Take this time with him. Live in the moment and take whatever happiness you can get.
Looking into his turbulent gaze, Sarah knew he wanted to go out for a walk simply because they could. John was dead; the threat was over. They could go walk out on his private beach without worrying about constantly looking over their shoulders.
She didn’t debate the right and wrong of what she was doing, thinking only with her heart as she took his hand.
They walked out onto the beach with Coco following behind, talking about absolutely nothing important. Both of them laughed as Coco approached the lapping waves warily, as though they were the enemy, and then watched them retreat with a brave bark every time the water moved backward, as though the canine had scared the enemy away. Dante helped Sarah make a sand castle, a first for her, which ended up looking more like just a big pile of mud than anything resembling a fortress, but Sarah was proud of it anyway . . . until Coco decided to run across the top of the pile, throwing both her and Dante into a fit of laughter.
Sarah’s heart ached every time Dante gave her a lingering kiss. Some of his caresses were meant to brand her, and some were just cherishing strokes of his lips against hers, as though he was still trying to assure himself that she was beside him. Sarah saved up every one of those embraces, fixing them in her memory and keeping them close to her heart.
Dante shared some of his more amusing stories about growing up with his siblings, tales that didn’t include his abusive father or emotionally vacant mother.
They all protected each other.
Every story concluded with one sibling bailing another one out of trouble. They might have teased the hell out of each other, but they’d always come to the rescue in the end.
“I always wished that I had a brother or sister,” Sarah told him wistfully as they stumbled back into the house, wet and caked with sand.
“Your mother never came close to getting married again?” Dante asked curiously.
“No,” Sarah replied thoughtfully. “She never even dated. Everything was about my education.”
She and Dante stepped back outside the door, deciding to shed their jeans to keep from dropping mud through the house.
They ran upstairs to shower, Dante grumbling when Sarah sent him to his own bathroom. “No stress today,” she told him sternly as she walked toward the guest bathroom. “That includes any type of exertion,” she called back over her shoulder, knowing he’d understand that “exertion” equaled sex.
He didn’t follow, but she felt his eyes on her as she went to the guest room and closed the door.
The window of Dante’s bedroom was open, but the soothing sounds of the ocean weren’t helping him tonight. Sleep was eluding him, and he knew exactly why.
I can’t sleep without her.
Dante rolled over onto his back with an annoyed grunt. Knowing Sarah was sleeping in the guest room right down the hall was making him nearly insane.
There’s nothing worse than being obsessed with a female who’s a damn doctor!
She’d insisted, lecturing him about the need for sleep and recovery time because of his head injury.
I have a head as hard as a damn bowling ball. I don’t need to sleep alone and I don’t want to sleep alone.
Granted, he probably could have seduced her, made her want to come to his bed, but he hadn’t done it. She’d threatened to leave his ass and go back home if he didn’t behave.
Like hell she will.
However, just the thought of not having her close to him was enough to make him back off. After dinner, they’d spent a lazy evening together, Sarah eventually wandering to the piano to play. Dante wasn’t that familiar with classical music, but he didn’t need to be. He picked up on her emotions immediately: everything she played was broody and dark. Something was bothering her and he didn’t know how to fix it. She’d nearly killed him with her open sobs of fear and pain last night in the hospital, and he’d tried to absorb every bit of it as she wept, hoping he’d never see her that upset again. But it was something different this time. She didn’t appear frightened, but Dante couldn’t seem to put a finger on what exactly was causing her to appear so unusually fragile. He didn’t like it.
She seemed . . . almost sad, melancholy. He shouldn’t have left her alone, but he’d been afraid that she would bolt, and he couldn’t really object to her leaving anymore because her life wasn’t in danger.
She’s free to do whatever she wants.
While that fact should make him happy, it actually scared the shit out of him. Yeah. Okay. He was glad that she was out of danger and wasn’t stuck indoors anymore because it made her unhappy. But the thought of her actually leaving, going back to a life without him, made him completely crazy.
So, here he was, staring up at the ceiling while a woman he wanted more than anything else in the world was sleeping in the guest room down the hall. Dante figured having her close was better than having her gone completely.