Dante's Shock Proposal

“This night’s getting less thrilling by the minute. If you’re going to try and speed up the evening’s deterioration by lecturing me too, you can...you can just shut it! Because you’re rude, and I was going to tell you how wonderful the music was too. But now I’m not going to!”

Because her good friend mojito said it didn’t count if you said it like that.

“And, for the record...” she lifted a finger when he opened his mouth to speak, shouting over the music from across the small table “...if a woman says someone called her Large, Big, or even Rotund, and she’s not, you’re supposed to say that other person is delusional. And even if she is, you have to say something about the other person being rude. That you did neither means you think I’m a Large Woman too, with all the capitals. I’m not. So...good day, Dante.”

Another song popped onto the house system, perfectly timed. Lise grabbed her purse, slung it back across her torso to leave her hands free for Mr. Mojito, and stepped past him toward the dance floor.

She’d gotten only one foot onto the polished tile floor when a large, warm hand clamped around her free wrist, stopping her escape.

“You’re not a Large Woman, Lise. But you do a good job of hiding in oversized scrubs at work.” She didn’t look back at him, but he spoke the words over her shoulder, so near her ear that goose bumps raced up her arm, away from that warm, talented hand.

Even if he was taking up for Sandy. Sandy, the one who’d picked Jefferson. Sandy, who must’ve been the one to label her Large.

“They’re scrubs. And, if you haven’t noticed, I’m just a little top-heavy.” She turned to face him, and he took the opportunity to catch her mojito before she sloshed the contents on one or both of them, then tilted it back to drain the rest of the minty liquid before dropping the tumbler onto the tray of a passing server.

The man had drunk her mojito. What did someone even say when their mojito was stolen from their own hand?

Keep talking. Being speechless only proclaimed, I’m out of my depth and not smart enough to keep up with this insane conversation.

Anything that would keep her from staring at his mouth, and thinking about the kind of lusty crush fantasies that mouth definitely could fulfill if he were so inclined.

Pathetically adolescent and showing how badly she wanted company—enough to go on blind dates. Enough for drinking-glass-inspired lust. Pathetic.

Just. Say. Something.

“These stupid things affect what sizes I can wear, but the scrub tops are standard design, and everyone—even people who are actually proportionally built—looks dumb in them. Except you, you look good in scrubs for some reason. I’d say you sold your soul for it but we’re both already in The Inferno. Besides, they’re comfortable, so it’s easy to work in them. And if I ever got tops fitting my hip dimensions I’d suffocate in my own cleavage.”

Great. Great visual, strangled by bosoms.

Dante grinned down at her, her second brush with amusement in his eyes, twice in fifteen minutes.

She still couldn’t tell if he was laughing with her, or at her.

Before she could say anything else to embarrass herself, he slipped his arm around her waist and took her newly mojito-free hand, flawlessly maneuvering her into dancing position and steering her backward onto the dance floor.

Breathless, and more than a little gobsmacked, Lise allowed herself to be led. “We’re dancing now? Arguing makes you feel like dancing?”

Maybe it was good he’d drunk her mojito, she’d clearly had too many.

The firm arm around her waist pulled her close enough to demonstrate the need for her admittedly tent-like scrub tops—her lower half didn’t touch his, but her breasts pressed against the heat of his chest, and her still-free arm went automatically around his shoulders.

“That dress is spectacular, and it fits you very well,” He said, hand firm on her waist to turn her into some dance her feet didn’t know. “Follow me.” He slowed down, stepped back enough for her to see his feet, and after she’d mimicked the pattern a couple times, his firm hands were on her again and he steered her in slow steps around the edge of the now much more crowded dance floor.

Why was she going along with this? She’d gone to the dance floor to get away from him. And because she wanted to dance.

But even with that rude phone business, the man was still incredibly sexy, and she’d been stood up. Dante was a satisfactory stand-in for sure.

Don’t overthink it. Just dance with him.

“Why this dress when you don’t know Jefferson?” he asked again, like she hadn’t heard him before and had chosen to answer the other, more important part of his question.

Trying to understand him over the loud music meant she had to stare at his mouth, the corner of which had quirked up.

Everything about this felt out of line.

Stare at his mouth to understand and sound sane. Solid plan.

Pretend to dance like she wasn’t the offspring of an ostrich and a three-legged goat.

Ignore the tide-like sensations rushing up her arms and over her body from having his hands on her.

No problem.

“I did. And it’s new,” she admitted, and, as she’d done, he focused his attention on her mouth as she spoke. “I’ve been thinking of these dates as a kind of last hurrah before motherhood. Because I never really go out. Or date—mostly because it’s just way too much trouble. But I thought maybe if Jefferson played his cards right and wasn’t...”

“Ugly?”

Lise winced, but nodded.

She should definitely stop talking. If she talked, the truth would come out. If she just didn’t say anything, that wasn’t lying, even if it was a slippery-slope sort of deception.

Also, she should stop licking her lips.

No matter that recognizing her before had put a damper on his wolfish expression, Dante seemed to have changed his mind. He looked at her mouth longer than she spoke, but his brows had come down in a completely different fashion, sex-laced anticipation darkening his eyes.

She felt her ankle wobble and released his hand to throw both arms around his shoulders, holding tighter to him. The wobbly ankle added one more thing for her to concentrate on than her frazzled brain could handle.

If she wanted—and if she could rationalize hooking up with him in any way that could be considered safe or sane—Dante would be her last hurrah.

A last hurrah of epic proportions. He might even come with mojitos.

Dante didn’t say anything, he just pulled her a little closer so that his mouth was at her ear and she could feel the slight stubble on his cheek as he sang the Spanish lyrics softly along with the music.

The shivers his song brought rushing forth across her skin made his arms pull tighter, though he leaned back enough to look into her eyes again.

“You should let me take a picture of you then text it back to him. Make him suffer for his bad decision.”

And he wanted her, too. This was actually happening. Dr. Dante Valentino wanted her, even after he’d worked out who she was. Two years of nothing but business between them at the hospital, then they meet once outside the hospital...

Why was he still talking about Jefferson?

“You think that’ll make him suffer? For all we know, he snuck in, got one look at me, and left in a hurry.”

“He didn’t,” Dante said, still holding her close, though he’d stopped steering her around and they now swayed in one place at the edge of the stage, out of the way.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. He’s straight, and if he’d seen you tonight... Trust me.”

Trust him. As if that were the easiest thing in the world. Trust the sexy man who led a double life.

On the other hand, what harm could a picture do? Maybe Jefferson wouldn’t suffer, but he might feel slightly guilty to see that she’d gotten dressed up and waited for him in a nightclub by herself for so long before he actually called it off. Teach him a lesson for the next woman he got fixed up with.

“Okay,” Lise said, pulling back to get her phone from her bag. “But make me look good. Maybe there’s some kind of sexy filter we can use.”

While she pulled the purse off and hung it properly on her shoulder, he stepped back in to murmur something unbearably sexy in her ear. Warm. Playful. And entirely too Spanish for her to understand at all.

Even after three years in Miami, all she’d managed to understand was querida.

But it was enough.

A moment later he’d had her posed under the lights and taken a snap. Before she could even see it, he’d sent the picture to Jefferson.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

He handed the phone back. “It’s better to say nothing. Then all he’ll have is a bunch of questions, and that will make him suffer worse.”

She righted her bag and stashed her phone, then found herself back in his arms as a faster song started.

He pulled in close, that sexy mouth and fantastically gravelly voice still singing by her ear. Pressure at her side had her spinning and he stepped in until she felt him against her back, his hands landing on her hips.

This couldn’t be the same man.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Dr. Valentino, but in nearly every respect he was someone else with only tiny flashes of the man she knew peeking through—like when he did whatever he wanted and expected people to keep up or catch up.

Catch up was all she could attempt. “Is this a salsa?”

“No.” His voice came warm at her ear. “It’s a bachata. Simple moves. Hips, feet. Easier. Step-step-step-tap. Exaggerate the hips with the steps.”

Seduced by dancing. That’s what this was. She could spot the symptoms, name them, and couldn’t bring herself to give a damn.

Strong hands on her hips led her through the steps, the pressure of him at her back steering her as sure as he’d done when facing her, but in this position she could get a lot closer—feel the heated length of him. His thighs brushed the backs of hers, his chest moved against her back. And her bottom...

When her body seemed to have learned the dance, he spun her back to face him and said nothing at all, though the looks he gave her brought back that surge of bold, powerful sexiness she felt.

Heady and fueled by mojitos and bad decision-making, Lise stepped in before the dance was over—breaking step—and leaned up to press her lips to the corner of his mouth. Even side on, he stopped dancing.

He stopped everything.

And he didn’t kiss her back.

CHAPTER TWO

MISTAKE?

Mistake!

Lise broke her half-brave half-kiss and stepped back so swiftly that Dante’s arms broke loose from her waist.

“I’m sorry.” She touched her mouth, remembered her lipstick, looked at his mouth, and then reached up to start smudging it off as best she could. “That was bad of me. I mean, five minutes ago we were fighting.”

Rubbing someone’s mouth was almost as personal as kissing them.

Right.

She snatched her hand back. “Really, I’m sorry. I’m going to...”

Die.

She pointed back at the table and gave up saying words. A pivot and she hurried off in that direction.

“Stop! Why are you so jumpy?” He caught up to her in two strides and slung an arm around her waist again, then took the closest hand as well. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“You didn’t kiss me back.”

“They were signaling me from the stage. Snuck past while we were dancing. There’s nothing I’d like to do more than dance with you and kiss the jumpiness out of you. Don’t apologize for anything but your aim.”

They’d reached the table and he turned her into the chair and scooted it in for her. But when she thought he was going to leave, she felt his hand fist in the back of her hair, heat and awareness spiked her chest. He tugged her head backwards over the chair, arching her neck until she looked straight up at him, the action so sudden, so unexpected, and her rum buzz left her speechless. All she could do was stare up at him. She could feel the pulse in her throat, fast and hard, ever increasing as she watched his expression.

Tight enough to control her movements, but not so tight as to hurt, the tension spreading out over her scalp sent shivers through her.

Swiftly, and with far better aim, he leaned in and covered her mouth with his own.

Lise had never been kissed so thoroughly, so hungrily. So...shockingly. She felt a kind of limpness creep up her spine and straight to her jaw. His tongue plunged into her mouth, from zero to light speed in seconds, coaxing her to stroke against his.

As if she could even consider breaking away from him in that position, his free hand cupping and holding the front of her throat, fingers stroking there without pressure but still burning her skin. It excited her, coiling in her chest so that she couldn’t catch her breath from Dante’s brand of blatant sensuality, fueled with more than a hint of danger. The taste of his mouth, a hint of the mojitos they’d been drinking, and something more thrilling than she could even have imagined before that second, intoxicated more fully than alcohol could, and she lost awareness of how long they kissed, knew only that her hands crept up, aching, empty and seeking.

When someone nearby hooted in appreciation, Dante broke the kiss, lifting his head enough for them to see one another. Promises danced in his deep brown eyes and she couldn’t look away even if she’d wanted to.

“Stay for the next set,” he said, face still inches from hers. “But don’t dance with anyone else unless you want me jumping off the stage and reminding you why you’re waiting for me.”

Mute and breathless, she could only nod. The command in his voice was something she recognized from his way at work, in surgery, and not one piece of her wanted to disobey.

He kissed her again, a soft little kiss as if to seal the deal, then lifted her head back to where it should be. His fingers slid from her hair and stroked down over the back of her head once to right her usually smooth locks, before he returned to the stage.

Oh, she was going to make a mistake. Big mistake.

And it’d be worth it.

Dante hoisted himself onto the stage, bypassing the need to weave past the other musicians to reach his piano. He’d no more sat than the first notes of the next set rang out from the horns to his left.

Thank heaven it was a fast number. His only outlet was his hands right now, and they could only move with the music, not fast enough to deal with the energy surging through him.

From memory, without even needing to think about it by now, he began to play.

For once he didn’t fall into that peaceful place where he felt between worlds. His mind didn’t blank at all.

It filled with Lise. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had excited him this much.

When he’d first seen her, every drop of blood in his body had hummed, pressure everywhere increasing in a kind of awareness he’d have called supernatural if he wasn’t supposed to be a rational surgeon. He’d immediately known there was someone in the club worth seeing.

But his interest—while authentic and entirely sexual—had gotten a little off track when something about her had struck him as familiar. He’d started clicking through the possibilities as to why.

Slept together before? No. That body would be impossible to forget.

Someone who’d been in the club before? No. He’d only owned it for five years, but if he’d ever seen her there, he would’ve paid attention. Would’ve gotten her number.

Someone he’d known in his past? One of his former marks? No, she wouldn’t have looked at him like that if that was the connection.

Hospital? Family of patient? Staff?

Then it had crystalized.

Bradshaw. This morning’s nurse. He’d seen her not even ten hours ago, and would see her again Monday morning. Would she have this magnetic draw hidden in gray cloth and without the sexy makeup and inferno-red lips?

Not if she went home with him tonight—and the way she blushed and smiled said she would. Things could get messy at work. He was already certain she’d not tell his secret, but this might be too big a hope.

The song ended and another began, but he couldn’t change his thoughts as easily as he changed keys. He wanted her and that was reason enough to engage in a little after-hours fun.

The eye-roll when she’d spoken of marriage told him she wouldn’t take one night out of context. That helped. That made it easy. Why was he still thinking about it?

The lights made it impossible to see her or her table and he wanted to look at her. When the next song rounded out and his hands were free, he snatched a radio from the side, turned away from the crowd. Quietly, he issued an order for Max, Manager of The Inferno, to have the lights lowered to anything but spotlights.

When the lighting shifted to swirls of color over the dance floor, his vision cleared.

Still at the table, he confirmed, but she sat there staring at her phone now, a tiny, satisfied, smug little smile curling one corner of her now naked mouth.

Jefferson had texted back after getting the photo.

Suffering. Good. Just as Dante expected. A little light manipulation of the man who’d humiliated the woman coming home with him tonight. It felt like justice, not that he could really tell the difference between justice and vengeance these days.

Time came for the piano to join in the next song again, and he finally let the music take him. Forty-five more minutes, a half hour break, and then another long set before he could do what he really wanted: drag Lise home with him and peel that dress off her.

* * *

While Dante played, Lise’s courage started to wane. Her desire was there—had been there all the time, bubbling under the surface of her quiet everyday life—since she’d gotten the job in Neurosurgery. Ignored. Designated unimportant—a luxury, a frivolous, stupid luxury that had no business in her daily life. But it felt different now. She’d had the lusty crush for years, and it had never caused her insides to quake.

One night could be amazing, or it could lead to life-plan-altering complications.

As much as she wanted him to jump down from the stage, capture her head and kiss her senseless again, what would it do to their work relationship? Had that kiss already changed their work relationship? Would she already be unable to look at him without imagining his hands in her hair and on her bare throat?

She loved her job. She also loved the money—which had enabled her to buy a little cottage of her very own in pricy Miami. Money had gotten her to the first goal on her list of what a responsible woman would do before having a child.

One kiss could be forgotten.

One night with Dante...wasn’t worth her future plans.

The very idea of losing her unconceived child opened a cavern inside her, refining her focus.

Right.

Remember the plan. Even knocking it off schedule was unacceptable, or would be as soon as she selected the best donor and worked out a schedule of some sort.

Who even knew how long or how many tries it might take to get pregnant once she’d found The One from her database?

Good decision.

While she gave herself a mental pep talk, her cell phone buzzed—another message from Jefferson, this time with an ETA.

* * *

Dante swung the door of his office closed a little harder than he meant to, knocking a jacket off the hooks on the door. He left it. Max usually spent his evenings on the floor, which suited Dante—it meant he could have solitude in the office they shared whenever Dante wanted.

Lise wasn’t there. She hadn’t waited, and he’d been so certain she would. Worse, as much as he’d fiddled with her phone earlier tonight, he hadn’t gotten her number.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d so misjudged someone. He’d given her exactly what she’d wanted, but she’d left anyway.

Had she left when Jefferson had finally decided to come groveling—something he felt confident he’d accomplished for her? He could check security tapes, but it didn’t really matter. Her decision. He was just angry about effectively being stood up by a woman who wanted him.

The phone in his pocket buzzed, interrupting one of his favorite pastimes—analyzing others—and he fished it out before flinging himself on the leather sofa he occasionally napped on between sets.

This wasn’t the emergency ringtone from his answering service or the hospital. He didn’t have to answer it right now—it could wait until tomorrow, or later.

One rule governed his time at the club: don’t violate the sanctuary. Don’t bring the outside in, don’t take the inside out. Lise’s appearance tonight had completely obliterated his rule.

Turning the screen up, he read a text from the latest Valentino wife—Cassie, married to his twin—with a request for a consult tomorrow at Seaside. His day off, but he never turned down those requests and texted back to confirm.

Lise being there had felt like a violation until he’d been completely turned on by her. But even as the thought came, he knew Lise wasn’t the reason he’d answered the text—she didn’t have his number either.

Over the past few months he’d watched all his brothers marry and start families. That was why he’d answered. Why he’d even opened the text after seeing who it was from. They all had bigger lives, which to him meant the possibility more things could go wrong and need fixing. Fixing problems was his primary role in the family.

Wives and kids meant more people to take care of. His circle had expanded from three to seven, with eight and nine still gestating. That kind of serious growth demanded more of his attention—even within the sanctuary.

He must be crazy even thinking about trying to increase those numbers further by finding a wife of his own. Not that he had the first clue as to how to go about it.

Another text came in before he could even drop the phone on the sofa, ripping a sigh from him. He stared at the polished black gadget in his hand for a full minute before he flipped it over and read the next message.

Santiago—middle brother—and his wife Saoirse requested he come to dinner tomorrow.

That one he didn’t have it in him to answer right now. Newlyweds. He was surrounded by newlyweds, and he heard from them all far more regularly than he had before they’d all coupled off. Had they organized efforts to take care of him? Because that was how he felt—irritatingly taken care of, the absolute last thing he needed. It would continue until he married. The last Valentino bachelor must be looked after...

The trauma they’d faced in childhood brought that compulsion out in all of them, maybe most in him, but his care had done the job—they were still together enough for him to feel overly tended.

In their shoes, Dante would’ve been doing the math—he’d never brought a woman to meet them, or dated one woman for any length of time. He’d never given it much thought until they’d all married off, and now he became aware of how he stuck out as single. But marriage was normal, expected. And keeping up appearances was always important.

Dropping the phone on the sofa, he laid his head back and closed his eyes, focusing on the between-sets music that got feet on the dance floor. That had gotten him and Lise on the dance floor.

Someone would knock if he fell asleep before the last set. Or if he lost track of time, fantasizing about stripping Lise of that hot dress.

He just wished he knew her better, knew whether her self-esteem would’ve let her leave with the man who’d stood her up and insulted her when he’d come groveling.

Jefferson had been easy. Lise, apparently, wasn’t as easy to figure out.

Now, what if he wanted to torture her for standing him up, make her regret and come groveling...

* * *

Monday morning, Dante stood at the scrub bay, looking over the team getting things ready for the morning’s surgery.