Page 38 of The Woman in the Hollow
“I don’t like you working here all alone,” he told me again. “It’s not safe. Especially if the door isn’t even locked. I’m gonna have a talk with Domenico.”
“No, don’t do that. This isn’t his fault. He left right when I was coming in here. This was on me. I lost track of time. I didn’t even go around to make sure all the lights and sounds were turned off.”
“It sounded all quiet to me. And this was the only light I saw. We have a well-trained staff here. Except for one workaholic,” he said as he started to round the counter.
And he really, really needed not to come behind the counter. Not just because the space was so limited and I already felt like his scent was enveloping me. But because I hadn’t closed the tabs or cleared the history.
I didn’t want him to know I’d been looking into his story.
“Well, I, uh, don’t really, you know, have anything to rush home to,” I said, my mouth suddenly going dry as he moved fully into the small space with me.
I felt compelled to both move toward and back away from him. My body compromised by staying perfectly still.
“Still,” Dante said, towering over me, forcing me to angle my head up to look at him. Which was a mistake because the low light in the shop cast his face in even more appealing shadows. “I don’t like you being here alone and unprotected.”
That gave me a full belly wobble.
Damn him.
I didn’t need my body getting all these ideas about him when my mind was so conflicted about the whole body/dummy situation. And, of course, the lying.
“I, uh,” I started, looking up at him. Words were hard when your mouth was suddenly bone dry.
“I worry about you,” he went on, his dark gaze on me.
“Why?” And why did my voice come out like a whisper?
“I just do,” he said, his voice pitching lower, and the new timbre shivered through me.
His hand lifted, brushing some hair that had escaped my claw clip behind my ear. This time, the shiver wasn’t just inside.
His chin tucked.
“I’ve got a million reasons not to do this,” he murmured as his hand slid down to rest on the side of my neck.
I had more.
Yet my head angled up. My eyes slid to his lips, then back up again.
Seeing it, Dante’s fingers tightened as his head lowered.
It was a slow descent, like he was waiting for one of us to come to our senses.
But we were both too caught up in the moment, in that unexpected, palpable spark that had been between us almost from the moment we’d met.
He came down low enough for his warm breath to feather across my cheek but waited for my chin to angle up before he closed in.
His mouth found mine in the dark, soft and slow, making a moan catch in my throat as my head fell back, inviting more.
Dante was happy to give it, the kiss shifting, turning rougher, needier. His lips bruised into mine, his scruff scraped my skin, his fingers dug into my skin.
My hands slid up his bare arms, fingers tracing over his tense biceps.
When my lips fell open in a moan, his tongue found mine, tasting, claiming.
My arms wound around the back of his neck, crushing my chest to his. The feeling had a rumbling sound moving through him.
Then his hands were gliding down my back, sinking into my ass, then yanking me up and off my feet.
