After the coughing fit passed, I wiped a hand over my mouth. “Excuse me.”
He refilled his spoon and tilted it in my direction. “Maybe you should take a mouthful, to soothe your throat.”
There was no way I could resist his offer. It was the perfect combination of innocent gesture and sexual entrapment. I could live off the headiness of that shit for days. “Maybe you’re right.”
With a lazy grin, he moved the spoon towards my lips and I leaned forward to accept the cold substance with a soft hum of appreciation. “Yum,” I murmured, licking my lips.
“It’s pretty damned good. In fact, I think it’s my new favourite.” He picked up the carton to check out the label. “Is this your favourite?”
Dante was my favourite. That’s all I knew in that moment. My favourite rock star. My favourite fantasy. From the first time he threatened me and posed for me and kissed me to within a few seconds of embarrassing myself. He became my favourite everything. “I’m not sure I’ve ever really wanted anything else.”
My voice was steeped in arousal and Dante’s gaze lifted to mine, his eyes heavy-lidded and sensual in the dim light. “You want more?”
I couldn’t speak. My pulse raced, in tempo with the heavy beating of my heart. I stepped around the counter and lowered myself onto the second stool, right by his side, before nodding.
“Me too,” he murmured. Then he filled the spoon and put it into his mouth.
My lips turned up at the corners as I blinked in surprise. “Hey, I thought that was for me.”
“It is,” he managed to say around the mouthful of ice cream. He tossed the spoon into the carton and then his hands were on my face, his cold fingers spreading out across my cheeks. He pressed his lips to mine and thrust his tongue deep into my mouth. I gasped at the shock of the cold ice cream, reaching up to cover Dante’s hands with my own. I needed to pull away. We shouldn’t be doing this. But then his tongue stroked mine and I gave in, moaning my relief.
The low sound of acquiescence seemed to be all the encouragement Dante needed. Standing, he nudged my knees apart with his thigh, so he could insert himself between them. The height of the stool put me slightly lower than him, and he took full advantage of the position. One hand found its way into my hair, gripping tight to the long strands as he angled my head to better receive his ever-deepening kisses. The other hand slid down around my torso, pulling me flush against his hard body. My own arms wrapped around his neck in response.
Our position was a perfect emulation of that first night, when he’d lifted me onto the dressing table and stood between my legs as we made out. After all these years, we’d ended up right back where we started—and he still had no idea who I was.
This was wrong. So unbelievably wrong. There was so much I hadn’t told him, so many ways I’d lied to him.
Tearing my mouth free, I sucked in a deep breath. “Dante.” I barely managed to rasp the name as his lips found my throat, and when he responded by humming against me, I swear to God my eyes rolled back in my head. “We need to stop.” Leaning back away from his body, I grabbed on to the seat under me, so I wouldn’t be able to reach for him again. “We can’t do this.”
“I know, I know.” The words rushed out of him between kisses, but his hands continued to travel the length of me, learning every inch of my bare skin. “We’ll stop,” he agreed as his fingers spanned my waist, “soon. Not yet.”
My conscience was no match for the lust streaking through my veins and I nodded. “Soon.” Gripping hard to the seat beneath me, I lifted my hips until the hardness of my erection brushed against his.
A strangled sound wrenched out of him and he jerked against me, as I had once done to him. “Christ, you feel good.”
I revelled in his words. He may have coaxed an innocent boy into his dressing room the night we met, but I was a man now. I knew exactly how to please another man, and a perverse part of me wanted to show Dante exactly how pleasing I could be.
Curling my pelvis, I rubbed our cocks together in long, languid strokes. The barriers between us—his boxers, my pyjamas—were too thin to cause interference. I could feel the heat of him, the ridge where the head of his thick cock met the shaft. My body pulsed in readiness. If we didn’t stop now, there would be no turning back.
“I want you.” The words were muffled against my collarbone. “All of you.” He’d reached my chest and still he kept going. In moments, he’d be on his knees. My eyes drifted closed. Fuck, yes.
His fingertips trailed down over my stomach before pausing at the waistband of my pants. “Open your eyes.” Lifting my lids, I saw him kneeling before me, and it made my dick weep in joy and anticipation. “That’s better,” he said, favouring me with a sultry smile. “I want those eyes of yours on me, when I suck you to the back of my throat.”
My eyes. My grey eyes. The words were ice water in my veins. Who did Dante imagine he was with? Was he here with me? Or was he pretending to be with Grey—who also happened to be me? Fuck, this situation was doing my head in.
Holding him back with one hand, I eased off the stool sideways, so I wouldn’t bump against his face with my erection. Because that would have been an embarrassing sort of torture. Heading for the couch, I sat down and dropped my head into my hands. A restrained sigh filled the room, and then Dante pulled his pants on before lowering himself to the cushion beside me. He didn’t touch me. Which was probably a good thing, because I would have touched him back.
“I know we shouldn’t have done that,” he said, running his hands through his curls. “I mean, I’m not…”
“Gay?” I finished for him.
“Right.” He nodded. “And you’re with Alan.”
Alan? Oh, shit. I’d forgotten about Alan. He and I had managed a second date, when I’d been annoyed at Dante for our almost-kiss and wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t falling for him all over again—except I was. By the end of the night, I’d resigned myself to giving up on other men until after Dante left. I’d admitted to Alan I was interested in someone else and there was no point in us seeing each other again. His disappointment had been apparent, but he still shook my hand and wished me luck, like a true gentleman. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since, but at least he could provide a convenient excuse for why I’d stopped Dante from going to town on my dick. “Yes,” I told him. “I’m with Alan.”
A long silence followed, and I looked up. Dante stared hard at a random spot on the floor, but his gaze lifted back to mine before he asked, “Are you in love with him?”
I didn’t know how to answer his question. Well, I did in that the answer was no, obviously. But I couldn’t say that to Dante without the risk of prompting a whole host of other questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
“What does it matter?” I asked, irritably. “In six weeks, you’ll head back to Melbourne and continue being a womanising, heterosexual rock star. That’s the life you live, and I’ll be forgotten soon enough. Why do you care who I’m in love with?”
Dante recoiled, but then the shutters came down and that familiar smirk crawled onto his face. “I guess I don’t.” Getting up, he grabbed his shirt off the floor and stalked out of the flat, slamming the door behind him.
