Dante's Way (24 page)

“Dante, you aren’t being honest with me. I thought you just told me I could ask you anything.”

Closing his eyes, Dante blew out a deep breath then looked back at her. “You’re right, I did. I shouldn’t have put up a wall like that but my childhood isn’t something I like talking about with anyone.”

Hearing the pain coming from his usually confident, flirtatious voice shocked Amara since she never thought anything had the power to hurt Dante. He was probably the strongest man that she knew next to her late father.

“Why don’t you like talking about it?” she questioned, softly. “Did your parent’s abuse you?” The thought of an energetic little boy being hurt by his parents angered her. A child should always know love like she did when she was growing up.

He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t physically abused by my parents. My mother and father never hit me, but they were strict to the point of taking it over the edge. We had certain rules to follow in my house. If we didn’t obey then we were gone from the house and forgotten about like yesterday’s garbage.”

“I can’t believe it was that bad. Surely, your parents weren’t that unrelenting when you were young,” Amara said, surprised. She had never heard of anything like that before.

“See, you’re wrong about that. I decided to test that theory when I was sixteen years old. I took the family car without asking and they had me arrested for stealing then tossed into Juvenile Hall.”

Amara gasped. She couldn’t believe anything like that could be true. What kind of parents would do something so cruel to their own son? “Why would they do something so heartless to you? Didn’t they understand what a place like that could do to you? They should have let you come home.”

Dante got silent for a few seconds and then when he spoke his voice was filled with hidden pain. “The second I took the car I wasn’t their ‘golden child’ anymore. I was the rebel trying to get my little brothers to follow in my rebellious footsteps.”

Dante had brothers
? She was taken aback by this news.

Pushing her body away from his, Amara stared down into Dante’s face noticing how he glanced away from her. She could tell the strain with his family still bothered him even after all of these years.

“I didn’t know you have any siblings. How old are they? Do you have any contact with them at all?”

“My younger brothers are completely different from me. They never left our hometown of Harper, Texas,” he said, pausing like he had gotten lost in a memory in his past.

Placing her hand on his chest, she drew his attention back to her. “Finish telling me about your brothers,” she encouraged eager to find out more about the man she was falling in love with.

****

Dante was having a hard time opening up about his past with Amara. His broken family was mostly something he kept to himself unless he brought it up to Griffin, but his best friend already knew about all of his secrets, so that didn’t matter to him.

How could he still want anything to do with a family that had washed their hands of him so many years ago? He owned two successful businesses, and had a circle of good friends that he wouldn’t trade anything in the world for.

Lastly, he had Amara who was fast becoming a very important part of his life. She was drawing out feelings that he had purposely kept hidden from a lot of people who knew and loved him.

Truthfully, she was a pleasurable change he hadn’t been expecting the night of the storm. He wouldn’t trade that night for anything because it brought the woman next to him into his life.

“Dante, are you okay?” Her soft voice asked, drawing him away from his inner thoughts.

He lowered his eyes and found Amara’s steady gaze watching him with such concern. He couldn’t recall any other woman looking at him with such compassion or understanding before.

“I’m fine, sweetheart,’ he answered.

“If you don’t want to tell me about your family, you don’t have to do it. I completely understand if it’s too painful.”

Dante gathered Amara close to his body loving how
good
she felt against his side. Recalling his past used to put a heavy ache in his chest, but now he could think about it with only a dull numbness surfacing here and there. “I’ve four younger brothers. My brother closest to my age is Morgan. He’s thirty-eight and a doctor. I used to call him Shadow because everywhere I went growing up he was right there behind me.

“Rowan is next and he turned thirty-four last month. He’s a little more distant than Morgan and preferred spending time to himself than rough-housing with the rest of us. He owns a huge ranch outside of Harper and breeds race horses. A few of them have even won the Kentucky Derby.

“Now, Lucas was a debater and he loved telling everyone how right he was about everything. Last year, he became the youngest partner in his law firm at thirty-two. Tanner is thirty years old. He’s the baby of the family and a rancher, but he mostly deals in livestock. I guess he’s a mixture of all of us.”

“How do you know so much about your brothers? Have all of you kept in contact with each other? What about your parents, are they still alive?” Amara asked firing off question after question.

Rubbing his hand up and down his face, Dante continued thinking about the past he was beginning to accept, but only as he had gotten older. Acceptance from his family wasn’t his top priority anymore.

“When I opened
Inked
, I wanted to share the news of my first business with my family. So, I went back home hoping to mend some broken fences, but I shouldn’t have left town. My parents weren’t happy to see me in the least. They thought I was still the disrespectful son who hated their rules. So, instead of staying there and fighting with them, I went looking for my brothers.”

“How did that go?” Amara asked.

“We tried having lunch, but Rowan and Morgan both held resentment towards me for not coming back after them when I got old enough, but after I got out of Juvenile Hall I was only seventeen years old.

“I would have been on the streets myself if Griffin hadn’t befriended me the second week I was in juvie. He literally begged his parents to take me in since I didn’t have anywhere else to go. So, I stayed with them until I got accepted to college and moved away.”

“Did you try telling your brothers this?”

“Yes, I did, but too much time had passed and their anger still ran too deep for me to break through. I would love to have a relationship with them, but I don’t see it ever happening.”

Snuggling closer, Amara kissed the side of his jaw. “I don’t see how they can be so unfeeling. Didn’t they know what you had gone through with your parents?”

“A part of me can’t blame them. I was the oldest. I knew how unreasonable my parents were and probably still are. I should have gone and gotten them after I got settled. Somehow, I could have taken care of them. It was my fault they got left in that house.

“My dad probably came down so hard on Morgan and Rowan after I left since Lucas and Tanner was too young. My mother got pregnant with me a year after graduating high school and they were forced to get married. I think they always harbored resentment towards me that I would never be able to overcome.”

“Stop it. Right now,” Amara told him, touching the side of his face. “Nothing your parents did to you or your brothers growing up had anything to do with you. Kids are going to be kids most of the time and breaking the rules will happen. Why your parents decided to sever all ties with you is their fault because they missed out watching you become such a wonderful, caring and funny man.”

A warm feeling spread through Dante’s body at Amara’s sweet assessment of him and she was right. It was his family’s fault for not wanting to see the man he had grown into over the years. He couldn’t waste the rest of his life waiting for them to see what they were missing. He had to live and learn from his past mistakes.

Wasting his time on his brother’s or parent’s acceptance was over. He knew his brothers were doing great thanks to the updates from Griffin’s parents who still lived in Harper, Texas. But he couldn’t continue to let them hold him back from finding happiness. He wanted to feel, fall in love and genuinely be pleased with the man who he had become through hard work and determination on his part without any help from anyone else.

Lowering his head, Dante kissed Amara surprising her. “I’m done talking about my family,” he said. “I would rather be doing something a lot more exciting with my time especially when you’re around.”

“Care to tell me what it is?” she asked, touching his chest.

“How about I show you instead?” Dante suggested before flipping her over and covering her soft, body with his. He allowed the thoughts of his family to leave his head, tossing them back into his past where they belonged locked away.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Slowly, Dante opened his eyes to the smell of bacon frying. The sound of rain pounding against the roof woke him up out of a restful sleep, something he had missed out on for the past several months.

Turning his head to the side, he smiled at the imprint left in the pillow by Amara’s head. Last night turned out to be fucking earth-shattering for him. All of those nights he’d imagined how it would feel to finally have her wrapped in his arms, were blown away the minute his cock slipped inside of her tight pussy.

He almost came right then and there when he found out she was a virgin. He always vowed to stay away from virgins, but the thought of Amara giving herself to another man made him see red. No other guy was going to touch his woman. Never, if he had anything to do about it.

Wait! Whoa!

Should he be thinking of her as his after only one night of good sex? He paused for only a second to think about it. Hell Yes! He could still hear Amara screaming his name over and over as he introduced her body to her first orgasm. It would be a sound and memory that he would remember for the rest of his life.

Thank God he decided to give his employees an extra day off. He didn’t have to worry about getting out of bed and opening up the bar. The best part was Amara was here with him and he could spend the day exploring that beautiful body of hers some more.

Running his hand down his chest, Dante slipped it underneath the covers wrapping his fingers around his morning erection. Today would be the first time in a very
long
time since meeting Amara that he wouldn’t be the one taking care of this problem.

Just the thought of her hand wrapped around his cock made it twitch. He couldn’t wait until she got back in here so they could make love again. Sometimes he believed morning sex was better than anything else in the world.

“Good, you’re awake. I fixed breakfast.”

Turning his head, he looked at Amara standing in the open bedroom doorway looking sexy as a pin-up rocking his shirt from last night.

“How did you find everything? I missed waking up finding you next to me in the bed,” he complained as Amara came towards him carrying two plates piled with food.

“I got hungry and decided to cook us some breakfast. I’m surprised I was able to find everything that I wanted.”

Dante looked at the delicious plates of blueberry pancakes with bacon, but all thoughts of food left his head when Amara bent over and his shirt opened giving him a peek at her beautiful breasts. He wanted to sample something, but it wasn’t anything on those plates in front of him. He had another hunger to feed that was driving him up the wall.

“Why don’t you leave those plates right there and come here instead?” he suggested in a low voice patting the side of the bed.

A cute smile pulled at the corner of Amara’s mouth as she took a step closer to him. “I’m not sure if I should,” she said, eyeing his erection poking at the sheet. “I’m beginning to think that you might want more than a good morning kiss.”

“How could I not with the way you look this morning?” Dante admitted, reaching for Amara. He wrapped his finger around her slim wrist and tugged her right to the side of the bed. “Don’t you want to cuddle with me on this rainy day? I swear I‘ll make it worth your while.”

“Sure, if all you wanted to do was cuddle. However, Mr. Braden; I believe you have other ideas running through that gorgeous head of yours.”

His heart skipped a beat at Amara’s compliment. He was used to getting praise about his looks from other females, but it was different coming from the lips of the woman he was getting deeper feelings for.

He wasn’t admitting he was falling in love with her or anything because it was way
too
soon for that kind of commitment after only a few dates. But, somehow she had come out of nowhere and wrapped her hand around a tiny part of his heart. She inspired him to do even more with his life because of the struggle she had with hers over the past several months.

“Baby, I can’t lie. I do want to do more than cuddle with you.” Grabbing her by the waist, he lifted Amara over his body making her straddle his hips. He moaned low in his throat as her pussy settled inches from his throbbing cock.

Taking the tips of his fingers, he ran them up the side of her thighs slowly taking the edge of his shirt further up her beautiful body. The more skin he exposed the sexier Amara became to him.

The rain danced across the windows luring them into their own personal cocoon of seduction—a place Dante wasn’t about to leave for anything. This is where he wanted to be more than anything in the world. Amara’s personality took away all of the loneliness that crept up on him anytime he saw his friends with their families.

He continued easing the cotton fabric over her skin until it rested above her cute belly button almost underneath her full, perky breasts. All he had left was a few more inches and her stunning figure would be in complete viewing pleasure for his eyes to feast on.

“Lift, your arms, darling,” he ordered in a low, demanding voice.

“No,” Amara answered, shaking her head causing her hair to brush over her shoulders. “I can’t be buck naked in front of you.”

“Why not?” he questioned brushing the tips of his fingers over her exposed skin. “You let me see all of you last night right here in this very bed.”