Pressure Point (Point #2) (5 page)

I reveal a bouquet of roses that I brought for the hostess, and she gasps in approval, her eyes lighting up with delight.

“You made it.”

Fuck me.

That melodic voice sends a jolt straight to the part of my body that shouldn’t notice her.
What kind of reaction is this?
Standing a few feet behind her mother is Stella. Not the cute Stella who tripped when I met her in the dorm or the cozy Stella who visited my house yesterday with her hair piled high on her head in a messy knot.

Breathtaking is the only way to describe this Stella.

I’ve seen her twice in my life, both times with her hair constrained. Tonight, the big raven curls tumble beneath her shoulders. Smooth and shiny. I wonder what they would feel like sliding between my fingers. She’s hardly showing any skin and yet the woman is drop-dead sexy. Tight black pants cling to her legs, and she wears a black silky t-shirt. Though flirty patches of her skin tempt me because the sleeves and a thin strip down the center of the blouse are lace and not opaque material.

My God, is that smile she’s wearing for me?

“Stell, you look amazing!” Zoe cheers, reminding me that I’m not here to claim this ethereal creature as mine.

She’s twenty years old and best friends with your sister. Get your fucking head together.

I smile politely, thanking Teresa for inviting us into her home. Following the three chattering women, I take in my surroundings. The Baccino home reminds me of the one my mother kept before she died; it’s homey with family portraits lining the walls. There are comfortable, well-worn couches and a massive recliner in the living room, I guess it’s for Stella’s father to watch games. That reminds me, I want to offer him tickets to see the Wind or the Scrapers.

The dining room table has a paisley tablecloth and china already set for five when we enter the room. Decadent scents float into the room from the kitchen, which appears in the doorway behind the head of the table. My stomach rumbles and I find my lips curving up. There’s a lot of family love in this room.

Stella clasps her hands together drawing my gaze to her short, fire-engine red nails. Jesus, even her nails are hot. “Drinks?”

“In our home, we drink wine,” Teresa tells Zoe and me sternly.

My smile grows wider. “I’m never one to turn down red wine. But you won’t find me giving these girls anymore to drink tonight. They’re underage.”

“Very good,” a gruff voice says from the doorway to the kitchen. Stella’s dad, I presume. He has a bottle of red wine tucked under one arm. With the other, he reaches out to toss an arm around his wife and squeeze her to his side. He presses a kiss to her lips and releases her to move on to Stella. “
Piccola
,” he murmurs before dropping his lips to the crown of her head.

Warmth spreads through me at their obvious affection. I pretend that I’m not looking to settle down, sleeping with whatever woman I choose. Ultimately, what I see before me is what I want most in life. But I haven’t found a woman to share it with yet. Up until recently, my life has revolved around raising my sister. It’s only now that I’m adjusting to life without her at home.

“Carlo,” the man of few words says, thrusting his hand out. I shake his with a purpose and he moves along to my sister.

“Let’s eat,” Stella instructs after returning from the kitchen with a heaping plate of meatballs. “Sit, sit.”

I can’t help but feel a smug sense of satisfaction when I’ve managed to pick a seat next to the one that Stella will occupy when she’s done dressing the table with our dinner. Each time she walks out of the kitchen with a new dish, she brushes past the back of my chair and a light flowery scent tickles my nostrils. It makes me want to hook my arm around her waist and tug her into my lap so I can find out if she tastes as good as she smells.

What is wrong with me?
This girl is my sister’s friend and nine years younger than I am. I need to get ahold of myself.

The tantalizing spread yanks my attention away from my less-than-pure thoughts. Olive oil and basil adorn a beefsteak tomato and mozzarella salad, there’s a massive bowl of spaghetti to top the meatballs with, a pile of heaping and fragrant garlic bread, and breaded chicken. Their fragrances tease my nostrils. It’s a familiar scene of food from my trips to the Baccino restaurant.

“Are you sure we have enough food?” Zoe jokes.

Stella slides into the seat next me, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “I wasn’t sure if we had enough,” she confesses. I tighten my hand into a fist under the table to keep myself from tugging that lip away from her gentle assault.

Teresa serves wine and I loosen my fist and take a healthy swig. The Primitivo snakes down my throat, offering little to ease my overactive libido.

“What are you studying in school, Zoe?” Teresa asks as the food is passed around the table.

“Library science with a minor in education. I want to work in an elementary school after I get my Master’s,” my sister explains.

“Then you have something in common with my daughter. She won’t go into the family business, either,” Carlo says still in that gruff voice.

Stella’s posture goes rigid next to me and I notice her cheeks gain color. At that moment, I’ll do anything to get back the smiling version that greeted us when we entered the house.

I force out a carefree laugh as I help myself to a heaping portion of spaghetti. “Zoe’s never been passionate about football or hockey. For some reason, she prefers the company of children to grown men with an abundance of testosterone.”

Carlo chuckles at that, shaking his head.

“Aren’t you proud of Stella for making the Dean’s List three semesters in a row? The girl aced stat,” my sister says reverently.

“Ah, I am incredibly proud of my
piccola
,” Carlo says. “I just wish that she’d use her head for business for our restaurant. But who asks me? I’m just the father.”

“Just the father who loves to guilt his daughter,” Stella ribs him with a tender smile. “You won’t get rid of me just because I’m not working at Baccino’s. I’ll always stay in the city.”

That soft omission in her sweet voice comforts a part of me that I didn’t realize was agitated. I try to tell myself that I only care if she stays in the city for Zoe’s sake, but there’s a part of me that knows I want to keep seeing her, too.

The front door slams, breaking up my inappropriate train of thought. “Honey, I’m home!”

Stella leaps up like a kid who just heard the ice cream truck outside. “Max, we’re in here.”

Who in the hell is Max?

A tall, broad (I’m bigger, not that anyone’s asking) dude parades into the dining room wearing a Chicago Fire Department sweatshirt. He has the same dark hair and clear blue eyes like Stella and her dad, and the knot of tension in my stomach dissipates. Clearly, they’re related.

Jealous over a girl I can never have? This won’t do. This won’t do at all. I need to get my shit together
now
.

I don’t flinch or show a speck of emotion while Max greets the room, kissing the women and introducing himself to Zoe and me. Soon, I realize that he’s not a threat. The guy doesn’t hit on my sister (if he did, I’d rip him limb from limb). In fact, the guy’s cool and wants to talk shop with me without being obnoxious.

“My brother, Dominic, works for the Wings,” Max tells me, referring to a professional team on the West Coast of Canada.

“Nice. What’s he do for them?” I sink my teeth into a succulent slice of meatball, nearly groaning with pleasure instead of listening to his response. This food is fantastic, even better than the meals that I’ve had at the family restaurant.

“Assistant to the director of player development. My brother loves the sport like mad, made his dreams come true,” Max tells me with obvious pride.

“He gets a little more experience and wants to come back, tell him to give me a call,” I say once I’ve calmed my reaction to the tender beef. Max nods his thanks. Beside me, Stella beams and I feel a flush of pleasure at her gratitude. It’s an emotion that I don’t bother to analyze.

A little while later, we’re gathered near the front door, climbing into our jackets and other cold-weather fighting gear. We’ve bid farewell to Carlo and Max, who got clean-up duty thanks to the stink eye from Teresa. The woman commands the house with the bat of her eyelashes. It’s pretty funny to watch a tough guy like Carlo fall to her demands.

I’ll never be like that. With Zoe to take care of and my career, there’s not time to think about settling down with a woman right now. The concept of happily ever after won’t be on my radar for a long, long time—not until after my sister doesn’t need me anymore.

“Teresa, that was the best Italian I’ve ever had,” I tell her with a wink.

“
Bambino
, I didn’t do any of the cooking. It was my Stella. She’s talented, hmm?” There’s a twinkle in Teresa’s eye, like she knows that her pretty daughter has caught my attention. I school my features, but let my gaze drift over to Stella, who is blushing sweetly as she zips her feet into heeled boots.

“It was nothing,” she murmurs.

That blush makes me want to kiss her ten times more than I did when I walked into the house an hour earlier. She has culinary skills, too?

I have to push this beautiful girl out of my head. Fast.

After Teresa kisses us all goodbye with a flurry of Italian words that I don’t understand, I herd the girls into the backseat of the SUV. Somehow, Stella winds up wedged between Zoe and me. The gentle scent of her floral perfume wraps around me, rendering me absolutely fucking useless on the short drive from her home to the Chicago Center. Several inches separate us on the bench seat, but if I were to shift just right…

Fuck it.

Feigning nonchalance, I stretch my right leg so it rests against hers. Could it be my imagination or did she just suck in a breath? I wonder what it would be like to have her hair tangled around my fist, her legs spread wide while I –

“Right, Blake?”

Zoe’s voice is a surprise bucket of Gatorade tossed on your head after winning the Super Bowl. It gives me the jolt that I need to stop fantasizing about her friend. “What was that, Cupcake?” I use the nickname our mom gave to Zoe at her first birthday.

“You won’t mind if Stella spends the night after the concert?”

My eyelids fall closed and I let out a silent prayer.
Please, God, don’t let me see her in pajamas.

“Sure,” I grit out through clenched teeth. The request from my sister should make me glad that’s she found such a close friend. But I’m anything but tranquil. My jeans feel like they’ve shrunk two sizes and the back of my neck prickles with anticipation. Zoe doesn’t know it, but she’s just sealed the deal for me—I won’t be sleeping at home tonight.

I don’t know how I make it through the show. We’re sitting in the owner’s box and it’s only the three of us in here tonight. While I lurk on a leather seat inside the box, watching a basketball game moodily, Zoe and Stella venture to the seats out in the arena, laughing, singing along, and swaying to the music. It takes all my self-control not to haul Stella over my shoulder and take her back to my bed.

Where she belongs.

These desires are so out of character that they frighten me. I’m nowhere near settling down, least of all with a twenty-year-old girl who is still in college.

They say life is about choices. You spend your life making decisions and dealing with the consequences, whether they are positive or negative. In my tumultuous frame of mind, I make a choice. A very poorly thought out choice, but one that I have to live with, nevertheless.

As soon as Cassidy finishes her encore, I tell the girls that we’re going backstage to meet the singer. They follow behind the private elevator to the lower level of the Chi Center, talking giddily. I push their voices out of my mind, leading them with long, purposeful strides.

There are perks to owning the joint. The security guards clear the way for me, knowing not to bother me when I’m in a foul mood.

With a short knock, I push my way into Cassidy’s crowded backstage room. The moment she lays her fake-eyelash covered gaze on me, she squeals. The sound hurts my ears, but I pretend it doesn’t.

“Blake Campbell, I didn’t know you were coming back here!” She literally launches herself at me, latching her over tanned arms around my neck and thrusting her glitter-speckled tits against my chest.

And then, in plain sight of Stella, I yank the pop star into my arms and thrust my tongue down her throat.

You are a moron.