a complication reared its ugly head.
Harper slid a cool hand up his arm to squeeze his shoulder, leaning in to kiss his cheek. Somehow, he managed to mask the sound of his lungs strangling over a breath as he fought to keep from turning his head to capture her lips with his.
“I’m so glad I jumped on a plane,” she said brightly, thankfully clueless to the mayhem happening on his side of the wicker love seat.
He should be thrilled. Clearly, she was back to being relaxed around him. Step one could be labeled a rousing victory, rousing being the operative word. Unfortunately, step two promised to be more of the same since the goal would be to make her aware of the spark between them. So she could act on it when she was ready.
“Let me take you to dinner,” he returned hoarsely.
He had to get some traction on step two before he lost the lone speck of sanity he had left.
* * *
Harper spent an inordinate amount of time dressing for dinner, taking a hot shower to wash the airport from her skin, then using the enormous three-way mirror to carefully apply a spate of cosmetics that she’d personally had a hand in developing. A swipe of Prague Sunset lipstick finished off the look.
The results sang, if she did say so herself.
She stepped into a dress the shade of cotton candy, which should have competed with her hair, but didn’t because Harper had a near-savant ability to mix color. It was what made her exceptional at her job.
She had a healthy appreciation for how chemistry improved a woman’s natural assets. She’d built a career on it. Only to see the culmination of her dreams screech to a halt due to tainted lab samples. And for the first time in a month, she finally felt hopeful about the future of Fyra. Dante was going to help her fix the problems and the FDA would approve the new samples. Simple.
That more than anything had dissolved the weird tension between her and Dante. He’d brightened at the thought of helping her and honestly, it sounded like fun to her, too.
Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten lunch and after the...fiasco at baggage claim, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups had lost their appeal. Dinner sounded like exactly what the doctor ordered.
She went in search of Dante through the labyrinth of halls in his enormous home, wandering toward the sound of running water. Being unfamiliar with Dante’s house, she didn’t realize it emanated from his shower until she was already in the doorway of his bedroom. She raised a hand to knock just as he strode from the adjoining bathroom, bare chested, towel draped over his lower half. The terry cloth had settled low on his lean hips, almost to the point of indecency. But the uncovered part was enough to set off all sorts of bells and whistles in her head.
And other places.
A brilliant green dragon tattoo spread over his left shoulder, spiraling down around his upper bicep, accentuating sinewy muscles that she’d never seen before, but had certainly felt. His torso had turned sleek and brown, as if he’d spent time in the sun, and crisp hair lay against his chest in a trail leading to the stuff underneath the towel.
Her mouth went dry and her legs locked. Her brain might have melted, too. Or she wouldn’t have stood there staring as he caught sight of her and grinned, totally unaffected by his state of undress.
“Hey,” he said and casually pushed his glasses higher on his nose, as if she’d seen him wearing nothing but a towel a dozen or more times.
Because she had, especially in college when they’d lived in the same dorm with a communal bathroom. But that was before he’d filled out so much. Before he’d decorated his skin with something as...sexy as a tattoo. Before she’d deliberately introduced a plethora of hormones to her body that obviously rendered her stupid and prone to being affected by the sight of Dante’s bare chest.
Before he’d kissed her and she’d felt all those muscles pressed up against her.
A blush prickled her cheeks and she spun, turning her back to the half-naked man that she couldn’t reconcile with the one she’d known for years and years. Things were supposed to be back to normal. The same. What had happened to her sweet, slightly banal feelings toward her friend?
God, she’d always thought of Dante as sexy in a sort of detached way because of course he was good-looking. Sexy. It was just a word, but all at once, the root of the meaning became painfully clear because there was nothing detached about what was happening to her body.
“Harper. Are you okay?”
His voice washed across her skin as he called out from behind her. He’d said her name before. Lots of times. Using that same voice he’d always had. And yet it was not the same at all.
It was deeper, with more color. Was he also remembering that kiss that should be forgotten but clearly couldn’t be removed from her memory? Was he thinking about how it would feel to try that kiss again while he wore nothing but a towel?
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