She turned around to face him and dropped a quick glance down at his huge, straining penis, which had her salivating for a completely different reason.
“Put that thing away,” she said softly, nodding down at it decisively. “You and your insatiable penis will not be distracting me from my food this time.”
He turned away from her and she could have sworn she heard a chuckle, which just about melted her heart because Dante Damaso was not prone to humor.
“Eat your food, florecita; you’ll need the energy for later.”
He really was a cocky sonofabitch. But Cleo was beyond caring about that right now, and she carried her food-a salad, penne carbonara, and cheesecake for dessert-over to the expensive-looking coffee table in front of her chair by the window. Dante followed her and sat down, with his pillow thankfully shielding his impressive package from her again. His eyes were intent as he watched her eat, and after satisfying her immediate hunger by scarfing down the first half of her meal with great gusto, Cleo grew more and more self-conscious beneath that relentless gaze.
“Please stop staring at me,” she finally said around a mouthful of penne.
“I like looking at you.” Well, that was completely out of left field. She felt her mouth gaping, knowing that with the half-masticated pasta in there, she probably looked like a drooling idiot. She recovered quickly and shut her mouth, barely bothering to chew the rest of the mouthful before swallowing.
“What?”
“I like looking at you,” he repeated. “You’re interesting.”
Well, at least he hadn’t lied and called her pretty. She knew she had a weird face. For one thing, her lips were too big in a too-narrow face. Her schoolmates had nastily called her “Juicy Lips” throughout primary school, and in high school the boys had started making all kinds of offensive suggestions about the things she should be doing with those “juicy lips.” Then there was her crooked nose, broken when she’d fallen during a dance rehearsal years ago. It wasn’t horrendous, and after the surgery to fix the damage had failed, Cleo resigned herself to accepting her slightly off-center nose. And finally there were her ridiculously big green eyes, which had people likening her to a baby doll for most of her life. Cleo hated her bug eyes; she thought they made her look continually surprised.
Her ridiculous face, combined with the petite body, often led people to underestimate her. That had been an asset while she was pursuing her dance career; she had wanted to be underestimated before “wowing” her competitors and choreographers with her talent. Choreographers and directors loved that unexpected quality about her, had raved about her “freshness” and her “quirkiness.” But now, in the real world, being underestimated led to fewer opportunities and greater frustrations.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Dante’s voice intruded upon her troubling thoughts, and she focused her attention back on him.
“I was thinking . . .” She cleared her throat before affecting a cocky grin and reaching for her dessert. “I was thinking you still haven’t told me what you did after dinner tonight. Did you go to one of those onsen places?” She was referring to the public hot spas that were so popular in Japan. “Did you have to get naked with Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Watanabe?”
He winced at the question.
“Dios, no.”
“Then it really can’t be that bad, can it?” She enjoyed needling him; his embarrassment made him seem a little more approachable. “Anything my imagination dredges up will probably be a lot worse than reality.”
“We went to karaoke,” he said, finally relenting, and Cleo choked on her first bite of cheesecake.
“You’re being overly dramatic,” he scoffed as she waved her hand in front of her face to cool her skin after her coughing fit.
“Karaoke?” she finally managed on a wheeze, and he nodded. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Can I have some of that cheesecake?” he asked casually.
“No,” she replied equally casually, deliberately sticking another forkful in her mouth and chewing slowly before asking her next question. “Did you actually sing?”
“S?.” His eyes dropped to the remaining cheesecake on her plate. “Just a bite?”
“No,” she said as she took another teasing forkful. “What did you sing?”
“A bit of Queen, some Rolling Stones, a little Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blondie . . .” he recited. “You don’t seriously mean to eat that entire piece of cake, do you?”
“I do,” she affirmed. “Blondie? Seriously?”
“And Cyndi Lauper.” He grimaced. “Ms. Inokawa really likes their songs but can’t sing them because the English is a bit too fast-paced for her.”
“But they’re so high-pitched.” She laughed.
“I know. Can we stop talking about this now? And I warn you, this remains between us. Now give me some of that cake.”
“No, it’s my cake. Get your own dessert!”
“Okay.”
“Oh my God, what are you doing?” she asked seconds later when he knelt in front of her chair and ran his hands from her knees to her thighs, parting her robe as he did so. She hurriedly put her cake aside as she stared down at him in shock.
“Getting my dessert,” he mumbled, moving his hands beneath her butt and dragging her to the edge of the chair until he had her spread wide open in front of him. The corners of his lips quirked upward before he hummed in contentment, bent his head, and feasted.
Cleo, her own dessert forgotten, stared down at the top of his dark head in disbelief until his very talented tongue started to work its magic on her. She arched back in the chair and entangled her fingers in his hair as her eyes drifted shut.
“Oh. My God . . .”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.