Dante pulled his hands out of his pockets and stared at his brother, giving him a suspicious look. “What’s your interest in her?” Jared was very rich, very successful, and very much in the public eye. He was known for never being seen with the same woman more than once. Dante didn’t give a damn if Jared wanted to change women every day, but Sarah wasn’t going to be one of his daily specials.
“My only interest is in hearing her play. She’s a local doctor, Emily’s friend, and a woman who’s off-limits for me—just like she should be off-limits for you, Dante. She’s not the type of woman you can play around with. You’re going back to Los Angeles eventually. Don’t start something that’s going to leave her hurting. She’s a nice woman.”
Relieved that his brother wasn’t going to hit on Sarah, he replied, “I don’t want to play around with her. I actually like her. I can’t stop thinking about her.” He’d skip mentioning the sexual fantasies he had about her, and how desperately he wanted to fuck her.
“If you mess with her, Grady’s going to kill you if you make Emily unhappy. You know how he is about Em,” Jared warned ominously. “If she gets a hangnail, he about loses his mind.”
Yeah. Dante knew how protective Grady was about Emily, but he knew even that knowledge wouldn’t stop him from seeking Sarah out, trying to get closer to her. He felt like he was being lured by a feeling that was greater than lust. He wanted to fuck her, but there was something . . . more. “Maybe we could just be friends. I have several more weeks to recover. We could hang out.” Okay, it was lame, and a complete lie. But he was attempting to be nonchalant in front of his brother.
Jared broke into a loud snort of laughter. “Who the hell are you trying to fool? Dante, I’ve seen the way you look at her. Every damn glance says you want her naked. And I catch her sending you the same signals.”
“She is?” Dante looked at Jared hopefully. Honestly, he’d never really sensed, heard, or seen much from her in the last week except for her practical and logical side, which drove him completely insane after sampling the passion she was capable of feeling. He’d like to kill the man who’d initiated her into the world of physical pleasure. On the other hand, there was a primal part of him that reveled in the fact that she’d only been with one guy, and it hadn’t been pleasant. He wanted to be the man who made her scream with pleasure, the only one who made her come until she shattered to pieces as she chanted his name like he was the only thing she could think about. The scar was healing on his face, but it would never be completely gone, and the rest of him wasn’t particularly attractive at the moment. He knew he hadn’t been the only one feeling the heat between him and Sarah, but he asked Jared anyway. “You think she’s attracted to me?”
Jared shook his head. “You’re really pathetic. Do you know that? Yeah. She’s attracted. But the fact still remains that she isn’t a woman to mess around with.”
She’s attracted. Dante ignored the rest of Jared’s lecture. “I’m out of here. I’ll catch you later.” Dante wanted to get to the youth center before Sarah started playing.
“Dante,” Jared called out to him.
“Yeah.” Dante turned back to Jared impatiently.
“Here’s the key to your truck.”
Dante snatched the set of keys as they went sailing above his head. “Thanks,” he muttered sincerely, happy to get his keys back again. Taking his keys once his truck had arrived in Amesport had been one of his brothers’ many ploys to keep him grounded.
He stopped as he stepped outside, taking a moment to absorb the scent and sound of the ocean. He had his own small beach behind the house, and he loved the sound of the waves hitting the shore. Opening the window every night had become a routine, letting the sounds of the ocean lull him to sleep. Strangely, since his passionate encounter with Sarah, he hadn’t had a single nightmare about Patrick.
He hopped into the driver’s seat of his truck, a sense of peace washing over him just from doing something normal again. Evan had made sure his truck was transported to Amesport, an act that Dante had thought was unnecessary at the time. It wasn’t like he wasn’t going back to Los Angeles, and he could have rented a car. Now he was sending a silent thank-you to his eldest brother. The familiar feel of the big truck and the scent of the leather interior made him feel almost balanced again. “I owe you one, big brother,” Dante whispered to himself, smiling as he felt the powerful engine jump to life.
Evan, at the age of thirty-three, was definitely the one who handled details like bringing Dante’s truck to Amesport. He always knew what his younger siblings needed. Grady had just turned thirty-two. Dante was thirty-one, and Jared was the youngest male in the family, almost thirty. Their little sister, Hope, wasn’t so little anymore, just having turned twenty-seven, and newly married to Jason Sutherland, a childhood friend of Grady’s. Actually, Jason was a friend of the family because he’d grown up near their childhood home in Boston, but had come precariously close to getting the shit beat out of him by all the Sinclair brothers after the stunt he’d pulled to make Hope his wife. Luckily, it had ended well, because Jason handled both Dante’s portfolio and Grady’s, making sure both brothers continued to grow wealthier every day. Admittedly, Dante didn’t care much about the money. He mostly lived on his salary as a detective and rarely touched the money his father had left him. He’d been pretty stunned when he’d drawn out money to give to Karen and Ben, finally glancing at his balance for the first time in years. He’d been incredibly wealthy when he’d turned his financial management over to Jason years ago, but now he was ridiculously rich.