16. Lia
Chapter 16
Lia
It’s dark out and I’m pretty sure it’s the middle of the night. I’m just laying here in silence, thinking about the past few days on repeat. It’s like I’m stuck on a never-ending loop and I just want it to end.
“You okay?” he asks.
My back is against his chest. One of his arms is under the pillow my head is on, his free hand on my tummy. He’s all around me, like he’s part of me. Or scared I’m going to run.
“Just thinking,” I murmur.
“Careful…” He presses a kiss against my neck. “I’ve heard what happens when you think.”
“Oh, have you? Are you scared?” I squeeze his thigh and stop what I was about to say and instead ask, “What happened to our divorce?”
“I had people sort that out.” He kisses my shoulder this time. “You know I’m yours. You know you’re mine.”
“Which people?”
After a heavy exhalation, he grumbles, “Is that all you took from that?”
I chuckle lightly. “No. I heard you tell me I own you.”
He sinks his teeth into my shoulder before sucking. “I’m going to mark you.”
I lift my arm in the air and wiggle my left hand, fourth finger. “You already did.”
“Ah yes, that ring needs to be darker now that you’re ready to let the world know who you are?”
“What makes you say that?” I try to glance over my shoulder and see him.
He pulls away from me, flipping me around until my head rests on his chest. My hand covers his beating heart as I wait.
“You’ve let the Mafia know you exist. Your inheritance has been watched for years. People have been waiting for the dormant account to be activated.”
“I thought everyone knew I existed when you activated my DNA.”
“You know?” he asks, stunned into silence.
“Jove sent me the video of you killing the men who turned up outside the building.”
“Mmm.”
“My thoughts exactly. You’d already married me when you went to retrieve the DNA results. You’d already gotten me pregnant. What if…”
He presses a kiss on my head. “I never needed a DNA result to know you were mine. You were mine, regardless of the result.”
“Even if I wasn’t Aurelia Moretti?” I ask, stunned.
“I was praying you were. In my heart, I knew you were, but it was too late for me by then.”
“Dante.” His name rolls off my tongue, but nothing follows.
What can?
“It was too late because I was already in love with you.”
My battered heart flips, knowing in all this darkness my husband is the sweetness of men.
“Did you find out who killed your mother?” he asks after a moment of silence.
I exhale deeply, realizing I haven’t told him about her sacrifice yet, and say, “That’s what I’ve been thinking about.”
“I thought so.” He places his index finger under my chin and tilts my face up to look at him. “I’m here for you. For anything. To hold you. For a shoulder to cry on. As a punching bag if you need to get your frustrations out.”
My heart is pounding inside my chest. It feels like it’s trying to break out. “Thank you.”
He smiles. His eyes shine with emotion. “Anything for you.”
He lowers his head and kisses my forehead.
“She killed herself.” The words are out before I get the chance to stop them. “She poisoned herself.”
Dante’s eyes narrow and by his expression, I believe it’s the first time he’s heard it.
“Antonio had a video. I saw everything.”
He sighs. “I’m so fucking sorry. He should never have shown you that.”
I shake my head. “I needed to see it. I needed to see her. I …” I blow out a breath and try to keep myself composed, but fail miserably.
He pulls me up the bed until my head drops on the pillow and holds me while the tears flow.
It took me a while to get back to sleep. It felt like the tears would never end. Through it all, Dante rocked me in his arms, and whispered the sweetest words until darkness found me again.
And today is a new day.
I can’t wallow in her death, but I can change the future. I can make her proud of me and I can be whomever I want. Especially with him … Dante … by my side.
I watched him for a few minutes while he slept. His eyelashes are dark and thick, the color matching his almost black hair. But it’s the way he sleeps that makes me smile.
He’s like a dead man. The only sound is a tiniest amount of air released from his perfectly straight nose.
I reach up and stroke the tip of my finger gently along his angled jaw. The scruff catches against my fingernail as he stirs a little under my touch.
“I love you,” I murmur. I do.
His hand quickly covers mine. “Say that again.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
In an instant, he flips me onto my back and covers my body with his. His forearms rest on either side of my head. “You love me.”
I smile as he stares down at me with burning intensity, waiting for my answer.
“Yes, my gorgeous husband. I love you.” I say, putting him out of his misery. “I’ve told you before.”
“Never first.” His dick hardens against my thigh. After repositioning himself so his cock presses against my core, he kisses me. A long, passionate kiss that does nothing to stop the electricity from shooting between my legs.
I gasp, arching into him.
“I’m going to fuck you until you can’t walk, wife,” he growls.
The sound of his need causes goosebumps to scatter on my arms.
He kisses my neck. His lips pressing all the way down my body until his mouth covers my nipple.
“Dante?”
“Yes Wife.” My nipples harden with his possessive tone.
I chuckle. “Are you always going to call me ‘wife’ now?”
“Or Mamma. I don’t know which I prefer yet. Mamma … Wife… Lover. Or maybe my Queen.” He kisses my belly while circling my hard nipple with his thumb.
I suck in a breath as a shiver of desire runs down my spine when he reaches between my thighs. My legs are open, ready for him, and I have to stop my hips from trying to get what I want.
I feel so needy.
My hands reach for his hair, fingers twisting as he sweeps his tongue through my folds, only stopping to circle the tip over my clit.
As he runs his tongue up and down my center, I release a groan of primal sounding pleasure. And when he slides a finger inside me as his lips latch on my clit, I groan, arching my back to get more of his thick finger … more of his wicked tongue… more of his hot mouth… more of him.
“I need to feel your cock inside me,” I whimper.
He sucks on my clit as he shoves another finger deep inside me, curls it, and stars are all I see.
My heart hammers against my chest and my blood pounds in my ears.
I’m euphoric as I convulse against his mouth. And I can’t stop my climax as it rips through me like a tornado, crying out his name over and over.
My legs are still trembling when I beg him to stop.
“Good girl,” he presses a kiss against my center before he crawls up my body and kisses me on my lips, letting me taste myself.
Once upon a time I’d find that embarrassing—now I love it.
Dante presses his hands on the mattress and pushes himself back and rests on his heels. The look he gives me is wild and dangerous. But I ignore it as my eyes slowly roam from his to where he fists his thick, veiny cock in his hand.
“That’s mine,” I say.
“Everything’s yours, wife.” His lips turn upward. He leans forward and lines his massive cock against my entrance. “I’m all yours. Only yours.” And with a thrust, he slams his dick deep inside me.
I want to say something sassy, but my words are stuck in the back of my throat. His cock has rendered me speechless. Of course, I remember every inch of his glorious dick, but this seems different. We feel different.
He covers me. My breasts tingle against his hard chest.
Our lips meet in a torrid kiss. When he pulls away, his gaze never leaves mine as he snaps his hips back and forth.
“You feel so fucking good.” It comes out harsh as my nails dig into the hard planes of his back.
“Don’t stop.” I breathe.
He thrusts again. Over and over, as I whimper underneath him. And then he slips out.
I’m about to scream, but he flips me over, pulls me up onto my hands and knees, and thrusts his thick cock into me.
Then I scream.
“Dimmi cosa vuo?” he leans over my body and whispers in my ear.
I laugh. “Sempre te, marito mio.”
“You speak Italian?” he says, surprise laces his tone.
“My father brought me up speaking Italian and English.”
He chuckles. “I should’ve known. And l love you calling me your husband.”
His fingers dig into the flesh of my hips as he pounds into me from behind. I love it. I can’t get enough of this man.
My husband.
My fingers curl as I grab handfuls of the sheet in my hand. I’m getting so close again.
He reaches around and cups one breast in his hand while the other slides over my slippery clit. His fingers go faster, matching with the speed of his thrusts and before I can calm my racing heartbeat, my climax is building.
He squeezes my nipple. His other hand pinches my clit. The need to come is so real that I grind and slam my ass against his pelvis to quicken this up.
The hand on my nipple reaches across my body and takes the other the breast as he controls my body and his movements from behind. He’s primal—his grunts are like a feral animal as he bucks deeper into me.
“I want you to come with me. I want to feel your pussy squeezing every drop of cum out of me,” he groans in my ear.
I moan as his hips buck harder, and he pinches my nipple and clit at the same. “Come for me, now.”
My mouth opens on a gasp. “Oh, God…” My eyelids slide shut.
He thrusts into me. Forceful snaps of his hips as he holds me tight against his chest.
“Oh, yes.” My pussy clenches around his cock. “Dante … Dante. Oh, my … yes.”
He turns my head and crushes his mouth on mine. His hips still snapping as he fucks me hard until his body shudders.
I feel every shiver as he holds me tight.
I feel every drop of his hot cum as he empties himself inside me.
He doesn’t let me go. He holds me in silence while we both come down from the high.
“I’ll never let you go,” he says. “You know that, though, don’t you?”
I smile as I answer his question. “I don’t want you to.”
His whole body trembles against my back as he presses a kiss against the small tattoo on my neck. He always knew.
His laugh is low. “Good. Now I need to clean you.”
I glance over my shoulder minutes later, because he said the words, but he hasn’t moved. He's still inside me.
He gazes at me from under heavy-lidded lids.
“What else? I know you want to say something else.”
He expels a heavy breath and slides out of me, turns me around so I’m facing him. His hands cup my face before one finger gently slides across my lips. “I’ll let no one hurt you. You’ll always be protected now. Not only by me, Rafe and Cade, but because once everyone knows you’re mine, you become untouchable.”
I shake my head. “If that were the truth, my mom would still be alive. If that were the truth, an assassin wouldn’t have been following you around the world to kill your wife.”
“Your mother was never initiated. She never had that protection. And Eduardo Gallo is the only Syndicate man alive who doesn’t want to see the Moretti line being reinstated.”
“Which means I’m not safe,” I state.
After a moment of gazing at me in silence, he’s about to say something when his cell chimes. “One minute.”
He stretches across the bed and retrieves his phone. “It’s Cade.”
Dante’s eyes are on mine for the entire conversation, but it feels different now. This look isn’t lust or primal, this look is shock … anger.
“He’s missing,” he murmurs. “And nobody knows where the fuck he is.”
He listens again. His mouth opens before I watch a ripple run down his throat. He disconnects and says, “We need to leave.”
“Tell me who is missing?” I press. Fear is zipping through my veins. “Is it my dad?”
“No, it’s Rafe and…” He swallows. “Amara has been in a terrible car accident.”