“I have a feeling I wouldn’t have to try very hard.”
“Buddy, you got the wrong girl for lines like that. I’ve got stuff to do today. And, let me assure you, being seduced by a weirdo in the hall is definitely not on my to-do list.” She starts to walk away, but I hold out a hand and stop her.
“I’m saying that I want you, and that you want me, and that looking into that EMT staff room, I can see it’s empty. That kind of thing gives a man ideas.”
We’re almost pressed up against each other again now. She smells of shampoo, but not perfume. There’s a light tinge of sweat, too, that drives me unaccountably insane. She’s all the more alluring for not trying to be.
“Okay, playboy,” she laughs. “Let’s go, right now. I’ll just bend over the ten-year-old TV set and we can go at it. Is that what you had in mind?”
I almost laugh. Women never speak to me like this. I place my hand on the wall above her head. I bring my face close to hers. I can feel her breath on my cheeks, getting quicker. She stares right into my eyes. Our noses brush for a second, neither of us willing to admit shame and back down. My cock is a solid rod in my pants, pressing so firmly the base throbs.
“What is your name?” I ask.
“How is that any of your business?” she counters.
“Because I think it’s only polite to learn the name of a woman before you kiss her.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re cheesy as hell. You know that, right?”
“It’s only cheesy if it doesn’t work.”
“Dani,” she says. “My name is Dani. Don’t tell me yours. I’m not interested.”
“You’re going to kiss a stranger?”
When she laughs, I smell mint on her breath. She moves the gum around with her tongue and I imagine how it would feel to have that tongue move around other places, to see those blue eyes wide as she licks and … My cock is going to explode.
Finally, after regarding me with a half-smile, she says, “You really are full of yourself, aren’t you? Does this ever work?”
“Now it’s you who has the wrong person. I’m just a shy virgin, looking for love in all the wrong places. Like hospital hallways, for example.” I can’t help myself. I move my fingers up her thighs, pressing down on the stiff material of her scrubs. I feel her quiver. I feel the heat of her.
Higher and higher, I move, and then lean in again. Our lips brush for the barest moment. I want to taste more of her. But then her hand is on my wrist.
“Don’t,” she sighs. “This is—this is just too crazy. Please, what’s-your-name, back off.”
Tilting my head to the side, I step back. “It’s Angelo,” I tell her. “Angelo De Maggio.”
I watch for any sign of recognition, but she just nods. I walk to the nurse’s desk, grab a pad of paper and a pen, and write down my cell number. Then I return to her and press it into her hand. “Remember, I’m sensitive. Don’t call if you plan on breaking my heart.”
She rolls her eyes again, tightening her fist around the piece of paper. “Okay, Jerk I Just Met in the Hallway, I’ll keep that in mind.” She shakes her head. “You might be cute if you weren’t such an ass.”
I laugh. “Classic woman, seeking perfection in a man.”
“Classic man!” she retorts over her shoulder.
“In what way?”
“Thinking with your dick.” She flips me the bird as she goes down the hallway. I swear to Christ my manhood is about to set itself on fire. The last thing I hear before she disappears is, “Fuck you and have a nice day, Angelo De Maggio.”
When she’s gone, I shake my head at myself, because it’s been a long, long time since I haven’t been able to look away from a woman.
And by a long time, I mean my whole goddamn life.
I get the coffee, wondering if I just dreamed that whole thing. Dani will not leave my mind. I have to make a circuit of the hospital to give myself a chance to calm down.
Levi and Madolina are both smiling at me when I return to the room. “I thought you were arguing,” I say, putting down the coffees I went to retrieve.
“I went looking for you,” Levi says slyly. “And you will never guess what I saw, brother. I saw you and a lady all but making sweet, sweet love in the hallway.”
Madolina clicks her tongue in amusement. It sounds just like her rosary beads. “You didn’t tell me you had found a woman, Angelo. What is her name? Is she Italian? Can she cook?”
“I haven’t found a woman,” I reply, uncharacteristically flustered. “I just … I’ve never met her before.”
“You looked like you knew each other very well,” Levi says. The bastard is loving every minute of this.
I scowl. “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you, brother.”
Madolina chuckles. “It seems you have struck a nerve, son.”
“Angelo!” Levi says, grinning. Sometimes I hate this man. “If you have fallen head-over-heels in love with a woman you don’t know, you don’t need to be ashamed. In fact, this will work quite well for us. Remember your father’s proposition?”
“Ultimatum, you mean.”
“I will take you ring shopping right now,” Levi chuckles.
“I’ll make my famous ossobuco alla Milanese to celebrate,” Madolina joins in. “We’ll make it quite the occasion.”
“Curse the Mancini name,” I say ruefully. “You are both as bad as the other. Let’s change the subject. I’ve forgotten the woman already.”
But that isn’t true. Dani—I hear her name in my mind, feel her breath, see the tightness of her ass shifting in those scrubs. It bothers me that I can’t banish her from my mind. For a moment, I regret giving her my number, but then I’m glad that I did.
I’m being stupid, of course. Thinking with my dick, like she said. She’s just a woman. She doesn’t matter to me. She’s a stranger, nothing more.
Albeit, a stranger I would not mind seeing again.
4
Dani
After my shift—which was filled with, surprise surprise, another few ODs—I drive down to the college campus to see Wyatt. I’ve gotten good intel from my inside source that he’s been missing classes, and that’s just not something I’m willing to put up with. It sucks playing the mom figure. But that’s my other job in life, now that our parents are gone. So screw it. Mama Dani it is.
And maybe I’m a little pissed off, too. Maybe I’m flustered. Maybe that asshole in the corridor, Angelo De Maggio, has jack-in-the-boxed into my mind way too many times today.
He was unlikable in pretty much every way possible. I didn’t like how he towered over me. He must’ve been at least six-three. I didn’t like how his eyes were deep blue, almost green, and they bored into me with an unnerving intensity. I didn’t like that his jet-black hair had just strand arranged artfully out of place across his forehead. Maybe part of me liked seeing a little chaos in a man that well put together. God knows everything else about him was GQ-level perfection. His body looked muscular, bulging in his sleek suit, his gold watch glistening. He was a rich asshole to be sure … but a rich asshole who got my blood pumping like crazy. That’s why I had to get out of there, stat. His clean-shaven smile was too dangerous.