Page 6

CHAPTER 6

Dante wore a white short-sleeved T-shirt and gray sweatpants, and shut the door behind him. He knelt before her, not touching, and his dark eyes showed compassion and concern. “Please stop. You’ll make yourself sick.”

“I c…can’t. You must see… I can’t.” She put her head back on her knees. All the old guilt rising and compounding the new grief… To cry in front of him lashed at her pride—yet the emotion could not be contained.

He gave a sigh, stood, picked her up, and sat on the shower bench with her on his lap. He rocked her. Which, for a guy who said he’d be more careful of touching her in the future, was wrong. On the other hand, there was not a hint of the sexual in his behavior. He offered pure comfort and really, what guy desired a woman who wept until her eyes were almost swollen shut and snot ran?

Yet the embrace was nice—and nice was not a word she’d ever thought to apply to Dante Arundel. His sweatpants provided a cushion against her bare parts. He kept his arms wrapped around her, pushed her head onto his shoulder, rocked her, and made low comforting sounds that came through as rumbling beneath her ear. The warm water cascaded over them, the steam on the glass enclosed them, and the first wave of her grief began to pass.

When her crying slowed, he held her until she lifted her head and sniffed, loudly, and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. Body fluids were so inconvenient and embarrassing.

He groped around and handed her the washcloth. “Blow.”

She looked at it and looked at him.

“I’ve heard a crying woman blow her nose before. It doesn’t matter. Other than being naked, you’re hardly trying to seduce me.”

“Being naked is how I take my showers.” Snipping at him made her feel better, so she honked her nose and threw the washcloth into the corner. Leaning her head back against the wall, she looked at him beneath swollen eyelids. “Unlike you.”

Everything he wore was soaked. “I took off my shoes and socks.”

“How did you get in the bathroom?”

“I own this condo. I have the keys. I heard you crying and I couldn’t stand it. Did you finish washing?”

“Everything but my hair.”

He stood and deposited her on the bench, squirted shampoo into his palms, and massaged it into her scalp. Once again, the scents of citrus and lavender surrounded her. She closed her eyes against the bubbles and felt more acutely the way he dug his thumbs into the tense muscles at the back of her head.

As she relaxed, she burst out, “She…your mother… Who would do this to her? She was kind and smart, and already so helpless.”

“My mother was not helpless. She was…amazing. Brilliant. Inventive. Up for any challenge. Tilt your head back.” He pushed any unruly soap off her face and used the handheld to rinse her hair. “I am sorry about your hair. I’ll have a stylist come tomorrow morning and cut it into some semblance of a style.”

“My hair doesn’t matter, or it wouldn’t if I’d managed to save—” Her voice shook.

He took over the conversation before she could crumble again. “Physically, sure, but Mère was smart and in her own way, ruthless. When my father…died…she decided to remake our organization, and she did.”

She wiped her eyes and opened them, looked up at him. “From a wheelchair?”

“From her hospital bed. Then from her wheelchair.”

“A woman of strong will.” Maarja’s opinion of Mrs. Arundel shimmered and shifted.

“A woman who engenders loyalty…and a woman who doesn’t hesitate to enforce her decisions.”

Code for Do what I say or I’ll kill you . “Really? Mrs. Arundel? Really?”

“Really. She had enemies.”

Maarja had never seen that in her, but—yes. As his father’s heir apparent, Dante had been too young to take over the organization, but not too young to die, and Mrs. Arundel had been physically helpless. Someone had had to move swiftly to ensure their survival, and that somebody had to be Mrs. Arundel. “Is that why they wanted to eliminate her?”

“Yes.”

The next logical question—“Who are they ?”

“I intend to find out.” Grim tone. “Some seek their own power. Some prefer the old ways. Some think anarchy will open up a brand-new world, so they’ll bring it all down and start anew, and damned to who gets hurt.” He finished rinsing her hair and returned the handheld to the hook. “If you can feel better about today’s events, please know my mother is better off out of it.”

Indignation made her want to slap him. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“It holds its own truth.”

For the first time since he’d stepped into the shower, she looked at him, really looked at him. The man who had been everything that was kind and caring to her had been hiding his true emotions, for he strained like a black wolf, captured and at the end of his fetter. The muscles in his shoulders, arms, and chest flexed against the soaking white cotton, she could clearly see his dark hard nipples and… Her gaze dropped. She hadn’t meant to notice, but his heavy wet sweatpants sagged low on his hips and only one thing was keeping them up.

Okay. He hadn’t been aroused when she was a sobbing wreck—she knew because she’d been sitting on his lap—but she’d relaxed from her tight curl of misery, the snot had ceased running, and, oh, gee, as he said, she was naked.

She glanced up and discovered his lids half shuttered his eyes, allowing only a polished obsidian gleam to escape—and that gleam focused on her.

She was naked, he had noticed—well, sure, he’d been standing over top of her washing her hair—and to contain the sudden surge of her breath, she slowly reached up and touched her breastbone over her heart.

Her fingers caressing her own skin held a fascination for him, and he couldn’t seem to look away.

This was it, then. The moment she’d feared and put off. But this time, the right circumstances: a cocoon of steamy safety, a past that unwillingly united them, and a dangerous man with a tender touch.

Abruptly, like a demon fleeing a burst of light, he turned and lunged for the door.

“Wait!” She grabbed for him, caught the sweatpants. The elastic released and left him standing in a pool of French terry. He wore soaked white boxers that molded his erection. “Dante, would you…?”

“No!” He stomped his feet to free himself from the heavy wet material.

She reached for him. “I want!”

“No. You don’t like to be touched and I’m going to respect that.” The door latch clicked. The door opened. “As soon as I get out of here!”

“Dante!”

He froze. Every muscle in his shoulders, back, and neck flexed and strained.

She whispered, “Don’t leave me alone now.”

Still he stood, brittle with tension.

How to explain what she knew? “Dante, it’s been a horrible day for you, too. You need me.”

With a sigh, he turned and picked her up by the shoulders. “Yes. I do.” He sounded almost…resigned.

He kissed her: lips formed to hers, tongue curious, gentle, alien to her. Breath that was not hers. Flames that kindled between them. A tangle of thorns. A thicket of passion. Emotions she had never comprehended, ever, in her whole life.

Before she could decide, he pulled back and stared at her, his dark eyes now wide, urgent, primitive. “Second thoughts. For me. For you.”

“Not me.” Why did he say that? Could he taste her uncertainty?

“You’ve had a terrible day. One shock after another. Grief and heartache. I shouldn’t—”

“You’ve had the same day.”

“I didn’t face that explosion.” With tender fingers, he traced the curve of her face. “Swollen,” he said. “Like you were slapped. Why didn’t you run?”

“I couldn’t. I had to—”

“Save my mother.” He stroked her face, yet although he watched her as if she were a mythical creature, a unicorn or a phoenix, he made no move to kiss her again. He kept a space between them, touching her only with his fingertips.

Yet that space hummed with vitality, need, an awakening that made her forget the past and find what she needed here and now. She caught his wrist and gripped it with all her strength. “I’d like you to kiss me again.”

“You didn’t like it.”

“I…did.” She winced. It sounded like a question.

“You stopped me. Did you mean to?”

“I didn’t stop you. I let you kiss me.”

“Fuck that. If you want me, kiss me. Open your mouth. Kiss me.” He bent her over his arm and…oh, my. He was the kidnapping pirate, the ruthless magician, the prince who would turn the tide.

She yielded, opened her mouth to him, let him cup her breast.

Okay, there was no letting . He was doing what he wished with her body. She wasn’t complaining or fighting. Of all the shocks of the day, this was the best. Or the worst. Or…the one that swamped all the other emotions.

Eventually he stopped kissing and whispered against her lips, “What do you want?”

This pirate, this prince, wanted her to make a decision. He waited on her decision.

Mostly.

Because while he asked, he lowered her onto the seat and spread her legs, and dipped his mouth and tasted her. The shock sent her reeling back against the wall, arms braced, slammed by sensation. She looked down at him; his eyes were blissfully shut, his lips moved and sucked and his tongue thrust into her…

She slammed back against the wall again.

What man did this? Pleasured a woman as if nothing else mattered? As if she tasted like ambrosia on his tongue?

According to her friends, between a man and woman, passion slowly built…if the woman was lucky.

Not here, not now. Passion was . She came hard and fast, clamping her thighs around his head and holding him in place while warm rain splattered, cool tile cradled her, and his finger—no, two fingers—pushed inside her as if he wanted to extend her pleasure. She whimpered and writhed.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, arched her spine, and pulled her forward to the edge of the bench. Taking her breast in his mouth, he sucked her nipple while stroking his fingers inside her and using his thumb to stroke her clit.

Too much. She couldn’t keep track. He confused her senses. She knew only one thing: it hurt to want this much. “Please. Soon. Now.” She groped her way down from his shoulders, slid her hand under the waistband of his shorts to his dick, touched it, held it.

He froze, waiting, watching her from those too-observant eyes.

She stroked lightly, enjoying the ridges, the silky smooth skin, the mushroom-shaped cap. “It’s—”

“The biggest you’ve ever seen?” His tone held a cynical edge.

“Not at all.” Did he think she was raised in a convent? “Have you ever looked online?”

He laughed, a brief explosion of amusement, and his shoulders relaxed infinitesimally. “Then what?”

“I’d like… Do you think we could… I’d like one moment in this day to be memorable not in a horrible way.”

He got a funny look on his face, like he didn’t know whether to guffaw or wince. After a moment’s struggle, he said gravely, “Thank you for setting such a low bar.”