“What’s with this cozy fucking scene?” a familiar voice boomed from the doorway of the kitchen.

Bastian and I had been huddled close together.  It was completely innocent.  Well mostly.  We just hadn’t wanted to be overheard.  But at the sound of Dante’s voice we sort of jumped apart guiltily, which didn’t look innocent at all.

Because I liked Bastian, in fact, I liked him more the longer I spoke to him, I set down my coffee and moved forward as Dante did, intercepting him before he got close to his brother.

I pushed into his chest, getting his immediate angry attention for myself.

“Are you fucking kidding me with this?” he raged, pointing a finger at his brother.  “You’ve still got a whole night’s worth of my fucking cum inside of you and you’re already, what the fuck was that, rubbing up against my brother?”

My brows shot up.  Wow.  He’d gone full out crazy without much provocation.  Bastian and I hadn’t even been touching when he walked in.  Had it looked like we had?  I tried to picture the angle he might have seen as I said, “Calm down.  We were talking and you’re acting like a nutjob.”

For that he pointed his furious eyes at Bastian.  “I’ll show you a fucking nutjob.  She is off limits.  Do you fucking hear me, brother?”

Bastian looked completely unfazed, which somehow just made me like him more.  “I’m well aware of how you feel about her, brother,” he shot back, holding his coffee mug in both hands like he sensed no threat at all.

I pushed at Dante’s chest.  He didn’t budge but that hadn’t been the point.  Getting his attention back to me had been, and it worked.  He turned his gaze on me, and I could tell he was about to lose it.  “You need to take a walk, Dante.  Walk away.  Remember your anger management steps.”

He didn’t like that, but he responded to it, backing away and glaring at me.

When he was gone, I retrieved my coffee.  It wasn’t hot enough anymore, so in silence I poured it out and fixed another.

“It never made sense to me, the way it went down with you two,” Bastian said quietly.

I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look at him as I shrugged.  “Didn’t make much sense to me, either.  Well, anyway, nice chat.  I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Yeah.  Take care, Scarlett, okay?”

“I always do, not that it helps me a damn bit.  You take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

I started to leave, taking my mug with me.

I was at the doorway when he spoke again.  “Will you do me a favor?” he called out.

I stopped and looked at him.  “Sure,” I said lightly before I even knew what it was.  I must have trusted him.  That wasn’t like me.

“Ask Dante sometime, if you can, what he thinks about his mother and blackmail,” he said, his voice so intense that I found myself staring at him.  Was he referring to Adelaide and his father, or something else?  I couldn’t tell, but the words he was saying felt directed at me very pointedly.

I kept steady eye contact with him when I answered, “I’ll do that.”

“Good.  Very good.  Keep me posted.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

PRESENT

I couldn’t seem to help myself.  I followed Dante, tracking him down in his room.

I knocked, he didn’t answer, but I could tell he was in there, I heard him moving, so I just opened the door.

It’s a fucked up fact that I can’t resist him when he’s angry.  I love it when his fury turns him savage.

I love to watch him fight and rage.  Wipe blood from his lip, his eyes seeking me out, the rage in them bleeding harder.

Dante more than anyone knows this about me.

He started shaking his head when he saw me.

I shut the door behind me and approached him.

Licking my lips, I reached up and touched his shoulders.

He flung my hands away.  “Don’t touch me!

Nothing he could say would have drawn me to him faster.  I was in his space, rubbing against him, completely ignoring his words and concentrating on his body.

“Stay away from me,” he ground out.

I leaned forward and kissed the soft cotton covering his chest.

He backed away, eyes wide.

“You’re freaking out for no reason,” I said calmly.  “You’re imagining things.  There is nothing going on between Bastian and I.  We were just talking.  You are overreacting.”

“Why were you huddled so close?  Why did he have you backed into the counter like that?”

“We were exchanging sensitive information.”

He moved further out of my reach, going to sit on the edge of his bed.  “What information?”

“I’ll tell you when you’ve calmed,” I said, following him.  While he watched, I stripped off my shirt, then my bra.  I tugged off my thong but left my skirt on.

I straddled him there, standing against him where he sat.

Groaning, he buried his face between my breasts, one hand going to cup my rear under my skirt, the other working at the button of his pants.  With jerky movements he freed himself.

He cupped my breasts, pulling me down until I was on top of him, bending to follow my nipples as they sank down out of his reach.

I rode him like that, on the edge of his bed.

After, we fell into a heap and went to sleep.

I woke up curled into his chest, his hand stroking over my hair.

“How long did I sleep?” I asked him.

“A couple hours.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking.  I need to get ready for my flight.”

“You’ve got time.”

“Oh?  Is it a late flight?”

“Hmm,” he said, and I thought it was an affirmative noise, but I glanced up at him suspiciously.  He sighed.  “You can’t leave yet.  The reading of the will is tomorrow.”

“I’m not staying for that.”

“What if she left you something?”

“If she left me anything, have it donated to that charity she set up for Grandpa.”

No, I wasn’t insane.  I just would not, could not, profit off her death.

Sure, I was broke most of the time.  I’d lost track of the times I’d spent my last twenty on a tube of M.A.C. lipstick, or maxed a credit card on a cute pair of shoes, but that was my problem and there was no reason someone else should bail me out of it, even if that someone was Gram.

“My God, you are as stubborn as ever.”

“Are you surprised?”

“Not remotely.”  He paused.  “Tell me about Anton.”

I’d completely forgotten about that.  And of course Dante had known his name all along, the fucking stalker.  “You’re never going to drop this, are you?”

“Never,” he agreed.

I sighed.  It was too ridiculous to keep up the pretense.  “He’s just a friend.  A good one.  Demi called him my boyfriend because she’s a sweetheart and that’s what friends do when one of their girls is locked in a room with her ex.”

He was stroking my hair, kissing the top of my head.  “You were messing with me,” he breathed.

“Are you surprised?” I asked him, nearly laughing.  Didn’t he know how this fucked up little song and dance went?

“I shouldn’t be, that’s for sure.”

We lapsed into silence, him stroking my hair over and over and, likely because I was sated and sleepy, it soothed me.  And I let it.

I don’t know why precisely it came to mind.  Because I was feeling vulnerable, I suppose, and spiteful, as usual.  Also, we hadn’t talked like we had for the last few days in so long, since before the breakup.

Tiffany was still after him, and I didn’t mind giving him another reason to hate her.

“That day,” I began, my voice small.  “When that cop pulled me out of school.”  I would not, could not describe it in more detail than that.

He’d gone stiff as a board, but he nodded that he knew which day I meant.