Tossed Into Love
Page 19

“Your virtue is safe tonight,” he says in a deep voice that makes my toes curl.
“I . . . Okay.” I swallow.
“After tonight, all bets are off,” he growls.
I feel the vibration of those words skim over me like thick honey.
Oh my god.
My knees actually get weak, so I grab on to his jacket to keep standing upright.
“Antonio . . . ,” I breathe.
“Fair warning.” He bends his head and kisses the tip of my nose, then stands back and sticks out his arm into the street. A cab pulls up after half a second, and he opens the door and helps me in, then gets in with me.
I listen to him give the driver the address to the restaurant, and my eyes widen slightly. It’s the same place where I had dinner with Walter.
“You okay?” he asks, pulling my attention to him.
“Fine.” I try to smile at him, but his eyes narrow on my mouth.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” I keep my weird, awkward smile in place while I lace my fingers together in my lap to keep from twisting my hair.
“Have you been to Keens before?”
“I . . . Yes.”
“Did that guy take you there?”
Staring at him, I wonder if I should lie about it. Then I figure I probably shouldn’t.
“Yes . . . ?” I answer quietly, my admission sounding more like a question.
The muscles in his jaw jump, and he turns his head to look out the window. Leaning toward him, I rest my hand on his thigh. I try to ignore exactly how hard it feels under my palm. It takes a second for his eyes to come back to me, but when they do, I speak quietly.
“I kept thinking about you when I was at dinner with him,” I admit for some stupid reason.
His eyes flare with surprise.
“I . . . I knew even before dinner was over that there would never be another date with him, no matter how nice he was. For some stupid reason, I’ve had a crush on you forever.”
“What?” he whispers.
I wonder why the hell I just told him that, and why I didn’t keep my big mouth shut—at least about the whole crush thing.
“Have a good night. I’m going to jump out of the cab into traffic now,” I whisper back.
I start to look away, but before I can, his hand wraps around the side of my neck. Next, his fingers slide up into my hair, twisting it. Tingles shoot across my scalp as his mouth crashes down on mine. I gasp in surprise as his tongue thrusts between my parted lips and the familiar taste of him explodes on my tongue. Needing to keep myself here on Earth and not floating away, I clench my fingers into his sweater. I kiss him back, enjoy hearing him rumble when my tongue touches his.
God, I forgot how good it feels to kiss him, how good it felt when he nipped my lips and licked into my mouth.
I forgot how turned on he could make me with just his mouth on mine. Moaning, I slide one hand up his chest and latch on to his hair. I hear him groan in approval.
“Fuck, but you can kiss,” he says as soon as he rips his mouth away and rests his forehead against mine.
“Ditto,” I breathe as I pant, begging my lungs to fill with oxygen.
I slowly pull my eyes open to find him looking at me.
“So damn cute,” he groans, closing his eyes and touching his lips to mine softly. “You’re not jumping out of the cab, Libby. I don’t give a fuck if that guy took you to Keens—we’re having dinner there tonight since it should have been me taking you there in the first place.”
He releases my hair, then wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me across the leather seat and deeper into his side. My stomach dances and my heart leaps. I’ve been called beautiful my whole life, so it no longer means anything to me. I know I’m pretty, but I’ve always wanted to be more than that to someone. So him telling me I’m cute is probably the sweetest thing he could have said. He also said that he should have been the one to take me to Keens, which I really hope means he would have wanted to take me even back then when I didn’t think he liked me.
With a new kind of hopefulness in my chest, I sit close to him and try not to smile like an idiot—even though that’s exactly what I want to do.
Once we arrive at the restaurant, he pays the cab driver and then helps me out of the back seat by taking my hand and keeping hold of it. When we get inside, he leads me through the crowd gathered near the door and over to the hostess. It’s the same hostess who was here the night I had dinner with Walter. I wonder if she remembers me, then wonder if she remembers that I was here with a different man. Then I wonder if she thinks I’m a little bit loose for being here with two different men just weeks apart.
“I love your belt.”
She startles me, and I come out of my head and focus on her. “And your boots. Did you get them from Nordstrom?”
“No, I found both online—secondhand,” I admit.
“Really?” she breathes with wide eyes, like I just told her Santa Claus is real and he’s going to drop off a bag of diamonds at her house tonight.
“Yeah. I . . . Do you want the website?”
“God, yes. I know that belt cost like four hundred dollars, and those shoes close to the same, so if I could get them for a discount, that would be awesome.”
Okay, so she knows designers at a glance, which is impressive.
Feeling Antonio tense at my side, I wish she would stop saying how much my outfit cost retail—even if I didn’t pay close to that for the belt or the boots.
“Do you have a pen I can use?”
She pulls one out from behind the stand and gives it to me along with a napkin.
I quickly write down the website and hand it back to her. “They get new stuff every week, so you just have to keep an eye out if you’re looking for something specific.”
“Awesome.” She smiles, and I smile back.
“Reservation for Moretti,” Antonio says in a tense voice.
Her eyes fly from mine to him and widen once more—this time with nervousness.
“Right. Sorry about that.” She shoves the napkin into her pocket and then looks down at the iPad and does some clicking before grabbing menus. “If you’ll follow me?” She smiles at us, then starts into the restaurant.
Antonio’s hand settles into the small of my back as we walk, and I let out a relieved breath at his touch. It’s starting to become crystal clear that he has an issue with money—or with money being spent on clothes and shoes. That probably doesn’t bode well for us, since I like spending money on clothes and shoes. Then again, I work hard for the things I have. When we reach the back of the restaurant, I wonder if someone is playing some kind of twisted joke on me—it’s the same table Walter and I sat at when we were here.
“Let me help you with that,” Antonio says as I start to take off my coat.
I bite my lip as he slips it from my shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He hangs it up on the hook near the table, then does the same with his own before pulling out the chair that’s not facing the restaurant for me.
Once we’re both seated, the hostess smiles at both of us as she sets down our menus on the table. “Your waiter will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you.” I give her a small smile, and she smiles back before taking off.
Looking around and nibbling my bottom lip, all I can think about is that I’m not sitting facing the restaurant.
“This isn’t the good seat,” I blurt out stupidly.
Antonio’s eyes meet mine.
“What?” he questions, placing his napkin on his lap.
I sigh.
“I . . . well, everyone knows the good seat is the seat with the view of the restaurant.” I wave my hand around the room.
“You’re in the safe seat,” he says.
I tip my head to the side in confusion and then ask, “The safe seat?”
“I have the view of the room. If something happens, I’ll know first and will have time to get you to safety before anything can happen to you.”
Holy crap.
“Oh,” I mumble.
“Jesus, have you always been this cute?” he asks.
My chest starts to feel warm at his question.