Page 44 of Red Hot Harmony

“Just for the record, I don’t think you’re an entitled douchebag.”

“I do my best not to be.” He steered me to the glass and positioned himself at my back, his chest, broad and warm, pressing into my shoulder blades, his palms on my hips.

“But you used to, huh?”

“I must confess, I did.” He smiled lazily into the crook of my neck.

At first, we simply stood there and stared at the twinkling stretch of city below us.

“Did I already tell you how beautiful you look tonight?” Dante murmured, brushing his lips over the spot behind my ear.

My stomach flipped. I couldn’t fight it anymore, this ridiculous desire, this mad attraction. It was beyond all reason now.

“Where’s your bedroom?” I asked as I spun in his arms.

He glared at me for a long time, the stir of the air between us becoming impossibly hot.

“There’s no undoing it, mama.”

Was he stalling? “I don’t plan on undoing it unless you fuck up what comes after this?”

“Trust me, fucking things up is never my plan. It just happens.”

“Well, it can’t just happen anymore. Not with me.” The words came to the surface, shaky and unsure. “It’s not just sex. It means something to me. And if we’re doing this, then you have to put some effort into it not only before but also after the fact.”

Another drawn-out pause, which only made me wonder if he understood what I was asking of him.

“It means something to me too, Camille,” he said finally, voice low and rough and serious, as if he’d fought for the sentence with everything he had. Not a single trace of playfulness that was so typical of him.

A tiny noise escaped my throat. Maybe a moan or a sigh of relief. I couldn’t tell with all the emotions crowding my chest, pressing against my heart and making my blood roar.

He brought his mouth to mine and kissed me again, but this time, it wasn’t gentle or innocent. It was desperate, with bite and heaving and a flex of his stomach against mine as he pulled me closer.

He still tasted like sugar and cherry, even without the candy.

I wasn’t sure how exactly we ended up in his bedroom. There was a long corridor, its walls adorned with flashy artwork. One of the pieces might have been a Warhol.

I wanted to ask. I also wanted to keep kissing him, and between the two, the latter won

When we reached the end of the corridor, Dante unceremoniously kicked the door with his foot. It swung open, revealing a dark room with the same floor-to-ceiling window, the outline of a huge bed against the glass. A dresser in the corner. An acoustic guitar next to it. A rug beneath my feet, so thick that my heels sunk into it without a single sound.

“You’re very...minimalistic,” I uttered, surveying the shadows.

“I haven’t lived here in a while.”

We halted in the center of the room. He didn’t turn on the light, but the glow of the city was more than enough.

“Take off your shirt,” I told him, running my finger down his cheek and placing it below his chin.

“Oh, a woman who knows what she wants.” He grinned. “Me likey.”

“You better.” A pause. I collected myself. Dante Martinez talking like a sassy teenager was too much. “I’ve spent all of my adult years not listening to a man. I’m not about to start now.”

He laughed this time, a deep, sexy rumble. “I can work with that.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

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