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I grab my coffee mug and take a long drink, trying to figure out what I am supposed to do now. If Dante thinks he can intimidate me with his angry personality into staying in the kitchen while he goes off God knows where, he is deeply mistaken.
First things first, I haven’t eaten since yesterday, so I start my exploration by raiding his cupboards. Once satisfied andwith a half eaten granola bar sticking out of my mouth, I step through the threshold and into a long corridor with a glass wall on one side and a door at the end. I’m just about to turn around when Dante comes out into the courtyard, clearly visible through the glass panels. It is only by a miracle I manage to catch the granola bar as it falls out of my mouth, which is now hanging open.
Dante is wearing nothing but a pair of swimming shorts.
In my twenty-two years, I have never been interested in men. Not inthatway. Men were always a means to an end. Never something that had my body tightening and my breath speed up. Until Dante Santoro.
I watch him in all his tanned, ink-covered and sculpted glory as he walks over to the edge of the swimming pool, his calf muscles swallowed by the billows of steam rising off the warm water, and dives disappearing under the surface. My eyes trace the dark shadow as it moves gracefully from one end of the pool to the other. When he comes up for air, a swarm of butterflies sets off in my belly. He is looking straight at me. His chocolate brown eyes instantly trap me in my place. Not that I would move. I’m too mesmerised by the rivulets of water tracing down his sharp jaw and neck before drenching the tip of the wings tattooed on his chest and merging with the pool water.
I fight the urge to press myself against the glass, just so I can be closer to him, imagining what the water on his chest would taste like if it were on my tongue. He crooks a finger at me, beckoning me over, his burning gaze never leaving mine.
I’m at war. One part of me wants to walk down that corridor and join him, despite the fact I have no clue how to swim, nor do I own a bathing suit. The other wants to run for the hills, as far away as I can get from this confusing man.
The chicken shit side wins over as I turn on my heel and pretty much run in the opposite direction. As alluring as Dante dripping in water may be, I’m not about to go into the lion’s den. I don’t want him getting any ideas, even if said ideas might be somewhat reciprocated. I’m here only because he insisted this was the safest place for me. But how safe can it actually be? Because, at this point, I’m not sure what scares me more. The men who are trying to attack me or Dante Santoro.
I walk down another corridor until I get to a set of double doors leading into a brightly lit large room. Covered wall to wall in bookshelves, every single one is filled with books of all shapes and sizes. Gasping, I turn in circles, trying to take it all in. Like a kid in the candy shop, my eyes are drawn to the colourful spines, unable to decide where to start first. This is heaven and hell at the same time because as I’m trying to discern the titles on some of the books I’m already mourning the moment I’ll have to part with this room. In a daze, I walk over to the closest wall, letting my finger trace the spines of old books. Pushkin, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Gogol, Chekhov, Nabokov and many more, all in perfect condition. Curious, I pull a thick tome out, Doctor Zhivago, and nearly drop it when I flip it open and find it’s a first edition, signed by Boris Pasternak himself. I hastily put it back in its place and move to the next shelf, where I find books on American history. There’s so much knowledge contained in this room I find it hard to breathe. My heart is beating loudly in my chest as I move around from one bookshelf to the next, taking in all the titles.
“Rosa? What are you doing here?”
I squeak, jumping in place as a book about Roman aqueducts I was flipping through slips from my grip and lands on the floor. With my hand on my heart, I turn around, comingface to face with an older man wearing a pair of pyjamas and a long burgundy velvet robe tied around his waist.
“I’m so sorry,” I stutter. “I didn’t know someone else was here.” I could have sworn the library was empty when I first walked in, but then again, I have been completely besotted by all the books contained within these walls. I probably would have missed an elephant if it was right there in the middle of the room when I entered.
“Don’t be silly,Rosalita. You’re always welcome here.” The man smiles at me.
I take a tentative step back, matching his step forward as he tries to close the distance between us. This whole thing is creepy. The Hugh Hefner bathrobe, him calling me Rosa, like I’m Belle in the Beast’s library. With the next step he takes forward, I turn around and run back the way I came.
Safest place for me, myass.
I run through the corridor and back to the kitchen, hoping the old man is nowhere near agile enough to follow me. In my head, I run through all the ways I want to tell Dante to stuff this hugesafemansion and all the creepy old men living here up his perfectly pert ass when I smack against a wall, bouncing off and falling on my butt.
Except I never land, since the wall’s hands shoot out and wrap around my arms, steadying me.
“You okay?” Angelo’s gaze rakes me over, looking for injury while I stare at his tank top covered chest. Seriously though, this man is pure muscle. No wonder I mistook him for a wall.
“I’m fine.” I pull my arm away from his grasp and rub my forehead where it bounced off of his pecs, eyeing him from underneath my hand. He’s wearing fitness gear. Black shorts and a loose tank, that do little to cover his bulging muscles. “Where are you going?”
Angelo looks me up and down like I’m slow.
I huff. “I’m not dumb. I can see you’re about to work out.”
“Dante’s gym.”
Huh. Of course he has a gym. Figures. I should probably make my acquaintance with the room, considering I’ve had two attempts at my life already. Three, if I count Dante saying he almost shot me last night. “Can I come?”
Angelo shrugs, walking past me to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of water. “Suit yourself. I don’t mind the audience.”
I follow him down the corridor I drooled over Dante’s body in. My eyes focus on the crumbs of the granola bar by the spot where I stood. Pretending I don’t care if Dante is still in the swimming pool or not, I make a point to keep my gaze away from the glass covered wall, even though my insides are screaming at me to peer to the side and check as we near the door. But I stay strong. And as we walk into a small changing room, then through another set of doors and into a spacious room with equipment even the best gyms would be envious of, I mentally pat myself on the back for keeping my resolve about ignoring Dante’s existence.
Angelo makes his way to the mat in the middle, stretching his muscles as I sit down on a weightlifting bench, trying not to look like I’m ogling him. Once he’s satisfied, he walks over to the side and wraps his hands in white long cloth bandages before walking over to a punching bag and starting his training session.
My jaw hanging open, I watch his footwork and quick jabs as he gracefully dances around the bag.This.This is exactly what I need to learn.
Without even noticing, I’m up and walking over to him, unable to tear my gaze away. “Can you teach me?” I ask standing next to him.
He hugs the bag, stilling it as his eyes dart to mine. “Teach you what?”
“How to do this?” I point at the punching bag.
