Page 93 of Powerful Deception

He looks down at me for a second before he lets out a sigh and turns his line of vision to the wall in front of us.

“When Angelina died, I decided that I was never going to put myself in that type of situation again. I lost my parents, I lost her, and bringing someone else into my life and losing them would have been too much. Did I want to move on? In all honesty, no. I was going to put all that behind me and just concentrate on what I had. The club, the kids, the business, but things happen in strange ways. Like nannies walk into your life and making you overthink every decision you made for yourself.”

I watch him as he speaks. His eyes may not be on me and I may not be able to see the kind of emotion that is swimming in them, but I can tell he’s a little lost.

Lost in thought.

Lost in his past.

He continues to talk and I take in every single word as if it’s my very own bedtime story.

“Since I’m being honest here, I should tell you that I haven’t been celibate since Angelina died. I slept with someone else six months after her funeral. I needed an out and that's what I used to get it. It wasn’t anything serious, nothing that I would feel guilty about. It was just an out for me, but then you came along. You came along and after that first night together, I knew you were different. You were different because you made it feel as if I was cheating. It felt as if I was cheating on my wife and she had been gone for months. And as time keeps moving I’m becoming more okay with it.”

I shift even more so that I can take his face between my hands and make him look down at me.

“I don’t want you to feel like you are cheating. I don’t want you to regret anything we do, especially not this.”

His dark eyes spark a bit at my touch. “I don’t regret it, and I never will. It will just take a little more time for me to get through the fact that I met someone that I really want to be with so soon after my wife died. It doesn’t seem fair. It’s like she’s gone and I just have to forget about her.”

Now when I move, I straddle his thighs, bringing me even closer to him. All to drive a point across.

“She was your wife. The mother of your kids. The woman you loved. She will always be a part of you and you will never forget her.”

“How do you know that?” He asks, his eyebrows bunching up a bit.

“Because if you wanted to forget her, you would have destroyed every picture of her, not put them in a drawer for safe keeping.”

If me and Dante go through with this, if we label what we are doing as a relationship, then I will make it my mission of putting her pictures up again. The kids need to experience their mom and she doesn’t deserve to spend the rest of their lives in a drawer.

“If I say that I am okay with this feeling like a relationship or even calling it one, would you okay with me still taking the time to mourn my wife?”

“Yes. I will be okay with that, because she’s a big part of three people that I come to care very deeply about.” I say, leaning in slightly and placing a kiss against his lips.

He doesn’t kiss me back. Dante just looks at me with wonder as if he can’t comprehend who I really am.

The same way I’ve been feeling since my

dad’s funeral.

“So where does that leave the two of us?” He asks, his hand shifting slightly and moving to my hips, his fingers digging into my skin.

“Back to the original question, are you okay with this feeling like a relationship?”

With no hesitation, he answers. “Yes. I’m okay with it, I’m even okay with calling it one if that’s what you want. I want it. I want you. Now the question is, do you want me just as much?”

This time, I’m the one that doesn’t hesitate. “I want you. Just as much, if not more. I want all the emotion, not just the sex anymore.”

The second I say the last word, the both of us make our moves.

Lips meet lips and the both of us are fighting to get more of each other.

As my tongue slides into his mouth and explores every inch of it, I feel his hands move to my ass and feel them grip me.

Dante brings my body closer to his, as if we weren’t close enough, and starts to move me to grind against him.

The water and bubbles start to spill over the edges of the tub as I continue to move and Dante continues to explore my body with his hands.

Our kisses are filled with bites, tongues and moans and I love every second of it.