Donnie’s hand covered hers. “Just this: Is he still around?”
That question, she was happy to answer, particularly if it would close the topic before the night was entirely ruined. “No. It was years ago, and he’s long gone.”
He squeezed her hand. “Okay. I won’t ask again.”
“Thank you.”
“What would you like to talk about?”
She took a sip of wine. “I want to hear about you.”
He frowned and stared into his wine glass. Ari sensed something dark ballooning inside him. Then he looked up, and the shadow receded. “There are things I can’t tell you.”
“I know. Tell me what you can. Tell me about Quiet Cove.”
He grinned. “That, I can tell you.”
~ 17 ~
Before Donnie opened the passenger door of his Porsche, he did a quick scan around him. Dre was parked across the street about fifty feet down. Chubs and Ollie were on Arianna’s detail tonight, but other than a regular ping to his phone, updating their location, they weren’t obviously around.
He had a really excellent reason to stop this experiment in a ‘relationship’ in its tracks. Just last night, they’d killed a seven-year-old boy. He wasn’t related to Yuri Bondaruk, but that didn’t matter. Retaliation wasn’t in doubt, and the bastards had already demonstrated a clear preference for going for loved ones to achieve their goals. Women in particular.
Donnie’s timing, therefore, was absurdly horrible. While he’d been sitting in her dressing room, thinking about the clothes she was taking off, he should have told her right then that the danger was too great, and they couldn’t see each other. He’d considered it. First, though, he’d wanted to understand the threat she faced from within. She’d wanted protection from Berrault, too.
He’d formed no strong opinions about Berrault in their few previous meetings. As one of the Ballet’s top donors, Donnie was regularly invited to large administrative meetings as well as private parties and galas. He’d skipped most of the social events, but he’d attended a few meetings. There, Berrault had been a little cocky, as the artist in the room, but not so much to get Donnie’s back up. He was a good choreographer, and he’d been sufficiently respectful, understanding that the people in the room held the purse strings, so Donnie hadn’t thought much of him in either direction.
But he’d stood at the door tonight and watched Arianna dance, and he’d seen Berrault’s performance of boredom and disrespect. Now, he’d formed a strong opinion. Knowing that he’d been leveraging Arianna for sex had made that opinion dangerous. He wasn’t done dealing with Berrault, but the next time, there wouldn’t be an audience.
He’d gotten tangled in his feelings about all that, and then he’d been standing there in front of her, and she’d been in her underwear, black lace over pink satin. Her beautiful, beautiful body, so small and strong, was right before him, and he couldn’t leave her.
God, watching her dance. It was different in the studio than on the stage. The costumes and set dressing, the orchestra, the theatre itself was all spectacle—breathtaking, but untouchable. In that studio tonight, dressed in a simple white gown, surrounded by dancers in plain practice clothes, the experience was intimate. Arianna herself had been the only spectacle.
Sonia had accused him of having a steel cage around his heart. She hadn’t been wrong. But Arianna had pried the door open. Just enough to make it hurt.
Now he had to keep her safe.
Satisfied that the area was clear, he opened the door and offered her his hand. She took it and set one elegant dancer’s leg out. Her black dress was short, and she wore flat black and tan shoes shaped like ballet slippers—her legs went on forever. When her leg came out of the car, her foot was pointed. He’d noticed that even off stage, she walked like a dancer, toe to heel rather than the other way around. She glided.
He didn’t step back as he drew her out of the car, and she came to her feet right against him. She didn’t flinch or try to back off. She simply settled there, her body pressed to his, her face at his chest. He picked up a lock of her hair and played its sleek softness through his fingers.
“Come inside with me.” She looked up at him.
At the restaurant, during the tiramisu they’d shared, he’d asked her to come with him to a hotel, but the invitation had offended her. He’d been slow to understand that it was the idea of being with him in a hotel again that had upset her, not the idea of being with him. By the time he’d grasped that obvious point, they were already on their way back to her apartment, and he’d figured the moment had passed.
“I don’t want to see your roommate.”
“Julian—his name is Julian, you should practice pronouncing it, since it’s obviously hard for you to say—is out tonight. He has a new girlfriend. He’ll be out until tomorrow.”
“Is that so?”
“It is so.”
“Are you asking me to spend the night?”
“I’m asking you to come in. I haven’t planned the night beyond that. I’m just not ready for you to go.”
He pulled her away from the car and closed the door. With another glance around, he took her hand and led her to her building.
~oOo~
The apartment was small and cluttered, but tidy. The door opened into something approximating a hallway, where a rack of hooks was mounded with jackets and bags. A low shelf on the floor beneath it held boots and shoes.
The kitchen was a tiny, utilitarian square with a half wall overlooking the living room. A laminate bar top served as the top of the half wall, and two barstools there seemed to be the only place to have a meal.
Arianna hung her tan coat over another coat on the rack and ducked into the tiny kitchen. “Would you like a drink? I have a half-bottle of grocery-store chardonnay, and there’s some Jack Daniels or vodka—Stoli, I think. Or the bottle looks kinda like Stoli, anyway. There might be a couple beers”—she opened the fridge—“Yep. There’s IPA and a Stella.”
Donnie grinned at her over the bar. “The Stella is fine, thank you.”
“Do you want a glass?”
“I prefer the bottle.” Drinking from a bottle didn’t require a moment to strategize how he’d manage the mouth of an unfamiliar glass.
He turned and absorbed the insights of the living room. It had a strong starving-artist vibe. Lots of leafy plants at the windows—he’d seen those before, the few times he’d been outside, checking on her. Filmy white curtains, roll-up shades, all the way up. A futon and a couple of those big rattan chairs shaped like satellite dishes made up the seating. A raggedy old footlocker was the coffee table. The walls were covered with framed posters of classic ballets and dancers—he recognized Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev, Gelsey Kirkland, Gillian Murphy. He’d seen Murphy dance in New York a few times.
Framed photos of friends and family were mixed in on the walls and propped on the surfaces. Donnie paid particular attention to those. There were a few of Arianna and Trewson, but they were friend photos. He saw no signs that they were more than that.
He shrugged out of his suit jacket and laid it neatly over the back of the futon.
She came in with a glass of white wine for herself and the bottle of beer for him. Before she handed him the bottle, she stood at the edge of the room, her brow furrowed but a smile on her face.
“What?”
She handed him his beer. “Just planning the night.”
As he took a drink, she glided past him and went to the little unit that held a television and other electronics. She set her phone into a receiver, and music filled the room. Nothing he recognized. Something R&B, with piano and a slow, heavy beat. A woman’s husky voice. Sexy.
When she turned to face him, her hips picked up a sensual sway, and Donnie smiled. “Are you seducing me, Arianna? Is that your plan?”
Her smile was slow and her eyelids low. She sipped from her glass but kept her eyes on his. “I’m just dancing. Do you dance, Donato?”
No
one had called him Donato since his grandfather passed. “Nobody calls me Donato anymore.”
“Nobody calls me Arianna. Except you.”
“You told me you like it.”
“I do. Don’t you like Donato?” She’d swayed her way to him; now she set her free hand on his hip and made a lithe, writhing dip, sliding her body down his, that made his gut clench. When she wended her way up and stood straight again, her leg was between his.
He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard it in a long time. Doesn’t sound like me.”
After a moment’s study of his eyes, she let it drop. “You didn’t answer my question. Do you dance?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame.” She sidled around him, sliding her hand around his waist, letting it drop and sweep over his ass as she made her way around. “Because we’re at the Dirty Dancing chapter. You have a world-class ass, by the way. And I know what I’m talking about. As a ballerina, I’m an expert on great asses.”
Even through his clothes, her touch left electric spasms over his skin that fragmented his concentration on the words coming from her mouth. No woman had ever seduced him, not before his scarring or since. He’d always made the moves—and he would never have expected Arianna to take the lead. His impression of her was a woman strong enough to live her life as she wished, but also naturally submissive. She’d readily submitted to him their first night together.
Then again, she’d asked him out that night. He never would have asked her.
“Are these movies you keep bringing up?” he asked, pulling himself out of his too-analytical thoughts.
Standing in front of him again, she laughed. The sound was musical, and her eyes gleamed. Blue-grey. Fathomless. The Atlantic on a cloudy day.
Her face was so lovely and fascinating. The features were dramatically Italian and not quite proportional—her eyes were just barely too large, as was her nose, and her mouth, its shape and color so perfect a dollmaker might have painted it on, was just a bit too small—but together, they made a uniquely beautiful woman, a balance between delicate and strong that had haunted his dreams and waking thoughts for weeks now.
“They’re movies, yes. Love stories. Not your genre, I guess.”
“No.” He finished his beer and set the bottle on the footlocker. “Is it yours?”
“Not really.”
“But you’ve seen them all.”
“I’m an American female. I think there’s a law that we have to see them all. Actually, though, I love Dirty Dancing.”
“I wonder why.”
“It’s a mystery.” She insinuated her leg between his again and hooked her free arm around his waist. Like that, when she began to sway to the music again, he had little choice but to follow along until they were dancing, swaying softly in the middle of her cluttered living room.
“What is your genre?” she asked, making the question sound like sex. “Please don’t say Coppola.”
“No. Science fiction and fantasy. And martial arts movies.”
She gaped at him. “You’re a closet geek?”
He chuckled. “It’s not that deep a closet. I did cosplay the Phantom not so long ago, remember.”
“You made a really great Phantom, too. That mask was fantastic.” She finished her wine.
He took the glass from her. With his arm around her waist, he leaned down to set the glass beside his bottle. The move was almost a dip. He truly didn’t dance and wouldn’t have known how to plan to do it, but now that he had, he liked it, the way her body rested on his arm, the way his body loomed over her, and he didn’t rush to stand straight again.
With a quiet, humming moan, she hooked her arms around his neck, pressed her hands to his head, and turned her face to his.
Her hands on his head. Her mouth on his cheek. His left cheek, on his beard, no more than an inch from his mouth. His good side, normal side. But no one touched any part of his face, let alone kissed it. In twenty years, only Bev and Carina had kissed his face, and their kisses were chaste family pecks.
Freshly minted memories of that minute in front of the mailboxes downstairs flashed in his head. He’d been far too freaked out to enjoy her touch in the moment, but since then, the recollection had been as vivid as reality, and played itself over and over in any quiet moment. Her slender, graceful hands, so soft, fluttering over his cheeks, his chin, his mouth, his horror of a nose, his stunted blob of an ear. That moment had been one of the most emotionally agonizing experiences of his life, but mixed in the pain of the memory was gentle touch and sweet care. It fucked with his brain.
“No,” he said now. He couldn’t take that touch. They had an agreement, and she was breaking it. Trying to take far more than he could give.
“I’m sorry,” she said and let her head fall back, away from his. “I got caught up in the moment.”
Grabbing her arms from his neck, he spun her around and pinned them at her sides. It was always better when he took women from behind. A thought like that about Arianna was a rusty nail in his chest, and he cursed himself for letting her in so far, so fast.
She gasped out her surprise, and her body went taut. When he grabbed the hem of her dress and yanked it up, she reared back against him. “Donnie, wait. No.”
“What?” His disappointment in her honed his voice to a point.
She went very still. “You’re angry.”
“We had an agreement.”
“I don’t want it like this. Not when you’re angry, and not when I can’t see you.”
He let her go and backed off. “This isn’t gonna work.”
She smoothed her dress and turned around. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break our agreement. This is new for me, not being able to touch and kiss the man I want the way I want. I got caught up, being so close to you, and I forgot.”
“This is why I have arrangements. Nobody gets ‘caught up.’ There is no ‘forgetting.’” He went to the back of the futon and picked up his jacket.
“Please don’t go. Donnie, please.”
Furious with himself, he glared at Arianna. “This is a mistake. No point in exacerbating it.”
She winced and took a step backward. “I don’t understand how you can do that.”
“What?”
“Turn off your feelings like that. I know you were with me a minute ago. The heat between us was intense. And you can just flip a switch and be ice again?”
He wasn’t ice. His chest was a boiling cauldron of emotion, but he had long experience in not showing what he felt. “Do you understand who I am?”
“Of course I do.”
“You think I could have become what I am without being in control of my emotions?”
Some kind of comprehension dawned and softened the hurt and confusion from her brow. She came to him, and she set her hands on his chest, hooking her fingers in the place where his collar spread open. Donnie ignored the absurd compulsion to back away.
“I think you don’t have to be a Mafioso with me.”
“It’s not something I put on. It’s who I am.”
“You need control.”
He didn’t answer; he’d been straightforward about that from the beginning. She clearly had a problem with it, which was why he needed to go.
“Okay. Let’s make a new agreement.”
“I’m done negotiating with you.”
“You need control. You can have it.”
“Please?”
Her eyes dropped from his and studied his throat as she answered. “If you promise to stay open and show me how you feel, you can have me the way you want.”
A multiple-vehicle crash happened in his head; all he had was the word he’d just said. “Please?”
Her eyes came up. “Trust is what this comes down to. You don’t trust me not to hurt you. I don’t know how to change that except to trust you first. So I will.” With a graceful backward step, she put distance between them. As he watched, perplexed and ang
ry, but still aroused, she pulled down the side zipper of her dress and eased her feet from those little flat shoes.
Arianna’s feet were small and slender, but they weren’t pretty. He’d heard about the typical state of dancers’ feet and seen some images, so he hadn’t expected anything else. She had the feet of someone who tortured them daily for hours at a time. Still, he didn’t find them ugly. They were the tools of her art, and her art was glorious. So her feet were, too.
While he considered the tools of her art, he heard a sweep of fabric and raised his eyes to find her in nothing but her dainty underwear. She slid out of the bra and panties and stood naked before him. Her dark hair was loose over her shoulders, tresses curling over her perfect breasts. She was a tiny Venus, and his heart throbbed.
“What do you want to do, Donnie?”
What did he want to do? He wanted to go back in time and crush that fucking Phantom mask before he could use it. He wanted never to have met Arianna Luciano. But despite all the science fiction he’d read and seen that promised it, time travel didn’t exist. He had gone to that stupid fucking gala. He had met her. And now he was fucked.
What did he want? He wanted her. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to trust her. He wanted to love her.
He wanted to know her love.
It was impossible, but it was what he wanted.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
Her smile was sweet and relieved. “Down that hallway.” She held out her hand, but Donnie ignored it. He swept her into his arms instead and carried her down the hall.
Her room glowed. She had strands of little white lights strung all around the tops of the creamy chocolate-brown walls and swagged from the corners to a small fixture of sparkling crystals in the center of the ceiling. The effect was soft and surreal.
A few framed dance posters and a large bulletin board covered in papers and photos made up the rest of the wall décor. A queen bed without a headboard was tucked into the far corner, covered in a fluffy down comforter and several European-style pillows in lace covers. The rest of the furniture was mismatched but stylish. He had the sense that she did some antiquing in her spare time.
Hidden Worthiness Page 21