Chapter 14 #2
Noah is the only person at the table who’s excited. I won’t call the satisfied feeling in my gut excitement, at least not in Noah’s innocent way. My sentiment is more of a dark anticipation.
Whereas Noah babbles non-stop, Tatiana and Jasper are quiet.
Noah and I keep the conversation going. Tatiana only answers the questions Noah asks her with that forced smile I want to kiss off her perfect face.
I want to sink my teeth into her bottom lip until she gives me an honest sound or a truthful look, anything but that fake tranquility she wears like battle armor.
Ulysses and Kent kept an eye on Jasper and Noah while I was absent, but they don’t join us for dinner because the occasion is too personal.
They’re hanging out in the back when the chef takes his leave after tidying the kitchen.
I tell them to get some shut eye and instruct Jasper to pick any of the guest rooms and make herself at home.
Penelope prepared a room for Noah next to the master suite.
Tatiana puts him to bed after helping him with his bath and to brush his teeth. He lies in the big bed with his arms on top of the covers and his dinosaur tucked in next to him, looking impossibly small and half asleep already. He’s been through a lot of changes and excitement in one day.
When I kiss him goodnight, he wraps those sturdy little arms around my neck and mutters in a sleepy voice, “Goodnight, Daddy.”
Daddy.
That little word sinks deep into my chest, burrowing in my flesh and making a permanent place for itself there.
Tatiana’s hand stills for a fraction of a second on the cover she pulls up to his chin, but she doesn’t comment or look at me.
She leaves the lamp on and the door open a crack.
In the hallway, she takes off her shoes and carries them in her hand. “Which room is mine?”
I indicate the one next-door.
She walks inside, hobbling a little, and stops just over the threshold. “It smells like you.”
I chuckle. “That happens when you live somewhere.”
She drops the shoes on the floor and spins around. “This is your room.”
“Our room.”
Crossing her arms, she smiles that false smile again. “Don’t you know it’s bad luck to share a room before the wedding?”
“We’re already sharing a room. It would be hypocritical to pretend we’re not sleeping together.” I close the door and go over before going down on my haunches in front of her and carefully wrapping my fingers around her ankle. “Let me see that.”
She tries to pull away but can’t do so without losing her balance. “It’s nothing.”
Her little toe sports a huge blister. The skin on the sides of her bridge and the back of her heel is red and broken.
I turn her narrow foot this way and that as I inspect the damage. “Do you call this nothing? I’m surprised you could walk at all.”
“It’s the new shoes.” She makes an irritated sound. “They’ll do that until I’ve walked them in.”
I lower her foot gently and straighten. “You should’ve told me.”
Her laugh is wry. “What would you have done? Carry me?”
“Yes.”
She opens her mouth, but whatever objection she was going to utter turns into a squeal as I sweep her into my arms.
She pushes on my shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Taking care of you,” I say, making my way to the bathroom.
“I can take care of myself.”
I deposit her carefully onto the bench next to the vanity. “I know, but it won’t hurt you to let someone else take care of you for once.”
Even though the taking care I’m referring to isn’t the aftercare she’s denying herself so hard, she still lifts her chin and fights back with defiance. “Careful, Dante. You don’t want to give me the impression that you care.”
“I do.” I open the faucet in the tub and let the water run warm. “You just don’t want to hear it.”
She scoffs. “If you cared, you wouldn’t have done what you did five years ago or today.”
I roll back my sleeves. “That’s precisely why I did what I did in both instances.”
After testing the temperature of the water, I plug the tub. Then I go through the cupboard until I find what I’m looking for.
She purses her lips, watching me fill the tub to a quarter before adding a mild disinfectant.
When I go back for her, she says, “You can forget it if you think I’ll take a bath with you in the room.”
“It’s for your feet.”
At that, she relents, seeming embarrassed at her wrong assumption.
I carry her to the bath and lower her onto the edge with her feet dangling over the side, testing her balance before I let her go.
She winces as her feet hit the water, but she doesn’t complain. My girl has always been strong.
While her feet are soaking, I get the medicine kit from the cabinet under the basin.
She looks around the spacious bathroom with the indoor garden framing the bath. “This doesn’t look like you.”
“No?” I raise an eyebrow. “What did you expect my house to look like?”
“White, for starters. Not black like your soul.”
I take a clean towel from the rack and drape it over my shoulder. “Isn’t black fitting then, considering?”
“Not in your case.” She wraps her arms around my neck for purchase as I lift her from the water and carry her back to the bench. “Shouldn’t you be trying to fool everyone into thinking you’re harmless?”
I meet her jade green eyes. “They know what I am.”
She shivers.
“Cold?”
She shakes her head and averts her gaze.
I get down on one knee and attend to her injuries, disinfecting the broken skin and applying an ointment before covering those and the blisters with band-aids.
“There.” I let her feet down. “That should help.” Cutting her a dark look, I deliver an ultimatum. “Next time, tell me.”
“Or?”
Here she goes again with that favorite little question of hers. There’s no point in testing my boundaries. She’ll learn quickly I have none.
“Or, from now on, I’ll carry you over my shoulder.” I grin. “In fact, I like the idea. Maybe I’ll do it anyway.”
Tilting her head, she studies me. “Why do you even care about my feet if you don’t give a damn about my feelings?”
“I care about every part of you.” I rub a thumb over the bridge of her foot. The caress is tender, and I revel in the fact that she doesn’t even realize she’s allowing me to touch her in a way that doesn’t involve sex or pain. “That includes your feelings.”
She laughs again. “Your actions say something entirely different.”
“My actions are necessary. There’s a good reason behind everything I do.”
“So you keep on saying.”
I lift her foot to my mouth and place a soft kiss over the blister. “There. Better?”
In a blink, she shuts down. She pulls her foot from my grasp and makes to stand, but I don’t let her get away.
My Tatiana is still somewhere inside the beautiful woman with the invisible scars facing me.
I haven’t lost her. I have to believe that.
Because to have lost her would mean I broke something in my quest to own it, and for a reason I can’t explain, the idea of having ruined something so utterly perfect is like a thorn festering under my skin.
She stares at me with wide, green eyes as I lock my hands around her waist and lift her onto the vanity. The toothbrush holder falls over. The glass rolls off the edge and shatters on the floor.
The violence of that unintentional act rings with the breaking of crystal in the air. The atmosphere changes, all the softness gone as lust crackles between us.
So be it.
If it’s violence that pulls her out of her shell, I’ll use it. I’ll do anything to rip away her mask. I’ll rather wrestle an honest scream from her lips than endure her cold shoulder and faked calmness.
She gasps when I shove her skirt up her legs before spreading them wide. The lace panties I bought with the dress barely covers the golden curls between her thighs. The sight is enough to make me high on need. On her.
Fisting the elastic on her hip, I snap it with a twist of my wrist. She utters another gasp as I pluck the scrap of fabric away and drop it on the shards of priceless antique crystal that litter the floor. I thrust two fingers up to the knuckles inside her, rough and hard.
And there it is. A needy moan falls from her lips. Ecstasy transforms her features as she tilts her head back against the mirror and closes her eyes.
Her arousal coats my fingers. She’s always been attuned to my touch, always ready for me.
Wrapping my fingers around her delicate neck, I pin her in place as I curl my fingers and pump into her tight heat with a steady pace.
“Dante.”
That’s fucking right—that sound right there. There’s no hiding her reaction in the throaty way she whispers my name.
My voice is dark, reflecting the color of the thought that torments me. “Have you gotten wet for another man?”
Those beautiful eyes fly open. She stares at me with magnificent pools of sad, haunted green.
“Have you, Tatiana?” I keep my fingers still inside her and press a thumb on her clit. “Has your cunt gotten this wet around another man’s fingers?”
She only continues to observe me with a big, frightened gaze.
I want her to say it, no matter what the answer is.
This isn’t a truth I can live without. I can’t let another man who touched her continue to breathe.
I’ll hunt them all down and bring her little pieces of them like that ring and the tooth.
I’ll make sure she understands what any such man’s fate is.
I roll her clit beneath the pad of my thumb, drawing slow circles until she’s panting. “Answer me.”
She protests with an exhale. “Dante.”
Good answer but not the one I want right now.
She whimpers when I pull my fingers out. I move the hand I have wrapped around her neck down the elegant column of her throat. The marks I left have faded. She’s no longer hiding behind a scarf. Only behind her silence.