Dante smiled, though his gaze still glittered with something Sid didn’t quite understand. “What have you been raging about?”
“How do you know I’ve been raging?”
“You’ve got that look you get when you’re shouting at schoolteachers for letting kids trample your lettuce plants.”
“You make me sound like Mr McGregor.”
“Who?”
“Peter Rabbit,” Sid said as if that would make the Beatrix Potter character more relevant to an inner-city gangster.
Dante’s stare turned blank.
Sid shook his head. “Never mind. I wasn’t raging. Just being a dick to Benjamin.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He annoys me just by existing sometimes, and I take my bad moods out on him.”
“You’re in a bad mood?”
Sid closed the small space between them and brought his mouth to Dante’s throat. “Not anymore.”
Dante’s chuckle was dirty and went straight to Sid’s blood, warming it with a rush of heat he’d never experienced with other men. It was more than arousal. More than desire. It was an existential trip that blew Sid’s mind each and every time he felt it.
He kissed Dante’s neck, sucking lightly.
Dante shivered and brought his hands to Sid’s hips. “Don’t do that. I’ll be walking around with a boner for the rest of the day.”
“Lucky you.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I didn’t say it for sympathy. And I told you before, just because I don’t always get hard, doesn’t mean I can’t feel it.”
“Can you feel it now?”
Sid took Dante’s hand and pressed it to his lower belly, then with their fingers entwined, slid it up to the left side of his chest. “Of course I can. It’s gonna be a real bad day before I can’t feel you.”
That day would come, of that, Sid had no doubt. But with Dante this close, stoking the smouldering flames in Sid’s gut, it seemed a lifetime away.
Still, boner or not for either of them, getting fruity in the tool shed in the middle of the day was a bad idea. Sid kissed Dante, just once, then pulled away. “What’s bothering you? And don’t say nothing. Tell me to piss off instead.”
Dante released his grip on Sid’s hips. He stepped back, though whether to escape the conversation or be sensible, Sid couldn’t tell. “You think I’d tell you to piss off?”
“No clue, mate. But I’d rather you did than you lied to me. And it would let me know to mind my own business. Just because I ask you something, doesn’t mean you have to answer.”
“That sounds more complicated than it needs to be.” Dante held up his phone again. “I sent Paolo a message. He didn’t reply. Now I’m freaking out that Luis told him not to because he never wants to speak to me again.”
That explained the death glare Sid had seen through the window. He took Dante’s phone and considered the blank screen. “When did you message him?”
“A few days ago.”
“What did you say?”
Dante winced. “Something that could be interpreted badly.”
“How so?”