Chapter 21
DANTE
T he buzzing of my cell phone in my jacket pocket breaks through the episode of crazy. I’m inside Carmela. My cum is dripping out around my cock. I’m still semi-hard, even if my legs threaten to give out.
I really need to do this in a bed next time.
A laugh bubbles up. It doesn’t sound entirely sane.
How long have we been here?
Too damn long.
I pull out of her slowly. She whimpers, making me feel like the lowest form of scum.
I’ve just fucked a virgin up against the door—hammered her against it.
She’s going to be sore. I want to check her to make sure I haven’t done any damage…
run her a hot bath. “Sorry, baby,” I whisper, lowering her feet to the floor.
My cell is still buzzing. It injects further tension into an already tense situation.
“I’m fine,” she says, straightening out her skirt. Her face is adorably flushed, and her eyes are everywhere but on me.
I shove my cock back into my pants, close my zipper and my belt. There was blood on it— her blood.
I swallow thickly and try to get a grip.
My fucking cell is still buzzing. I snatch it out of my pocket.
“Get your ass out here now,” Christian says. He sounds amused, which makes me feel marginally better until I remember that this is Christian, and an apocalypse could be unfolding outside the door, and he would still smile and fucking wave. “Her sister is outside.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
Her eyes are on me now. I think that might be making me feel worse.
A strange alien emotion assaults me. If I thought I was feeling possessive before, it’s got nothing on the now.
I cup her cheeks and kiss her. “I have to go,” I whisper against her lips.
“Your sister is outside. I’m going to let her in. ”
Her eyes are huge and full of questions, but she nods and turns away.
This is fucking destroying me, but I know I have to go.
So finally, I do the right thing, rake a hand through my hair, straighten out my suit as best as I can, and step outside the door.
Her sister sends me a wary look and then charges past me into the room.
Christian was standing right behind her. Leon is approaching from the left.
A group of women spill out of another powder room fifty paces away on the other side of the corridor.
“Let’s go,” Christian says.
“Go?”
I turn back to the door. “I need to check if she's okay.” What the fuck is wrong with me leaving her like this?
“Not fucking happening,” Leon says, homing in on us. He throws an arm around my neck and all but hauls me down the corridor. “We’re going home. You’re getting drunk. Hopefully, tomorrow, we’re not all dead.”
The drive is a blur. I mentally swing between a full-blown rampage and common sense. Leon drives, and Christian sits in the back.
Glancing over at me, Leon pulls a flask out of his jacket pocket and shoves it at me. “Drink it.”
I do.
All of it. It burns a path down my throat and churns in my gut.
“What the fuck have I done?”
Christian snickers in the back.
I swing around and lurch for the gap between the front seats, ready to beat the shit out of my brother. My seatbelt brings me to an abrupt halt. I fumble with the release.
“Woah!” Leon shoves me back into my seat, the car swerving as he does. “Chris, wind it down a notch. I can’t fucking believe you encouraged him to do this.” He keeps hold of a fistful of my shirt and uses it to pin me to the seat. I’m still wrestling to undo the seatbelt.
The tires screech as Leon swings into the parking garage of my apartment complex, the momentum tossing me back into my seat.
“His parking bay is the last one on the left,” Christian offers helpfully.
Leon throws the car into the parking space and slams on the brakes. I’m still wrestling with the damn seat belt clip and, finally, shove my door open and stumble out.
Christian exits next to me.
I slug him in the jaw before Leon can round the vehicle and wrap me in a bear hug.
“Fuck me, your side of the family got all the crazy genes,” he growls.
“I don’t know what he’s so riled up about,” Christian pitches back. “He wanted it. I made it happen. He should fucking thank me.”
“Made it happen?” Leon repeats, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “Are you out of your damn minds? ... Don’t answer that.”
The fight goes out of me. “I need another drink.”
“First sensible thing you’ve said.” Leon turns me around and directs me toward the elevator bank.
Christian gives me a wary look as the door encloses us in a small space. My knuckles are aching, and my head is pounding.
The door opens, I step out, then turn around and try to go back in. “Jesus, I can’t just leave her there. What the fuck was I thinking?”
They move to block my path. I’m full of belligerent anger, but they manhandle me into my apartment, where Leon shoves me onto the couch and Christian dumps a bottle of whiskey into my hands.
I unscrew the top and toss it on the low table before me, tip the mouth of the bottle to my lips, and drink… and drink.
Christian stalks off toward the kitchen area. He’s on his phone talking to someone.
Leon sits on the coffee table, his worried gaze on me. “Did you fuck her?”
I take another deep drink. “Yes.”
He mutters a curse.
Christian returns with two ice packs. He hands one to me. “She went back to the party. Nothing happened. No one knows.”
“I know. She knows. At some point tonight, Ettore is going to know.”
I go to get up. Leon shoves me back. “Don’t be a bigger dumbass than you already have. Ettore won’t know shit. I doubt he’ll even get it up.”
“Don’t fucking patronize me!” I throw the bottle at the wall. It smashes, leaving a stain and the stench of alcohol.
I put my head in my hands, grip my hair, and yank. I’ve never felt this helpless in my life.
“Get him another bottle,” Leon says calmly.
I hear footsteps retreating and returning. Another bottle is pressed into my shaking hand. I take a drink. It’s not making me numb enough fast enough for my liking.
The seat sinks next to me. “I fucked up,” Christian says.
“You really did,” Leon agrees. “Who were you talking to?”
“Jero. He’s alright.”
“He used to be my father’s man,” Leon says.
“Yeah,” Christian says. “I’m getting the impression he still is.”
CARMELA
Dante leaves. Jessica enters.
The sense of abandonment is profound. I don’t know how I put myself back together. Jessica’s worried face certainly has a sobering effect. I’ve not had more than a sip of champagne, so I can’t even blame that for my lapse in mental judgment.
She has a purse containing the kit provided by the beauticians. It has everything one might need to rectify one’s makeup and hair after just being fucked. By the time I’m done, I don’t look quite so thoroughly ravished and more of a bride a little high on her big day.
Between my thighs, I’m aching and tender. On the outside, at least, I will pass.
It’s the best I can do, and we leave the powder room together.
“Don’t try and tell me you didn’t kiss him this time,” Jessica says, threading her arm through mine.
“I kissed him.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.” Shouldn’t I hesitate over admitting that? A man who is not my husband just took my virginity during my wedding reception. I begged him to. Then he abandoned me, again.
I can’t love him.
I shouldn’t love him.
“Good. This isn’t forever. I know it’s not. If anyone asks, I was upset about Mama,” she says. “Thank you for looking after me.”
“You don’t have to lie for me, Jessica.” I feel like crying. “And I can’t use my dead mother as an alibi and not die a little inside.”
“It’s not a lie,” she says. Ahead is the grand ballroom where guests drink and dance…
where my husband waits for me. “Maybe it wasn’t directly connected to your absence, but that’s not important, is it?
” She stops and takes both my hands. “She wouldn’t have let you marry Ettore.
I love Papa, but I hate him for agreeing to this.
Promise me you will come and see me as soon as you can. Promise me, Carmela.”
“I will.”
I hug her fiercely.
She walks away to join my father.
A new and different sense of abandonment slams into me.
Somehow, I get through the evening, but that only delivers me into Ettore’s bed. I excuse myself to shower, washing away the last lingering evidence of what was done… of what was lost. Then I slip on my silk nightgown, one that Helena picked, and join him.
He smiles at me, takes my hand, and leads me to the bed, and all the while, my heart is beating like a hummingbird in my chest.
His weight above me is alien and unwelcome. His breathing close to my ear makes my skin crawl. I try coaching myself to be calm and let it happen, but the penetration still makes my stomach churn and brings panic to the surface.
He’s inside me.
In a place that belongs to Dante.
I’m trapped in a nightmare, one where I can’t breathe and certainly wish I didn’t feel.
Like last time, I panic, then I shut down. Only this time, I’m not wholly divorced from proceedings. Somewhere during the horror, as he pushes a part of him into me, I close my eyes and pretend it’s Dante.