Chapter 9 #3
I want to get up and leave, but for Noah’s sake, I don’t. Why does everything Dante do always have to be about defeating me? Can’t I enjoy anything just for what it is without worrying about a hidden agenda? But no, Dante has never done anything for me without ulterior motives.
The bite I took pushes up in my throat. I think I’m going to be sick.
No longer able to stay put, I slip off the stool. My voice is shaky when I cup Noah’s face and kiss his forehead. “That was delicious, sweetheart. Thank you so much. Don’t forget to save some for Jazz. She’ll love them. I’m going to get ready for work.”
Noah continues to devour his pancake, completely focused on the task.
I barely look at Dante. “Thanks for breakfast.”
I don’t make it to the exit before he catches up with me. He grips my wrist and pulls me behind him through the swing doors. On the other side, he pushes my body against wall.
“You’re a bad loser, Tatiana.”
Biting hard on my lip, I blink away the tears building at the back of my eyes. “I hate you.”
He utters the same words of last night, cruelly reminding me of my weakness. “But you loved me once.”
Only then does it dawn on me. Yes, I loved him.
I told him so on two occasions, and I remember each of them as if it happened yesterday.
Every little detail is imprinted in my mind.
Yet he never said those words back to me, and for some reason, the fact escaped me up to now.
Maybe I’d been too infatuated back then.
Maybe I thought it didn’t matter. But the realization slams into me now, knocking the air from my lungs.
Always seeming to read my mind, he delivers crueler words, still. “You loved enough for both of us. If you could do that once, you can do it again.”
I don’t think he’s aware of how those words carve into me like a blunt knife peeling off my skin.
I wrestle from his grasp, fighting like a wild animal until he lets me go. It takes enormous self-control to calm myself, to straighten my T-shirt, and to lift my chin. “I’ve been a fool for you once, Dante. I won’t be an idiot twice.”
Turning on my heel, I walk down the hallway, but I don’t escape his words that follow me. They shoot like sharp, poisonous darts into my back.
“I told you already. You can make this easy or hard on yourself. Being bitter about it is one thing, definitely not the easy way, but whatever you choose, don’t lie to yourself.”
I flip him off over my shoulder.
Ulysses leans on the wall next to the staff exit. He straightens when I near, his expression alarmed.
I look around and realize the reason for Ulysses’s reaction too late.
Dante is stalking toward me with long, angry steps.
I break into a run, not caring who sees him chasing me through the hotel, but he’s too fast. He scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing more than a feather pillow.
“Watch Noah,” Dante instructs Ulysses in a cold, hard voice.
I slam my fists on his back. “Put me down.”
He holds me around the back of my knees and opens the door with his free hand. People stare at us as he stalks through the lobby. They gawk until the elevator doors close on us.
“Put me down,” I demand again.
Dante doesn’t listen. He acts as if I haven’t spoken, carrying me past Reino through the quiet suite to the bedroom. Once inside, he kicks the door shut and locks it.
“Dante.”
He walks to the foot-end of the bed. “It’s too late for that, darling.” Taking his phone from his pocket, he leaves it on the nightstand.
My voice is choked. “Too late for what?”
He throws me onto the mattress and flips me onto my stomach. “Too late for begging.”
I turn my face to the side so I don’t smother in the covers. “I’m not begging.”
He straddles me. “You will.”
Panic gets the better of me. “W-what’s that supposed to mean?”
He stretches my hands above my head and keeps them pinned to the bed in one hand while untying the scarf from my neck with the other.
“Dante,” I shriek as he ties my wrists with the scarf. “What are you doing?”
“That was the second time you disrespected me with a vulgar gesture. I was lenient the first time because you were in shock.”
He reaches around me and unfastens the button of my waistband. I kick when he pulls down my zipper.
“Keep still.” His voice is clipped. “You’re only making this harder on yourself.”
I do as he says not because I’m obeying him but because I’m unable to move.
I’m frozen in horror as a scene I banned from my memories starts to bleed into my conscience.
Slowly, a picture crawls closer, stalking me like a horrible, deformed monster in a dark, deserted alley.
I hide my face in the covers, but it keeps on coming, its presence like a thick black fog that spills into every crack and crevice of my being.
My jeans slip down my ass, thighs, calves, and feet.
The glide of the fabric over my skin is treacherously soft.
My underwear follows next. I’m naked from the waist down, panting into the duvet.
I try to focus on my breathing, but the technique the midwife taught me doesn’t help, not for the old skeletons that threaten to escape from the closet where I buried them.
I’m violently seized from the paralyzing fear when Dante grips the hem of my T-shirt. A different fear takes over. My heartbeat goes into overdrive. The panic escalates, suffocating me. Even as my lungs shut down and my air runs out, self-preservation outweighs my need for oxygen.
“No.” I kick with my feet, realizing I can’t move my legs. I turn my face sideways and strain my neck to look over my shoulder. Dante is still straddling me. “Not…” I gulp in air that doesn’t reach my lungs. “Not…the T-shirt.”
He stills, the fabric bunched in his fists. “Breathe, Tatiana.”
I can’t. I can’t stop my body from turning on me. My mind is useless, the will to breathe not enough.
“Easy.” Dante lets my T-shirt go and gets off my legs. He kneels next to me. His words are encouraging, and his hands are soft but firm on my shoulders. “You can do it.”
My pulse doesn’t slow down, but my lungs finally cooperate. I suck in air and choke on my mortification. I don’t want anyone to see this part of me, especially not Dante.
He sits back on his heels, scrutinizing me with too much intensity. “What the fuck just happened?”
My reply is rushed. “Nothing.”
He narrows his eyes, but he doesn’t challenge me. “What did you think I was going to do?”
With effort, I get my breathing under control. “Punish me.”
“Do you really want to start your day with a spanking before breakfast?”
I shake my head as much as my position allows.
He turns me onto my back, my arms stretched out above my head. I’m too preoccupied with my vulnerable position to be relieved that he hasn’t removed my T-shirt. It’s not being tied up. It’s not being half-naked. It’s the man kneeling next to me. It’s the power he holds over me.
“Is this how you beg, darling?”
I’m not too proud to nod once. I’d rather sacrifice my pride than give him my shame.
“Disrespect me all you want, Tatiana, but don’t do it in front of my men.”
In a second flat, my anger burns all the other emotions to ashes. I hate men like my father. Their reputations are holy and their dignity sacred, whereas us women are nothing but their pawns, their possessions to use as they see fit.
“Why, Dante?” My mouth twists into a smile. “Does it undermine your authority? Does it make you look bad?”
“It makes you look bad,” he says factually.
“And why would that bother you? Are you going to tell me how I’m an extension of your mighty image?”
“No.” His reply is calm, almost toneless. “My men can’t be loyal to you if they don’t respect you.”
“Why should they be loyal to me?”
“So I can trust them to protect you when I’m not around to do it.”
“That’s bullshit. First of all, they’ll do whatever you order them to do.
That includes planting a bullet in my brain if you tell them to do it.
They don’t need to respect anyone. They only have to follow orders.
I know how the business works. My father might not have involved me like Leander, but I’ve seen enough during the time I lived in his house. ”
He cups my knees and pushes my legs apart. Wider. A gasp leaves my lips.
He climbs between them, leans over me, and stretches his arms along the length of mine before wrapping his fingers around my bound wrists.
“I’m not going to tell you again that I’m not like your father.
I don’t operate the same way. In my organization, respect is earned.
” He drops his gaze to my mouth. “Secondly?”
The way he stares at my lips sends prickles of warning and anticipation over my skin.
He’s hard, his steel-like length nestled between my naked legs.
The heat of his skin burns me through his trousers, sending me spiraling again, making me forget where I am and what I’m doing.
I barely resist lifting my hips to chase after the friction.
A desperate need compels me to relieve the ache that starts pulsing in my lower body.
“Tatiana.” He says my name like an admonishment.
I hate how breathless I sound. “What?”
“You said the first point was that my men don’t need to respect you or me. What’s the second one?”
“Why would you want to protect me? I don’t see how that serves your interest once you’ve gotten what you wanted.”
He shuts down right in front of me, his unreadable mask slipping back into place. “You have a short memory. I already told you Noah needs you.”
That’s not the only reason. There’s something he’s not telling me. Before I can question him, he lets my hands go and moves down my body.
“I owe you a punishment.” He utters the declaration in the same way he’d discuss an impersonal business contract. “As the idea of having your ass spanked triggers a panic attack, I’ll have to think of something else.”