“I’ve always been that too.”
“No.” I shot up off the bed and rounded it to point at him. “Don’t you ever say that being in the military is killing. That’s being a patriot. A war hero.”
“And I’ve done what I had to do for my country as a war hero and as part of the Armanelli family. I came to terms with that a long time ago.” He took in a breath that I knew was measured, the type he took when he was trying to calm himself. “What I do for the government and for the family is one and the same. We’re not all bad. We’ve done a lot of good recently.”
“You mean to say—”
“I’m telling you everything is intertwined, and you’re smart. You know this. You watch the news.”
“So I’m living with the mob now?” I bellowed.
“Well, I live a door over. I can move in here if you’d like to make your statement a fact.”
“You have the audacity to make a joke right now?” Fisting my hands, I spun away from him and then thought better of that. Don’t turn your back on a killer, right?
The smile that whipped across his face was devastating. “Little Lamb, are you suddenly scared of me?”
“Don’t be a jackass, Dante,” I sneered and combed a hand through my hair.
“You fiddle with your hair when you’re nervous. Want to breathe?”
“No. I don’t want to breathe with you!” I wanted to punch him instead. “You’ve been lying to me. About everything. Izzy! Yourself—which, by the way, is an epic betrayal on so many levels, and about your own freaking name.”
“Lying?” He paused. Then something broke in him and he yelled, “Lying? You haven’t talked to me in years, Lilah.”
“I can’t with you right now.” I pushed at my temples and waved him away. “Just go.”
“Or what?” he whispered, and the menace in it was real, tangible, almost sadistic. My heart leapt at the same time as my pussy clenched.
“Or I’ll make you, Dante,” I snapped back because I didn’t want to be the one who appeased him anymore.
He hummed. “I like this new fight in you, Little Lamb. I have half a mind to make you really show it to me.”
I hated that my whole body lit up and blushed at his statement, that I licked my lips automatically and he watched me do it. Still, I wasn’t backing down. He’d pushed me over the line into losing common sense. I met his lies with taunting and anger, ready to throw accusations in too. “And how exactly would you do that? Torture me? Kill me? What is it, exactly, that you do for the mob, Dante Armanelli?”
One small flash of hurt was all I saw before he spun away. “Enjoy your book, Lilah,” he murmured. Then he slammed the stupid adjoining door shut behind him.
12
A Massage to Remember
Delilah
I slumped onto the kitchen’s little barstool and tried to move all the puzzle pieces of my life around. After about ten minutes, I sighed. They didn’t fit the way they were supposed to anymore, and I knew our lives were creating a whole new picture.
Even if I wanted to go after him, I needed a second to comprehend all the omissions, all the lies.
One breath, or maybe seven, and I could focus again.
One. He was the mob.
Two. He was still Dante.
Three. He’d gotten me out of jail.
Four. His name wasn’t what I’d thought it was, and I’d screamed that name countless times with my vibrator.
Five—
“I got some stones.” His deep voice from behind me made me jump.
“Dante!” When I spun to find him standing in that adjoining doorway again, my jaw dropped, and I tried my best not to look like I was salivating. He stood there like the Dante I remembered, in sweatpants and a T-shirt that fit snugly over his massive chest. His biceps bulged against the fabric, and I licked my lips as my gaze trailed down the veins of his arm to where he held a dark bag.
“I was going to read and go to sleep,” I said.
“No, you weren’t. You were going to be mad and stew. You need to relax. So let’s try something else.” He lifted some stones and then oil out of the bag to place on the nightstand. “A massage.”
“Um, I don’t like massages.” I clammed up immediately, my shoulders tensing and my back going ramrod straight. The idea of someone’s hands on me like that made my skin crawl.
“Who doesn’t like a massage, Lilah?”
“Me. I never relax. I feel like a stranger is poking and prodding me in all the wrong ways.”