Page 86 of Tainted Love

I laugh, kissing him back. Pleasure burns inside of me, taking me over until he suddenly stops.

“You tease…”

He presses his lips against my shoulder and laughs with me. “You’ve called me worse things.”

“Can’t argue that…” I latch onto the sides of the bathtub and pull myself away from him, pivoting around to the opposite side to face him. “What’s your favorite so far?”

He searches his memory. “Let’s see…” I extend my foot to his lap and he takes it in his hands. His lips curl. “Two-bit Chicago thug with a gun to replace his balls definitely stands out.”

I laugh, blood rushing to my cheeks. “That feels like so long ago now.”

“It was,” he says, pressing a line up the arch of my foot. “Time moves differently in my line of work.”

“Yeah, I understand why you just wanted to get laid that night,” I joke. “I doubt you would have bothered with me if you knew how much trouble I’d be.”

His eyes stay soft on me. “It was never just about getting laid with you, Luce.”

“Bullshit.”

He shakes his head. “It really wasn’t.” His chest rises and falls. “I mean, sure… you were hot, and I desperately wanted to fuck you, but…” I kick my heel against his tattooed chest, laughing at him. He takes my foot again and his smile fades. “But I saw that portrait of you in your father’s office and… it reminded me of a simpler time. A life gone cold.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, studying his warm, blue eyes.

Dante pauses and reaches below the water for my other foot. “My mother was a dancer, like you.”

“Really?”

He nods. “We were on our way home from one of her performances when we crashed.”

My heart bleeds for him. I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t find the right words.

His thumbs roll over the ball of my foot, gently pressing in as his gaze lingers on the water between us. “Eli and Lilah don’t remember much about her dancing, but I used to watch her practice.” He smiles at the memory. “She had to do it late at night because she had no time during the day between taking care of us and other responsibilities and I could never sleep even back then, so…”

He pauses to look at me and I can’t stop the smile from touching my lips.

“After our parents died, my grandparents told me that Harts don’t break,” he says. “We bruise, we bleed, but we don’t break. We always get back up. A hundred scars later, I’ve never forgotten that.”

My chest clenches, feeling more like a Hart than ever before. “They sound like good people,” I say. “I wish I could have met them.”

He shrugs. “Maybe you will.”

“I thought you said your grandparents were dead.”

“No, I said they weren’t here anymore.” He smiles. “I didn’t say they were dead.”

I glower playfully. “I want to meet them.”

“Maybe you will,” he repeats.

I smile again, knowing he means yes. “So, I reminded you of her?” I ask. “My picture?”

“You? Oh, god. No.” He shakes his head. “No, my mother was graceful and elegant and poised and—” I kick him again and he laughs at me. “Well-mannered, beautiful, smart—”

“I will drown you in this tub!”

“You’re welcome to try.”

I lunge forward and he takes me into his arms as I wrap my hands around his thick shoulders. Water spills over the sides as I try to wrestle him downward, but he doesn’t budge an inch.

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