“You scared me.” My voice came out breathier than intended. “What are you doing up?”
It was a stupid question. Obviously, he was up for the same reason I was, but I couldn’t think straight through the fog of adrenaline.
“Couldn’t sleep.” The rough drawl drifted toward me and settled low between my legs. “Guess I’m not the only one.”
His eyes held mine for a brief moment before they flicked over me.
A sense of deja vu spilled down the length of my spine, but unlike at our first meeting, I detected a crack in Dante’s indifference.
It was tiny, just a shadow of a flame, but it was enough to fill my stomach with flutters.
His perusal paused at my midsection. The shadow expanded, darkening his eyes from rich brown to near obsidian.
I looked down, and my heart stumbled when I saw what caught his attention.
I slept hot, so I usually wore some variation of a silk camisole and boy shorts to bed. It was fine for the privacy of my bedroom but completely inappropriate when faced with company.
The shorts stopped an inch above mid-thigh, and my top had ridden up sometime during my cabinet foraging, revealing a generous expanse of bare skin.
When I looked up again, Dante’s gaze had returned to my face.
I held still, afraid to breathe as he moved toward me with the languid, powerful grace of a predator stalking its prey.
Every soft footfall was another lit flame in the space between us.
He stopped when his body heat enveloped mine. Inches away, so close I could count the individual stubble shadowing his jaw. “What are you looking for?”
His casual tone clashed with the tension brewing in the air, but I simply said the first thing that came to mind.
“Pringles. Classic.”
There was no answer like the truth.
I discreetly tugged my top down while Dante reached into the cabinet above my head. The tiny breeze from his movement brushed my skin.
Goosebumps pebbled, and something hot coiled in my stomach.
He retrieved an unopened can of chips and handed it to me without a word.
“Thank you.” I clutched the tube, unsure what to do next.
Part of me wanted to escape to the safety of my room. The other part wanted to stay and see how long I could play with fire without getting burned.
“Pringles, pickles, and pudding.” Dante saved me from a decision. “Interesting combination.”
Relief loosened the knot in my chest. My breath came out easier now that I had something to focus on other than my body’s unwilling reaction to his.
“They taste good together. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.” I took control of my limbs again and sidestepped him on my way to the island.
The touch of his gaze followed me, an insistent pressure on the small of my back.
I opened the can of Pringles. Don’t turn around.
“Apologies. Far be it from me to question your snack choices.” A trace of dry amusement ran through his voice.
I heard the fridge open behind me, followed by the clink of silverware and the click of a shutting cabinet door.
A minute later, Dante slid onto the stool beside me.
My mouth parted when he began assembling his snack.
“You make fun of me for my food choices but you’re pouring soy sauce over ice cream?”
The earlier tension retreated in the face of my shock.
Forget the way his muscles flexed with each movement or the way his shirt hugged his torso.
He was committing a crime against humanity right before my eyes.
“Drizzling, not pouring. And don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Dante mocked, throwing my earlier words back at me. “I bet it tastes better than the abomination you put together.”
His brow hitched at the chip in my hand, which I’d dipped in pudding and topped with a pickle.
My eyes narrowed at the silent challenge.
“I doubt it.” I lifted his hand and dropped my lovingly assembled snack in his open palm. He stared at it like it was a piece of old gum stuck to his shoe. “Let’s swap and see who’s wrong and who’s right.”
I pulled his bowl toward me with a small grimace.
I loved ice cream and I loved soy sauce…separately. Some things weren’t meant to mix, but I was willing to choke it down to make my point.
Namely, I was right, and he was wrong.
“I’m always right,” Dante said. He eyed me and then my snack with a hint of intrigue. “Fine. I’ll bite. On the count of three.”
I almost asked if the pun was on purpose before I remembered his sense of humor was more underdeveloped than a toddler’s vocabulary.
“One,” I said.
“Two.” His grimace matched mine.
“Three.”
I spooned a serving of ice cream into my mouth at the same time he bit into my chip.
Silence filled the room, interrupted only by the crunch of food and the hum of the fridge.
I’d braced myself for a wave of revulsion, but the combination of French vanilla and soy sauce was…
That can’t be right. Maybe my taste buds were broken.
I helped myself to another scoop just to make sure.
Dante’s mouth curled into a knowing grin. “Going back for seconds already?”
“Don’t act so smug. It’s not that good,” I lied.
“In that case, I’ll take the ice cream back—”
“No!” I pulled the bowl closer to my chest. “I’ve already eaten from it. It’s…unhygienic to share food. Get your own bowl.”
Dante’s grin widened.
I let out a sigh. “Fine. It tastes good. Are you happy?” I shot a pointed look at the island top. “I’m not the only one who was wrong. You’ve finished half the chips in the past five minutes.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” He dipped another pickle and chip combo in the pudding. “But this isn’t as terrible as I thought.”
“See? I’ll never steer you wrong when it comes to food.” I dug my spoon into a fresh scoop of vanilla and relaxed into the unfamiliar but not unpleasant ease between us. Maybe the truce had been a good idea after all. “How did you come up with this combo, anyway?”
I couldn’t imagine Dante sampling different food pairings in his free time until he found a winner like I had. From what I saw, he barely had time to eat.
He was silent for a long moment before he said, “Luca and I hung out in the kitchen a lot as kids. We had a game room, pool, all the latest toys…pretty much everything anyone under the age of twelve could want. But sometimes, we wanted company other than each other, and the chef was one of the few people in the household who treated us like actual people. He let us play around in there when he wasn’t cooking.” Dante shrugged. “We were kids. We experimented.”
My insides warmed at the mental image of little Dante running around the kitchen with his brother.
“You two must be close.”
I’d met Luca at the engagement party. He’d been polite enough, though I got the sense he wasn’t thrilled about my marriage to his brother. We’d only talked for a few minutes before he abruptly excused himself.
Dante’s face shuttered. “Not as close as we used to be.”
I paused at the strange note in his voice. For some reason, his brother was a sore subject.