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"Yes, baby. It has wings. Now, can I show you my room, or . . .”
I look around the sitting room, taking in how . . . empty it is. Lifeless.
"Is it as boring as this room?" I ask, using a hand to indicate where we are. The furniture is gorgeous, high-end and seemingly comfortable, the television the newest and biggest version, I'm sure. But the room is empty of anything else.
"Yes," he says with a laugh as he starts to guide me into the bedroom, and he's right. It's vast and gorgeous, a huge four-poster dark-wood bed with a black comforter and sheets that tell me he definitely does not have an angry cat like I do—or any pet for that matter. There's a dresser with a mirror across the bed, a smaller TV in a corner, and a door that I assume leads to a bathroom.
But the room is lifeless, just as lifeless as the entryway.
"Why so boring?” I ask, stepping out of his hold and walking around. "God, this place is like a man cave but not even in the fun way."
He watches my every move, something I feel rather than see.
"It's so . . . gloomy.” Dark woods, dark bedding, light-gray walls that remind me of rainy days and overcast skies. No art. No photos. No . . . nothing.
As I'm moving a curtain aside to look out the window at a courtyard, the man in question comes up behind me. He puts a hand on my hip before pressing into me. His breath is hot on my ear when he speaks.
"Maybe I just needed a little bit of sunshine to help me see," he says in a whisper, and the words swirl around me, but just as I start to grasp them, to understand, his hand is moving, a thumb grazing the soft part of my belly that sits atop the waistband of my sweatpants.
"Is that what I am? A little bit of sunshine?"
"You're the whole damned solar system, Lilah," he says, turning me, and the line is cheesy, but his face . . . His face is not.
It’s both serious and consumed with heat.
"Dante—” I start, unsure of what to say.
"I found you, and every molecule in my body said I needed you," he says in a whisper against my lips. "I am not this man. I am not impulsive. I sure as fuck never take a woman back here. But here I am spending full days in a goddamned strip club just to get to know you. Finding you and then demanding you let me take you out, bringing you back here. What are you doing to me, Delilah?"
"The same thing you're doing to me," I whisper. "I don't date. I don't trust random men. I surely don't go back to their place," I say.
"Good," he says, and I expect more, but then his lips are on mine and he's devouring me.
It's not soft and sweet, not a lovely kiss to remember like outside the restaurant.
It's a claiming. Dante is staking his claim on me despite no one being around. He's kissing me like he's trying to leave his mark, trying to make it so when the kiss ends, when the night ends, I'll remember this moment.
As if I could forget.
"I need to say something," he says when he finally breaks the kiss, pressing his forehead to mine as I pant, trying to catch my breath. That electricity is flooding my veins, my blood thumping everywhere but my brain, making me feel almost light-headed.
But those words have me falling back to earth.
"What?"
A million and seven things flood through my mind, starting withhe's a murdererand ending withhe has another woman he's hiding me from.
"We do this, there's no going back," he says, and the words are almost a whisper through my ears and body, caressing every nerve ending. His hand moves, pushing a piece of hair back. "This. You feel it. Electric."
It's not just me.
"We do this, that's it, fiorella."
"What does that mean?" I ask in a whisper.
"You'll be mine."You'll be mine.What in the fuck?
"I don't . . . We just met."
