It had to be.
“You can’t be seriously contemplating a date with that man.” He pointed to my phone screen.
I dove back into completing number five again, even though Dante avoided it. I couldn’t work around it forever. Izzy had to be getting out soon, and that meant we would be back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Dante and I had just walked through the fort and gotten gelato. I was sure it was the best tasting thing here next to the mojitos and mofongo. We laid on the grass in a big field and watched kites fly above us.
“What is the alternative, Dante? I can’t … You’re the only guy who makes me feel anything. That’s like some twisted trauma I’m holding on to.” I’d become a freaking open book with the guy over the past week. He massaged my back, he brought me my favorite foods, and he stayed up late talking with me until I told him to get back over to his room before he fell asleep in my bed.
If that happens, I won’t sleep and neither will you, he’d responded, and I’d practically spread my legs for him right there.
Still, we’d kept everything PG like we thought was best.
“You’re kidding me, right?” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow, staring at me. “It’s just that the men you get with are fucking shit shows.”
“You haven’t met any of them.”
“Well, I know Allan didn’t do his job with you right. And I still need the number of that guy who wanted to fuck Izzy instead of you.”
“You went on a date with Izzy too,” I tossed back, and he instantly recoiled.
“I already told you I would never have slept with her. Not when I wanted you. Damn, Lilah. I’d been training overseas and was doing so much shit for the family that I …”
“You don’t have to share it with me.”
“I can’t. It’ll go to the grave with me, but my mind wasn’t always as settled as it is now. It took a lot of time and healing to get where I am.”
I probably shouldn’t have, but I grabbed his hand in the grass and turned to look at him. “And where you are is amazing. I should probably still be mad at you and Izzy, but I’m not. You’re both doing a lot. And I know your hearts. Or at least, I think I do …”
“You know it better than probably anybody,” he murmured.
We’d spent all these moments in this beautiful place together, and as the kites flew over us in that field, I couldn’t have stopped what happened next if I’d tried. I don’t know if his lips met mine or my lips met his, but we fell into one another to steal each other’s hearts, if only for a second.
I got lost in the way he tasted, the way he coaxed my tongue to submit to his, and the way he pulled me up on his body to straddle him in that grass. I felt all of him below me, and I didn’t know if I could stop myself.
I gripped his jaw as I consumed him, and his hands ran over my back and ass.
Had his phone not rang, I think we both would have fucked each other in broad daylight right there.
I straightened and glanced at it lying next to us. The screen showed the county jail calling, and it was like a bucket of ice thrown on me. “It’s Izzy.”
“Lilah—”
“You should answer,” I said, climbing off him, not sure what I was feeling but knowing we were too intertwined to take what we were doing any further.
He sighed and took the call, getting up from the grass and walking away to discuss whatever he needed to with her. When he stalked back, I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out, “It’s crazy that she hasn’t called me even once.”
“She wants to talk to you after, I know she does.”
“Are you saying that, or is she?”
“She’s hung up on the case, Lilah.”
“She calls you a lot, right?” My question sounded like an accusation, even if I hadn’t meant it to.
“I’m her boss. She’d better call me if she has information. I—”
“Calling her family once in a while might be nice too.”
“She can’t talk to you in there, Lilah. It would jeopardize—”
“You don’t need to explain, Dante. She’s my twin. She can explain once she’s out.”
He sighed and pointed toward our driver. “Sun’s going to set.”
“Then I should be getting ready for my date.”
He groaned but didn’t try to stop me again. Izzy’s phone call had created the wedge we both needed to realize this was as far as our relationship went.