by Sabrina Sol
He grabbed her as soon as they were through the door.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said before giving her a quick kiss. “And thank you for dessert.”
She arched one of her perfect eyebrows. “But I didn’t make dessert.”
“I know. Dessert is you,” he said and captured her mouth again.
…
Alexa looked up at Dante’s ceiling. It was the popcorn kind, of course.
She moved her eyes to the ties binding her wrists to the headboard. Those were from Barneys New York. Brandon had the same exact ones.
She shook her head. This wasn’t the time to be thinking of her brother. Not when she was completely naked and tied to Dante’s bed.
He’d teased a few times about wanting to tie her up, but she’d never guessed he was serious. So when he finally asked her permission to do it, she said yes more out of curiosity than anything. Being tied up required a level of trust. And, before Dante, she’d never trusted any lover to do it. But as soon as he’d asked, she knew she would be safe.
She’d even dismissed the little nagging in her head that wanted to analyze why she trusted him so much.
Even then, completely helpless and on display, Alexa waited for Dante with anticipation. He’d left to retrieve what he called “supplies” from the kitchen, and all she could do was examine everything in her field of view. Maybe she should be thinking of sexy things so she’d be warmed up by the time he came back?
Who was she fooling? Her horny meter went from zero to sixty whenever he was in her vicinity.
And to prove her own point, she heard him coming down the hallway, and her nipples instantly hardened.
Lord, she was hopeless.
He appeared holding a can of whipped cream and a bowl of strawberries—two things she’d brought the other day for some late-night snacking. “Dessert is served,” he said with a devilish grin.
Dante placed the items on the nightstand and then took off his clothes. She loved looking at his body. It didn’t even embarrass her when he caught her staring. He did the same thing to her.
His cock was already at attention. Dante stroked it up and down as he watched her. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen, and her pussy clenched.
“I think you’re going to like what I have in store for you,” he said, his voice thick and gravelly.
He grabbed the can of whipped cream and was about to spray it on his penis when she stopped him. “What about your comforter and sheets? This is going to be messy, isn’t it?”
“That’s what a washer is for,” he said, the amusement evident on his face.
After he was covered in the cream, he moved onto the bed and settled over her on his knees. She strained against the ties, anxious for a second that she couldn’t move. But then his cock was in her face and she forgot all about it. Hungrily, she licked the length of his shaft. She moaned in appreciation as she tasted the sweetness of the whipped cream mixed with the saltiness of his skin.
“You like that, huh? Now take all of me in your mouth,” he ordered.
She happily complied and covered him with her lips, taking him all the way to the back of her throat. When she slid her mouth back to the pulsing head, the whipped cream had disappeared.
“Good girl. Now it’s my turn for some sweetness.”
He plucked a strawberry from the bowl, the stem already cut off. Dante put the dark red fruit between his teeth and leaned down to her mouth. She strained her neck and took a bite, meeting his lips in the process. The taste of the berry burst in her mouth, and she savored every morsel. Then he pulled away and let her swallow before coming back down for another turn. When the strawberry was finished, he licked her lips clean.
“Mmm. Now for the whipped cream.”
He held the can over her breasts and squirted two swirls of white over each nipple. She writhed underneath him as he went to work licking and sucking each one until there was no more cream left.
Dante moved down the bed, taking the can with him. She knew what he was going to do, and she shuddered again in anticipation.
The cream was cool against her skin, but she was absolutely sure it would melt once it touched the heat between her legs. Still, he squeezed more and more and she strained to look down there. His head had moved between her thighs, and his eyes were hidden by a mound of white.
Then with slow, deliberate strokes, Dante begin to lick the cream off her pussy.
Madre de dios! She’d never felt so sensual or aroused. Her thighs fell open wider, and she ground herself against his tongue.
“Yes, Dante, yes,” she cried.
He responded to her eagerness with a nip of her clit. Her hips bucked off the bed, nearly knocking him off, too. She couldn’t stand the sensation. It was too good. Too amazing.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he grunted. “I’m going to slide in so easily. Is that what you want?”
“Uh-huh.” It was the only word she could manage at the moment.
The first wave of the orgasm hit her hard, and she yanked on her ties. Dante shot off the bed, rolled on a condom, and then was inside her in just a few seconds.
“That’s right, Alexa. Squeeze my cock with your pussy. God, you feel so fucking good right now.”
Pleasure and then more pleasure rolled through her as he pumped in and out. She’d never had such a welcome release. Her whole body was floating, and she didn’t want to come down.
Perhaps sensing that she was on the other side of her orgasm, Dante increased the speed of his thrusts, and soon he was shouting her name as he unleashed his own climax. He stilled above her, and she noticed the tinge of heat still in his eyes. He looked as though he was thinking of devouring her all over again.
“I’m never going to use whipped cream again without thinking of you.” Then he bent down to kiss her, and she melted all over again.
After he untied her and checked her wrists for marks, he fell back down on his side and rolled her over until she was settled in the nook of his arm. They stayed there for a few minutes in a wonderfully satiated silence.
“That was amazing,” she finally said as she dragged a finger up the center of his chest. “Thank you.”
He kissed the top of her head. “You’re welcome. I love it when you’re grateful. Hey, how about you pay me back by going to this dinner thing at a client’s house next month?”
Her finger stopped moving. “What’s a dinner thing?” she asked.
“Drinks. Food. You know, the usual dinner party stuff. Except with bankers and lawyers. I know, not very exciting, but since I have to go anyway, I figured it will be 100 percent more entertaining with you there.”
Warning bells sounded. She pulled away to look at him. “So it would be like a date?”
“Yeah. I guess. What’s the big deal? We have dinner together all the time at the restaurant or at one of our places. This would just be dinner at someone else’s house.”
“Um. I’m not sure. I’ll let you know, okay?” She sat up and moved to get off the bed.
He grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom to get cleaned up and dressed. It’s getting late.”
“Stay the night.”
“I can’t.” She pulled her arm away and stood up.
“Why not?” he asked as he rolled onto his side and propped his head in his hand.
“Because I don’t have any clothes or a toothbrush or—”
“I have an extra toothbrush, and you can go home to change in the morning before heading to the restaurant.”
Anxiety welled up inside her. First he wanted to take her to a dinner at a client’s house and now he wanted her to spend the night? She’d been trying so hard to walk the line between casual sex and a romantic relationship because she wanted to prove that she could leave her emotions out of the bedroom. She’d never expected him to be the one to want to blur that line.
It was too much. Too fast.
“I can’t stay,” she blurted.
/> Dante studied her face. “Okay, what’s up? Did I do something? Say something?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Okay, now I know for sure it’s something. Tell me, Alexa.”
“It’s just that—”
“What?”
“I’m not ready.”
He chuckled, and her irritation grew. “It’s not like I’m asking you to move in. It’s just one night.”
“That’s what you say now. But one night tonight and another night next week and then we’re spending nights at my house and—”
“And…”
“And that wasn’t our deal,” she admitted.
He winced. “I thought you trusted me. After what we just did—”
“That was sex. One has nothing to do with the other.”
Dante ran his hand through his hair in obvious frustration. “You really believe that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
His expression hardened. “Then I guess you’d better go before it gets any later. It’s a long drive back to your place.”
She hated the chill in his voice. But she didn’t know how to change it without saying something she didn’t believe to be true.
She stood up and walked into the bathroom to clean up and get dressed. She’d half expected him to try to continue their conversation through the door.
But nothing could be said that hadn’t been already.
When she walked out, he had turned onto his side, facing away from her.
Alexa stayed there for a few minutes wondering if she should just crawl back into bed with him. It would be easier than this. And it was only one night. But something she couldn’t quite explain held her back and kept her frozen in place.
After a couple of minutes, her anxiety dissipated and she could move again. But she didn’t go to him. Instead, she walked out his front door and into the cool empty night.
Chapter Eleven
Alexa sat in the middle of her closet and sighed.
An hour ago, it was an organized chaos filled with mini towers of shoe boxes and half-full shopping bags. After a halfhearted attempt to clean it out, the organization was gone and only the chaos remained.
That’s what she got for trying to do busy work.
She’d been up since six that morning but had lain in bed for an hour trying to force herself to go back to sleep. When that didn’t work, she got up, took a shower, and tried to think of chores she could do around the house until she had to leave for the restaurant—chores she’d been putting off but that now would help her kill time and distract her from how she’d left things with Dante the night before.
Cleaning out her closet had seemed like a good idea until she was halfway into it. That’s when the scary realization hit. She had way too much stuff and this project would probably take several days, not hours. The closet had been one of the reasons she’d purchased the bungalow-style house two years ago. It was a walk-in with pre-built shelves and cubbyholes. It had seemed so spacious, so luxurious at the time. When she’d first moved in, she’d barely filled half of it. Now it was bursting at the seams, and she had no idea how in the world she’d ever acquired so many things. Her Goodwill donation tub already sat full in one corner, but she’d probably need several more at this rate.
The thought made her tired.
She dropped down on the carpet and propped her head on a pile of sweaters she’d been sorting. The combination of cashmere and wool felt more comfortable than she’d expected, and her eyelids grew heavy. And just when a little nap sounded like the best idea ever, her cell phone rang.
Alexa reached out and felt for the phone she knew was buried somewhere underneath one of the piles of clothes.
“Hello,” she mumbled after putting it to her ear.
“Are you sick?” Her mami’s voice blared through the other end, a mixture of both concern and accusation.
“No, Mami, I’m not sick. I was just about to take a nap.”
“A nap? But it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Aye, Alexa. I tell you all the time that you don’t sleep enough. Te vas a enfermar.”
She opened her eyes fully, only to roll them. “I’m not sick now and I’m not going to get sick, Mami. I just woke up too early today. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Por qué? Is everything okay? Is Brandon okay? Is Daisy okay? Is the baby okay?”
“Yes, everyone is okay. Don’t worry. Besides, didn’t you just talk to Daisy and Brandon yesterday? You know they would’ve told you if something was wrong.”
“I want to think yes, but then I think you and them don’t like to tell me bad things because you think I’ll get the cancer again.”
Alexa shook her head and sat up. Her mami’s cervical cancer had been in remission for months, but she was still milking it for all of its guilt-inducing worth.
She took a deep breath and then released it. “Actually, Mami, there is something I need to tell you.”
Her mother gasped. “I knew it! Madre de dios.”
“Stop praying. It’s not bad. But you can’t freak out, okay?”
Silence.
“Mami?”
“Okay. I no freak.”
She took a second and then blurted it out: “I’m seeing someone.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
“Pues, I don’t know what that means.”
She groaned. Why had she even started this conversation? “Mami, I’m trying to tell you that I’m dating someone.”
“Oh. Oh! Well, that’s nice. But why don’t you sound happy about it?”
“Because I think I’m going to mess things up like I always do.”
“Alexa, mija, why do you talk like that? Qué pasó?”
How could she tell her mother what happened if she wasn’t exactly sure herself? “We had a fight yesterday. I think he’s getting too serious and I told him that I didn’t want that yet. But that doesn’t mean I want things to end, either.”
“One disagreement doesn’t have to mean the end. Go talk to him, and if he cares about you, then he’ll be patient. But, Alexa, if you care about him, too, then you have to be honest with him and yourself about this relationship. Don’t waste his time if you don’t think you will ever feel like he does. You care about him, yes?”
“Yes, I think so. How did you know that?”
“Because you never talked to me about a man like this before.”
It was true. Their conversations about her love life mainly revolved around status updates. Her mom would ask if she was still dating someone and Alexa would usually say yes or no depending on the length of time it had been since they’d last spoken. It worried her mom that Alexa wasn’t married or at least in a serious relationship yet. She’d make comments here and there whenever one of her friends’ daughters announced their engagement or pregnancy, and Alexa would be subjected to her cries of woe that she’d never have a grandbaby of her own. Thank God Brandon was going to give her one. That had put the pressure—and the dramatics—on hold, at least for now.
But her mother was right about one thing. She had to talk to Dante. And the sooner, the better. Now, to get her mother off the phone. “Thank you for your advice, Mami. So you called me. What’s going on?”
A loud, exasperated sigh came through the line. “Nothing is going on. I just feel like I wanted to talk to you. Is that okay?”
She smiled. “Yes, that’s very okay.” And she made herself comfortable. This was going to take a while…
Over an hour later, she was parking her car across the street from Dante’s house. Luckily, she’d called his assistant before leaving her own place and found out that he was working from home that day. She felt silly not calling him directly, but what she needed to say had to be said face-to-face. Plus, she’d never admit it to Dante, but she actually wanted to see him.
She checked her makeup in her rearview mirror and then stepped out of the car. As she crossed the street, Dante walked out of his front
door holding a bouquet of flowers. It made her smile, and she rushed to meet him at his driveway.
When he finally spotted her, though, he didn’t seem as happy to see her. “You’re here,” he announced.
Why did he seem so surprised? Had he expected her to stay away for a while? Had he wanted her to?
“I am,” she countered. “I thought we should talk. Celia told me you were working from home today.” She couldn’t help but look at the flowers in his hand.
He followed her gaze, and his eyes widened, as if he’d forgotten about them. “I was. I am. I just…I’m actually heading out for a bit to visit a friend. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“Obviously.”
His brow furrowed questioningly, but he stayed quiet. Why was he acting so strange? Old insecurities began to swirl inside her belly. She didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t look good. Her heart rate sped up, and her mouth ran dry. Why had she come here?
“Well, I guess this wasn’t such a good idea. Sorry I interrupted your plans. You can call me later.” She moved to turn back toward her car when he grabbed her hand.
His gaze was serious. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting you and—”
“Yeah, you already said that.”
He squeezed her hand and then finally smiled. “Come with me.”
“Where? To see your friend?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to do this, Dante. You don’t owe me an explanation of how you spend your time.”
He tugged her hand. “Actually, I do. Let’s go.”
Ten minutes later, as they drove through tree-lined neighborhoods, Alexa tried not to let her emotions get the best of her. An uneasiness tightened her insides, and she hated not knowing where things stood. Who was he taking her to meet? And why wouldn’t he say anything else?
Finally, she’d had enough.
“So, are you still mad at me for not spending the night?”
He continued to focus on the road. “I wasn’t mad. I was…disappointed.”
“Because you wanted us to have sex again?”
This time he looked at her. “What? No. Well, obviously, I always want to have sex with you, Alexa. But that’s not why I was disappointed.”