She’d been a bratty starlet who was too jaded to believe in love.  He’d been the heir and grandson of the man who had founded one of the most successful department store chains in the states.

He’d set eyes on her at an industry party and become instantly smitten.

Here’s where the producer being interviewed went into detail about how Gram lit up a room, how she drew people to her like bees to honey, especially men.

But Grandpa hadn’t been just any man.  He was beautiful.  He was larger than life.  And, after hearing her tell one of her famous stories to a crowd at the party, he was determined to make her his.

According to Gram and the pictures I’d seen, he was the near spitting image of Dante, so it was easy for me at least to see why she hadn’t been able to resist him.

And his courtship of her had been famously tumultuous.

Gram herself was interviewed on the doc at that point, with a soundbite about Grandpa.  “He was the most determined, stubborn, ruthless son of a bitch I ever met.  I didn’t stand a chance from the moment he decided he was in love with me,” she told the interviewer, followed by her delightful laugh.

My eyes filled at the sound.

“And when did he decide he was in love with you?” the unseen interviewer asked.

She laughed again.  She was at least sixty in the video but still vibrant, still beautiful, still absolutely gorgeous with vitality.  “Well, the first time he set eyes on me of course.  Have you seen me?”

Even the interviewer was laughing at that and I was smiling through my tears.

“How did he court you?” they asked her.

“You name it.  I couldn’t even walk into my house because of the flowers for a good three months.  Little gifts sent to me everywhere I traveled, little thoughtful things that let me know he had bothered to learn my tastes.  And of course some not so little things,” she wiggled her brows, “well they were little, but they came in light blue boxes from Tiffany’s if you know what I mean.  But the gifts were just a small part of it.  They were thoughtful and cute, but it was the man himself that was impossible to resist.  He gave me his time, and insisted I give him some of mine, which wasn’t easy to arrange at that time, but we did it.  And then—the way he looked at me when I told a joke, the way he smiled, and laughed, and always had a comeback that surprised a giggle out of me.”

“How did he win you?”

“By making me fall for him.  How else?  There are not many men that love the way he did.  I just don’t think many humans are capable of that kind of devotion, but once you get a taste of it, especially if you’re a vain thing like me, it’s completely addictive.  I didn’t stand a chance.  He made me less jaded, less insecure.  He softened me in a way that I needed at that point in my life.  The industry has been wonderful to me, don’t get me wrong, but just then the harsher aspects of it were turning me brittle.  He brought me back.”

I quietly got up and left the room.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

“Love is the whole and more than all.”

~E.E. Cummings

PAST

We were in my grandma’s trailer, on the sofa getting hot and heavy again, and every farther bit we went only led to more.  It was a one-way street, the progression of it.  Once the top was off, it came off every time, once the bra was off, it came off whenever we were alone.

I was straddling Dante and rocking against him as he felt me up, kneading at my flesh, and soon that was not enough either.

I pulled my mouth away.

He let me, but I could tell that he really, really didn’t want to.

I smiled at him and took my shirt off.

His breaths grew into jagged pants, and I loved the way his hungry, adoring eyes drank in the sight of me.

To reward him I took off my bra.

“Jesus,” he muttered before bending down and taking one sensitive tip into his mouth.

This I could hardly take.  I needed something, more, anything, but couldn’t articulate any of it because I wasn’t quite sure what it was.

So I just kept rocking on top of him while he licked and sucked at my sensitive breasts, his hands cupping them, kneading them, feeling at every inch of flesh I’d bared until he had it measured and memorized, all the while making noises like he was losing his mind.

Eventually he laid me on my back and brought his lips back to mine.

“Take your shirt off,” I told him.  I needed to feel his skin against mine, his chest against my breasts while they were still wet from his mouth.

He straightened and did it, then paused for a moment, his hands going to the button of his pants.

I’d known he was growing by the day, getting less lean and more bulky, but it wasn’t until then that I saw just how muscular he was now.  Looking at him then I saw not a trace of the boy I loved.  Instead I saw the man he was becoming.  A man I knew even then that I’d spend my life being infatuated with.

I watched unblinking, legs sprawled apart, wearing nothing but my shorts.

He squared his jaw and took his hand away then crawled back between my thighs still wearing his jeans.

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed.

This was even better than before with him on top rubbing hard between my legs, our chests smashed together, his mouth hot and hungry on mine.

His hands explored me again, reaching every place they could with our mouths melded together.

He shifted off me and slid his fingers slowly, tentatively up my inner thigh.

I squirmed, hands in his hair, kissing him for all I was worth.