or not I was good enough for you.”
His arms are tense around my waist, and I can see that he’s trying very hard to control his temper. “What did they say?”
“Ridiculous things, mostly. But some were very… protective of you. Threatened me bodily harm for daring to date you.”
“They threatened you.” Something twitches in his cheek.
“Everyone knows people are terrible on the internet.”
“You’re not telling me everything.”
“Some of the threats were quite violent,” I say. I’m in too deep to avoid the truth now. “But they didn’t upset me as much as some of the other messages. There were men who… They said some very raunchy things to me. About me. I know that’s just part of—” The sudden tightening of Dante’s arms around me startles me into silence.
When I glance up at his face, I see plain, bare fury.
“Men you know?” he says, and his voice is so strained that he hardly even sounds like himself.
I shake my head. “Strangers.”
The muscles of his chest are rigid beneath my hands. He doesn’t move—doesn’t even breathe—for a full minute.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” he demands finally. His eyes bore into me.
“I knew it would upset you.”
“Of course it upsets me!”
“Well, it’s not like there’s anything we can do about it,” I say.
“You still should have told me.” He releases me and turns away, his hands going to his hair.
“What good has it done, telling you?” I say. “You don’t tell me everything, either. We’ve just started seeing each other again. It’s okay to still have some secrets.”
He turns back toward me. “And what secrets do you think I’m hiding from you?”
“Not secrets, necessarily,” I say. “But you dodge all of my questions about your work.” Between the tense phone calls and his odd behavior at the studio, something is definitely going on.
“That’s a different matter entirely,” he growls.
“But it proves my point,” I say. “We’re allowed to keep some things to ourselves.”
“Not if you’re in danger. That is the difference here.” He steps close to me again. “Especially if that danger is my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. You have no control over other people’s behavior.”
“Ash—”
“I’m done,” I say. “I refuse to let them ruin our date any more than they already have.” Before he can respond, I push past him and walk toward the door to the patio. “If you want me, I’ll be in the pool.”
“We haven’t finished our discussion yet,” he calls after me.
“I’ve finished.” I pause at the door just long enough to make sure he sees me undo the zipper to my dress.
The patio is in darkness. He hasn’t had a chance to turn on the outdoor lamps yet, but the pool lights are on, shining up through the water and making the tiles on the bottom shimmer. I slip off my heels and toss them aside before going to the edge of the water.
I sense more than hear Dante come to the door behind me. My eyes fall closed. I don’t want to have this discussion with him right now. I don’t want to think about harassing messages or reporters or paparazzi. I refuse to let our relationship fall victim to this.
I slide my dress off my shoulders and down my body. Without turning around, I step out of the garment and throw it behind me, not really caring where it lands. Now I’m in my bra and panties.
“I have no intention of letting t
his go, Ash,” Dante says from the doorway.
“And I have no intention of saying another word about it tonight.” I unhook my bra and toss it aside.
“The problem isn’t going to go away.”
“Not if we keep talking about it.” My panties are down my legs, and I reach down and throw them in the same direction as my bra. Now I’m completely naked, and I can hear Dante coming closer.
“Ash, I know this is a lot to handle all at once,” he says, his voice so soft I can hardly hear it over the breeze rolling in off the beach. “But you’re not alone. I’m here. We’re in this together.”
“Then let’s be together,” I say. “Let’s just forget the rest of this bullshit for a night.”
His arms fold around me from behind, pulling me back against his chest. “All right. Just for a night.”
He dips his head and brushes his lips against the place where my neck meets my shoulder. A moan escapes my lips, and I let my head roll back against his shoulder. His mouth moves slowly up the side of my throat. His hands slide up the front of my body, finally coming to curl around each of my breasts.
“You know,” he says, “you can’t just get naked every time you want to end a conversation.”
In spite of everything, I smile. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Only this once.”
I start to reply, but then he takes my earlobe between his teeth and I forget how to speak.
After a few minutes of that exquisite torture, I can’t take it anymore. I twist in his arms, turning to face him, and finally our mouths are meeting. The hunger that rises in me chases away the uncertainty, loosens the tension that had taken root in my body. I can’t get close enough to him, and Dante seems to be struggling with a similar force. His body is rigid beneath my hands, his grip on me a little too tight, his kisses a little too rough. Suddenly I’m stumbling back, and he’s moving with me, and then we’re both tumbling into the pool.
Dante’s arms stay around me as the water rushes over our heads. Fortunately, the water isn’t that deep here, and I’m able to find my feet quickly. No sooner does my head rise above the water than he’s kissing me again, not even taking a second to catch his breath.
He’s still wearing his clothes—a fact I’m all too aware of as his hands roam over my naked skin. His wet shirt is clinging to his chest, but my hands find the buttons as his lips continue to assault mine. He only pulls his mouth away when I have trouble yanking his shirt off of his shoulders. We finally manage to wrestle it off together, and then he takes me in his arms again, more gently this time.
“Tonight, there’s just us,” he murmurs against my throat. “I’ll protect you from the rest of the world.”
I believe it—I know that this man will do his best to guard me from the crueler side of this sudden attention. The rest of the world might try to tear me down, but he has my back.
I slide my hands through his hair. Even wet, the strands are thick around my fingers, and I tighten my grip as he sucks at the side of my neck. His fingers drift up and down my spine beneath the water. When he first grabbed me, there was a tension, an urgency to his touch, but now it’s as if he has all the time in the world.
“I missed this,” he says roughly.
“Sex in the pool?” I say, my cheeks going hot as I remember the last time we did this very thing. We were in slightly deeper water, and he—
“All of this,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “Your skin. Your mouth. Your hair. Your voice.” His hands drop lower and spread across my ass, one on each side, pulling me against his hips and letting me feel the hard length of him beneath the wet fabric of his pants. “I missed kissing you. Making love to you. Even arguing with you.”
My face gets even warmer. “I feel like we’ve done even more of that this time around.”
“And I wouldn’t trade a moment of it.” There’s another soft brush of his lips against my neck. His hands tighten on my butt. “I’m still kicking myself for waiting so long to try and win you back.”
“Why did you?” I ask. “If I’d known you felt like this…”
“As I told you, I thought you were better off without me.” He rests his forehead against mine. “What we had was perfect when it was just the two of us. I knew things would change when we went public, and I told myself it was because I wasn’t willing to put you through that. But honestly, I was thinking about myself—about the consequences of having a public relationship and the effects it would have on my career. Every public move I’ve made in my entire life has been carefully cultivated, designed to create a very specific persona and to get me a very specific outcome. The appearances I made, the women I dated, even the clothes I wore were all chosen with a purpose.” He returns his hands to my back, but his face is still right against mine. “I didn’t think I was prepared to make that sacrifice for you, and you deserved someone who was.”
I swallow. Hearing him speak about this—hearing him admit to all the fears, all the insecurities that haunted me in the months after our breakup—is painful, even now. “Then what changed?”
“Sometimes you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. Until you’re left with an emptiness that you can’t fill no matter how hard you try.” He turns his head and rests his cheek right against mine. “I loved you, but I didn’t realize how much until you were no longer there. Everything in my life felt hollow. Superficial. For a long time I didn’t understand why—but then I couldn’t seem to get you out of my mind, no matter how much I tried to distract myself, and I realized what it was. You never saw me as a means to an end. You weren’t after fame or money. You loved me for the man beneath. And I’d thrown that away because I was afraid of losing the rest.”
I tighten my arms around him. It breaks my heart to hear him say these things.
“By then,” he murmurs, “I knew it was too late. You’d long since left school and no doubt moved on with your life. I was the one who’d made the mistake, and it was me who needed to suffer. But when I saw you again, after all this time… God, Ashlyn. It was like a part of me woke up again. I told myself I should leave you alone, but I couldn’t. When we were alone with each other, it was as if nothing had changed. That energy was still there, and I knew there would be no letting go, not this time.”
His hands have drifted all the way up my back, and now they grab my hair. He pulls my head back and turns my face toward his, and in his kiss I taste the truth of every word he’s just said. It doesn’t matter what his fans say or even what Jack says—I’m not a fool for loving him. I can bury all those silly fears I’ve had over the last few weeks.
My hands move beneath the water, struggling to undo his belt and pants. The moment I do, I wrap my legs around him, letting the water help me as I pull him closer.
His hard length is already pressing against my entrance, ready to reunite our bodies. But he pauses then, tilting his head back so he can speak.
“I’m never letting you go,” he says roughly, and the pool lights make those flecks of gold in his eyes gleam. “Never.”
“Never,” I echo.
The moment the word escapes my lips, he pulls me down onto him, and I cry out as he buries himself fully. My arms loop around his neck as my body finds and matches his rhythm.
“You’re mine,” he growls against my neck.
“Yours.” It’s the only word I’m capable of right now.
“And I… don’t care what… they do…” he grunts out between thrusts. “What… they say…” He drops his hands to my ass to pull me harder against him. “We have… this. Always… this.” His nails bite into my flesh.
My only response is to moan as his next thrust drives him deeper. He’s right. This is ours. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, and that includes that traitorous little voice in my head. This Dante won’t hurt me, and this is all the truth I need.
CHAPTER TEN
I wake to the soft in-and-out of Dante’s breath against my cheek.
We’re in his bed,
and for once, I’ve woken before him. My body is draped across his, and his chest rises and falls beneath my arm. I can feel his slow, steady heartbeat beneath the pads of my fingers.
For a long moment, I just lie there and stare at him. Watch the slight flutter of his dark lashes against his cheeks. Admire the long, hard lines of his body. He has a habit of kicking the sheets off while he sleeps, so most of his well-muscled form is in view. I let my fingers drift across the plane of his chest, following the path my mouth took last night. It must be close to dawn because the light that leaks in through the window is pale pink against his skin.
I’m not sure how long I lie there watching him. My body feels languid, content. Any tension or anxiety I felt last night disappeared beneath Dante’s passionate touch. I feel like we could take on the world together.
We left the window cracked last night, and a soft breeze makes it to where I lie on the bed. It smells like the ocean. Like hope and infinite possibilities. Leaving Dante to his sleep, I carefully roll away from him and climb out of bed. God knows where my clothes ended up last night, but Dante has a robe draped over a chair next to the nightstand. I grab it and pull it around me as I walk over to the window. The feelings rolling through me right now are overwhelming—love, hope, and yes, a little bit of fear. I’m a part of this now. A part of him—and of everything that comes with him. The paparazzi, the complications, the overwhelming loss of self-control… My feelings seem to run deeper and more intensely when I’m around him, and as wonderful as it is, I also feel a little like I’m drowning. Like I’m lying on a beach and the waves are coming higher and higher up my body. Over my head.
His bedroom faces west—toward the beach—so I can’t see the sunrise from here. But the sky over the Pacific is turning from gray to pink, and the breeze smells like morning. It tickles my skin, calling my over-sensitized nerves back to attention. I lean forward and push the window open a little more.
Something flutters on the table beneath the window. Some of Dante’s papers. The house has an office—a big, beautiful room with a view of the sea—but from what I’ve seen, Dante rarely uses it. He’ll write anywhere and everywhere—outside by the pool, at the kitchen counter, here in the bedroom—so it doesn’t surprise me that some of his notes ended up here.