Page 25 of When Sinners Fall
“Hold on, back up a minute.” He seems to have jumped a conversation or two. “What does that mean?”
He stares at me for a moment. His eyes are full of intensity, which only makes me want to leap over the table and kiss him like he did to me in that alley.
“Come on.” He stands and beckons his fingers, making me grab my bag and follow him until we're outside the bar.
“Where are we going?”
“My place.”
“What?” My startled response jumps from my mouth, but it doesn’t slow him down. “Wait, hang on.” But he keeps going, and I keep following until we’re in the parking lot and he’s marching towards the car. “Dante!”
He spins me and shoves me against the car door. “Listen.” He gets so close I can smell the smoke and whisky that lingers around him, and I’m back in the dark – back in the alley – and my body immediately burns with anticipation. “I want you. If you don’t get that, then you need to catch up real fucking fast. You listening?” I nod, feeling caged and surrounded. “But before I put you in the car, you need to know I don’t do conventional, Wren. Not a goddamn second of it.”
I wait for the kiss. My eyes are already half closed, but it doesn’t come.
“Conventional?” My brain catches up, and I see Dante looking at me. Waiting.
I lift up onto my toes and plant my palms on his chest to steady myself. “I let you fuck me in an alley before I even knew it was you. What part of that scenario makes you think I want conventional?”
There’s a pause, filled with heat and expectancy, that’s near suffocating.
I don’t know what’s coming next, but I want to find out.
Something clicks behind me, and before I know it, he's opening the car door for me. I climb in, my heart racing at getting to see his house and getting a taste of what happens in the light.
The drive is longer than I thought it would be, but that could just be traffic, and there’s nothing but silence along the way. The Dutch courage is long gone, and a new type of anticipation grows as we finally park underground.
A man stands in a lobby area when we walk through a set of large glass doors, the entrance to an older building. He nods at Dante and looks back towards the doors as we pass. Nothing other than that. No welcome or greeting like others might do.
We end up by an ornate metal door shrouded in low light in a corner. He presses a panel on the wall, and low and behold, the door slides sideways to reveal an elevator.
“Secretive.”
His brow arches, and I'm waved in.
We travel up, and eventually arrive at another small lobby with a single door that needs unlocking.
“Drink?” he says, walking in.
“Sure.”
Watching him go, I follow tentatively and scan the rooms, trying to get a glimpse of who he is these days. He grabs a bottle from a bar area and tips a generous measure into a cut crystal glass before handing it over. I smile and walk around the expanse of the main room, trying to look for the boy I once knew in the surroundings, but there’s nothing to give him away. It’s like a blank canvas. Polished and perfect, maybe. All dark wood and precisely placed objects, but barely any soul about it.
I perch on the edge of the leather sofa, but Dante stays near the bar. The flick and scratch sound from something draws my eyes to him, and I watch as he plays with a silver lighter. Rolling it over in his fingers, setting the flame and extinguishing it. It's sort of therapeutic.
“You need to explain why you let me stalk you.” He says it like a statement. Like it’s a simple answer.
“Do I?”
“Yes. I need to know what you mean by conventional and how prepared you are.”
“Prepared for what?” I ask, standing back up. He’s not moved from behind the bar. “Dante, this goes both ways.”
“No, you need to listen and then make a decision. But first, I need to know why you let me stalk you.” He doesn’t budge.
“Fine.” I neck the drink and pace over to the window, which seems to throw the entirety of San Antonio into view from a large terrace. If I’m going to bare my soul, I can’t do it with his eyes on me.
Ironic, right.
