Dante's Shock Proposal Read online

  “Maybe.”

  * * *

  Taking advantage of his lack of vision and the confidence rolling through her, Lise crawled the short distance to where he stood and sat on her knees, close enough to press against him if she decided to.

  “I can feel you,” he whispered, opening his eyes to find her kneeling in her panties in front of him.

  Good. She could always feel him nearby too.

  No matter the clumsy seduction she’d made under less than ideal circumstances, she’d truly wanted him. Still did.

  It should’ve probably sent her running for the hills how incapable she was of ignoring her attraction for the man now. How utterly tempted she was to accept his proposal, when the fact that she couldn’t even decide if he was fully trustworthy should’ve had her on a plane to a different time zone.

  And no part of that fear diminished how badly she wanted him.

  “You can feel me,” she whispered back. “I need you to feel me.” The look in his eyes stopped her words, stopped her breath. His fingertips trailed down the side of her face, and then caught and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear.

  Not another word passed her lips.

  With a groan, he reached for her, his hand shooting round the back of her neck and he tugged her up to meet him as he leaned in, mouth hot and hungry on hers.

  Her arms shot under his and around his shoulders, and she rose on her knees so their bared torsos melded together. The same skin contact that had comforted and connected now buzzed, heated. She recalled the feel of the smattering of crisp, dark hair on his chest, rasping against her cheek as she’d wept. The trail of her tears that had cut rivers in it, sticking the hair to his skin. The way he’d held her as if he couldn’t get her close enough.

  In those moments, she’d only really been able to feel and comprehend the need to be close, to be held, and had translated that as a need for sex.

  But that was very different from the excitement that surged through her now.

  She still felt connected, above and beyond the physical sensation of his body against hers. A connection she didn’t really want all that much, but which had the power to put her fears and doubts out of her mind. At least for a time.

  His hands slid down her back, strong, deft fingers exploring every contour, every curve, while his masterful mouth led her in a dance she couldn’t help but fall into.

  When he reached the band of her panties, his hands dove in, cupping, squeezing, and lifting her those last inches that kept their lower bodies from aligning.

  One moment she was pressed to him, breathless, clutching at the smooth, muscled strength of his shoulders, and the next, the world tilted and he fell with her.

  The mattress absorbed their impact, and Dante broke from her mouth to wind a scorching trail of kisses down her neck to the breasts she’d finally used purposefully to tempt with rather than hide.

  Both hands cupped and pressed the mounded flesh together, squeezing, exploring their weight and the way they moved, the way they firmed and responded to even the lightest flick of his tongue across her nipples.

  When he finally captured one and drew it into his mouth, she arched off the bed, her moans becoming a plea for more, for everything.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DANTE CAUGHT THE taunting pink panties and nearly tore them in his need to get them off. His own shorts came off in the next heartbeat and he took a few deep breaths, trying to force himself to slow down.

  Wasn’t working.

  He’d lain awake holding her most of the day, and couldn’t banish the sight of her standing there, crying and shaking, on his veranda.

  The leg at his hip swiveled and wrapped around him, a squeeze urging him on by making his hardness glide through the wet heat waiting for him.

  It was all he could take. Locking with her gaze, he gripped himself and rushed into her, his hips not stopping until they met the backs of her bent thighs.

  Once at the hilt, he closed his eyes and a hard shudder ran through him. He didn’t deserve her sweet body. It felt like forgiveness and she couldn’t forgive him for something that he couldn’t bear to confess to her. It would be the fastest way to get her out of his life entirely. And he wanted her in it. It was better with her in it. And he’d make her life better too. He’d make all this up to her.

  * * *

  Lise had lost her virginity long before she’d decided she couldn’t bear a romantic relationship, but it had been a long time. The intensity of such an intimate act while staring into his eyes deepened the connection, and although she understood that the shudder was a good sign, closing his eyes to her dampened the connection. And she needed it.

  “Please.” She whispered one word, and his eyes opened, though there was worry there. Guilt. “I like it when you see me.”

  Even as the words came out, she slid her hands down his back, urging him to move since he’d planted her beneath him.

  A nod communicated his understanding, and he leaned closer still, close enough that she could see nothing but him, breathe nothing but him, and he started to move.

  As if his body refused to bend to his will, his hips gave spontaneous jerks that disrupted his rhythm, always timed with a gasp and stuttering breath. The sense of connection she’d been unable to ignore between them seemed to surge. It wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just purging hours of desperation from her heart. It wasn’t just fear of wanting to be with him—because she did. She wanted to be with him.

  And, oh, it might make her feel better if she could get some kind of guarantee that he wouldn’t change, that he wasn’t being someone other than who he truly was. She could say yes...if she believed in her ability to judge as much as she believed in how much she loved to just be around him.

  His ragged breaths and groans sounded like music to her, and when he looked into her eyes she could believe him. She wanted to believe him. She even felt a surge of something warm and healing.

  But she couldn’t make herself focus on it, decide if it was true or real. Pressure had built in her to such an ache that she had no room in her mind to spare for thinking, for trying to understand what she saw in his eyes. There was only sensation so keen she nearly asked him to stop.

  But then he kissed her again, devouring with his mouth in time with the starved pace he set with his hips. Everything went bright, like a lightning strike, and that ache exploded, curling her toes against his muscled butt, contracting every muscle in her body as she clung to him and rode wave after wave of pleasure.

  He fell with her, and by the time he’d spent within her, she could tell his strength was leaving him. With shaking arms, and likely the last of his strength, he rolled with her to his back, keeping her anchored to him, buried inside her, urging her to rest her cheek back against his shoulder in sleep.

  Having slept the day away, Lise didn’t want to listen to her body, which felt drugged and weak. Sleep would not happen, not yet.

  Though his arms were still tight around her, she leaned up enough to look down at him, and feeling her change in position Dante opened his eyes. His member, softening now, stayed inside her, and that connection persisted.

  “Do you still want me?”

  “Yes. But I’m going to need a few minutes to recover.”

  She might be high on pleasure, she might be trusting too much, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. “I mean as a wife.”

  He nodded slowly, like he just wasn’t sure where her question was leading, or what she wanted him to say. “You’re perfect for me.”

  “I want to meet your family. It’s important that I meet them, see how they are. They’re a big draw for me. I need to know they’re the right kind of people, that they’ll love and cherish our children if something happens to us. I need to know them before I make any decisions.”

  He nodded again, the
worry leaving his face. “I’ll set it up. We’ll do it this week. Wednesday.”

  * * *

  By the time Wednesday rolled around, Dante was so tense he could’ve abandoned the whole plan—marriage, children, introducing Lise to his brothers...

  “It’s good that you don’t have super-strength,” Lise said randomly, sitting in the passenger seat of his car as he drove her to the weekly inventory at his family’s bodega.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’d have broken the steering wheel by now, and we’d probably be on fire, inside burning, twisted wreckage.”

  He looked at his hands, neatly placed at the nine and three positions—as updated safety guidelines suggested in a post-airbags world.

  The white knuckles weren’t part of the guidelines.

  “I’m not going to mention the club or what we’re possibly plotting to do together. Even if they put the thumbscrews on me, all they’ll get is that we met at work, and that you asked me out after accidentally discovering one day that I had a waistline, and that you make a mean margarita.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not, and you can’t say that because they’ll wonder how I learned you have a waistline. Which isn’t even what happened.”

  “What happened, then?”

  “You stopped hiding in your massively oversized scrubs and let people see you for once.”

  “So you didn’t notice me before because of workplace camouflage. Got it.”

  “You know you did it. And picking a fight right now is not the way to prepare for meeting anyone. Stick to the plan. Don’t sass it up with comments about your waistline or self-deprecating anything.”

  “Just cut off all my conversation starters.”

  “I did.”

  “Why do you assume I’m going to fail? Do you find me unlikeable while also finding me minxy? Or are you truly just lusting after my irresistibly vacant womb?”

  “I don’t expect you to fail. I like you. And you’re still picking a fight.”

  “You’re making me crazy!” She rumbled out a breath between pursed lips and leaned back in her seat.

  “I love my brothers, but when we’re all together we can become...a handful.” Dante gave an answer that, while not the entire truth, was still true in part. As Lise was the first woman he’d ever brought to meet them, they were going to be more jovial and energetic than usual.

  “You’re afraid I’ll think they’re not fit to raise my future children?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But you don’t think that.”

  “I have no doubt that any of them would take our children in and be wonderful parents. Alejandro is already a father, Santiago and Rafael are about to become fathers. But you might need to meet them more than once to be convinced. And I’m ready to get started. I know you are too. A person who isn’t hot to be a mother would never have a sorted spreadsheet of sperm donors.”

  “Actually, it’s not a spreadsheet anymore. I sorted it all down to one donor. And then I made a pros and cons list for both of you.”

  “As a backup plan?”

  “No. As the first plan. You came along second. But I’m just continuing the planning part for Plan A. Relax, me figuring out who could be the one doesn’t mean he will be.”

  Dante pulled into a gravel parking lot beside a quaint little market, and the presence of his brother’s cars confirmed they were the last to arrive.

  “Try not to mention sperm donors either.”

  She groaned. “I’m not going to. You brought it up!”

  “And however my pros and cons list worked out, pretend you really like me.”

  “I do like you, doofus.” She grabbed him by the cheeks and leaned up to kiss him full on the mouth. Not the sort of kissing he’d really like from her, but a playful, warm, and entertainingly bratty smooch that left him with a smile despite the knot in his gut.

  Then they climbed out and the unease returned. He reached for her hand and sought to feign his usual collected self.

  That she’d come to meet him after her time with baby Eli and then conjured up this request to meet his family assured him she’d still say yes. Even if she’d picked her favorite sperm donor. But usually he felt more confident about these sorts of things.

  “Rafe—Rafael. Santi—Santiago. Alejandro,” she murmured under her breath just as he opened the door.

  He paused to add, “They’re all at Buena Vista or Seaside hospitals.”

  Dante listed spouse names, lest she think he’d forgotten they existed entirely. Pulling open the back entrance, he ushered her out of the still bright sunshine into a dimly lit, windowless room.

  * * *

  Oh, this could go terribly. And the way Dante was stressing out over it made her very first expression a lie. She smiled—a forced smile, a lying smile—and hoped it passed as cheerful.

  Certainly with something as nerve-racking as it was to meet the family of someone you were dating, they’d understand her forced cheer if anyone caught on.

  This had all been her idea, and she shouldn’t be the one being judged as pass or fail—she was here with a mission: find out if the Valentinos would be suitable guardians or not. But knowing how close they all were meant they’d be doing the same to make sure she was good enough for their last bachelor brother.

  Probably.

  She’d had so little experience of dealing with positive family dynamics, her supposition was entirely based on some basic psychology classes she’d taken while working on her degree, and reruns of old sitcoms.

  “Hey!” A chorus of greetings rang out from around the room, and though she answered back, she stopped moving immediately and had to be propelled inside by the man behind her.

  “Hey, dozer, I’m sunblind here. Don’t plow me over some innocent bystander before my eyes adjust to the darkness.” Great start! Probably exactly an example of the kind of conversation she should not be aiming for. Should’ve added a “sweetheart” or something.

  The sound of laughter came from all corners—except one. Dante did let go of her hand, but only so he could wrap his arm around her waist and pull her back against him. “Wouldn’t dream of disrupting inventory so selfishly, corazón.”

  Of course he thought to add a “sweetheart” to his statement. Must do better.

  The sound of jostling cans preceded a line of remarkably tall and attractive dark-haired men appearing before her.

  “Good lord, you all look like that.”

  Yet more words she should’ve thought through first but which instead flew out reflexively as her eyes adjusted enough to make out one stupidly handsome man after another.

  Dante was going to lose his mind and call things off before they even got to the introductions.

  “Like what?” he asked smoothly from behind her, but there was a tiny warning in his tone.

  “Er...like...” She tilted her head and swiveled to look at the handsome devil looming over her shoulder. “Let’s go with handsome? Yeah. Handsome.”

  Dante didn’t buy it, she could tell from the flex of his jaw, but she heard female laughter off in the recesses of the dim room and knew at least someone got it.

  He introduced his brothers—lined up eldest to youngest as if they’d been drilling and practicing all day—then asked if everyone was there. Alejandro she recognized from the hospital, but she had never worked with him, or even known his name. He’d always been just some mysterious attractive man in scrubs.

  Three women appeared—a dark-haired beauty with a baby and two blondes with babies on board. Kiri, she found, was another face from her hospital—someone else she’d never met.

  “Nice to meet you all.” Lise waved to each as names were matched to faces. />
  “Here, Lise.” Kiri offered up the baby in her arms. “Hold the littlest Valentino and come have a sit with us while the men count.”

  Lise hesitated for a moment—was every person in the room a doctor but her? At least Dante had to let her know the baby had had a heart transplant in recent months, but that was a different kind of trauma than baby Eli had undergone. This little angel was peaceful.

  Dante let go of her waist and she stepped forward to take the baby. “I’m sure Dante told me his name, but I’m blanking. That’s what happens when I say a bunch of really stupid things in quick succession.”

  “Gervaso.” Kiri laughed, and they all wandered toward a clump of folding chairs and sturdy-looking boxes.

  Lise left the folding chairs to the belly brigade and perched on a stack of twelve-packs of some variety of beverage.

  “We were just hearing that Dante has never brought a woman round. But I’m fairly certain that’s another trait the whole family shares,” one of them said.

  Cassie!

  Lise felt proud for remembering anything at this point. “Maybe it’s genetic.”

  The baby in her arms gurgled, and Lise found herself momentarily transfixed.

  She and Dante hadn’t been careful when they’d been together. Could’ve made the decision for them. Or maybe just complicated things. If she found out she was pregnant and still wasn’t sure, would she feel compelled to marry him? She didn’t consider herself a traditional kind of person, but mostly that was because she’d never been able to picture herself capable of marriage.

  Gervaso fisted his eyes sleepily and she cuddled him a little closer.

  If it became complicated, there was no one to blame but herself, as she’d begged for him. Even after he’d said, no, thank you.

  “Lise?” one of the women said her name and she pulled out of her own thoughts to focus on the talking people.

  “I’m sorry. He’s just so sweet. It’s hard to look away.”

  Kiri took it as a compliment, and nodded. “I was asking if you ever worked other surgical teams or if you’d had specialty training for Neuro?”