Dante’s Girl (The Paradise Diaries #1)(18)
Author: Courtney Cole

“We’ve got plenty of culture,” I reply through my teeth.  “Just not an ocean nearby.”

I turn my back on her and sit in the empty seat next to Dante.  I’m surprised that Elena’s not already sitting there, but I try to put her out of my mind as I kick my shoes off and scrunch my toes into the soft sand.

Dante glances at me while he sticks a crab leg in a nut cracker.  He crunches it and I cringe at the horrid sound. Why would anyone want to eat that?

“You’ve really never had crab legs?” he asks doubtfully as though it couldn’t possibly be true.

“Nope,” I confirm.  “Never.”

“Well, then, my little Sunflower, you’re in for a treat,” he announces.

I freeze at the nickname.  Is he making fun of me?  I look at him and he doesn’t seem to be. He’s busy pulling stringy white meat from the broken crab legs. He was just being sweet.

It’s an endearment, you idiot, I tell myself.  So what does that mean?  I’m starting to become endeared to him?  And is endeared even a word?

“Here, try this,” Dante instructs me, holding out a piece of crab dripping with melted butter on a small fork.  I study it for a second and Dante rolls his eyes.

“Just try it,” he tells me.  “It’s not going to bite.”

I let him stick the fork in my mouth, expecting to taste a piece of Heaven, like I did when I tried the gelato.

But no.

That is most certainly not what I receive.

This isn’t Heaven.

This tastes like a dead fish in my mouth, which is actually true.

I try to resist spitting it out, instead concentrating on chewing up the hateful piece of meat.  Dante looks at my face and then dies laughing.

“Can I assume you don’t like it?” he asks, his face lit up like a Christmas tree in his amusement. He hands me a napkin.

I spit my crab into it and fold it in half, then in half again. Dante holds out his hand and I reluctantly hand him the chewed-up crab carcass and he throws it into a trash can.  They even thought to bring trash cans?  What kind of teenagers are these, anyway?

“It’s alright,” he tells me.  “I think maybe it is an acquired taste.  Which would also probably rule out oysters for you. Those are also an acquired taste.  Have you ever had them?”

I shake my head.  “Not unless you count Mountain Oysters.  Which I definitely do not.”

“Mountain Oysters?” he looks confused.

I blush and Dante looks immediately interested.

“What?  What’s wrong?  What are mountain oysters?”

I hesitate. Then decide to pull my big-girl panties up and explain.  Holy crap.  I’m not a child. I can totally do this without blushing.  I can.

“Mountain Oysters are bull balls.  Bull testicles, if you want to be technical.  I accidentally tried them when Connor and Quinn tricked Becca and I into eating them at a rodeo.”

I’m blushing.  My cheeks are red-hot.

“A rodeo?” Dante looks both curious at that and appalled and disgusted at the notion of eating a bull’s balls.

“It’s a sporting event,” I tell him.  “I can explain it later.  Is there anything else to eat here?”

Dante looks around and then shakes his head regretfully.

“I’m sorry. No. This is sort of a tradition.  We cook fresh seafood on the beach at night.  Our parents did it, our parents’ parents did it.  And so on. We’re not civilized enough to bring bread or anything.” He grins and touches my arm.

I feel the heat from his touch long after his hand is gone.

A perfect imprint of his hand is emblazoned on my arm.

It might be there forever for all that I know.

“Are you ready?” Dante asks, in a tone that suggests that he’s repeating himself.

“What?” I look at him dumbly.

He stares back patiently.

“Are you ready to go?  I’ll get you something to eat in the Palace kitchens.”

“Oh.  We don’t have to go so soon. We can just eat when we get back.  No big deal.”

Dante looks around and I follow his gaze.

There are two girls leaning into each other on the sand near us.  It looks like they will pass out at any given moment.  The group of boys in swim trunks have moved their party to the water and are rough-housing in the cold waves, shouting and hollering.  Gavin is busy trying to score with a petite blonde who still seems a tiny bit sober and all around us, drunken laughter splits the night.  It seems that we are the only two completely sober people here. I don’t see Elena anywhere.

“I’m ready,” Dante tells me.  I realize then that I haven’t seen him with a drink in his hand all evening.

“Do you not drink?”

He looks down at me, his face oh-so-handsome in the moonlight.  The silvery light washes across his cheeks, illuminating his cut-cheek-bones and I find that I want to touch him. I want to run my fingertips across his skin and inhale his man smell.  Oh, Lord.  What is wrong with me?

“I don’t,” he tells me. “Not usually.  Some champagne here and there at my father’s functions, but not really anything else. The last thing I need is for pictures of that to hit the papers.  I can see the headlines now:  Caberran Prince parties himself to an early grave.”

“It must be hard to be you,” I say softly.  “You have to think about every little thing you do.”

He stares down at me again, his eyes dark blue in the night.

“It’s not so hard to be me,” he tells me.  “And sometimes, it’s better than others.”

He brushes against me then, his hand lingering slightly against my hip.  It stays there for a second, then another. Did he mean to do that?

Surely he knows where his hand is.

I feel connected to him, like there is electricity jolting in the air, just like it felt on the plane.  His eyes are staring into mine and my heart is taking off like a galloping race horse.  He takes a step closer to me and now he’s definitely in my personal space. But I like it.  I can feel the heat emanating from his body and it’s pulling me to him.  If I wanted, I could take one little step and push myself against his chest.

If I wanted.

Which I do.

Want to.

And then, just when I start to move my foot, I hear my name.

A plaintive, pitiful mewl.