Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
DANTE
Iwake up cradled in silk with my head throbbing and a sharp pain in my back.
Flashes of my attack come rushing back in. Pain splitting my skull. Masked SIXX dragging me by the hair. Gun shots splitting the night.
Arms lifting me and fingers sifting through my hair to soothe me.
My body screams in protest as I push myself upright in a massive, unfamiliar bed, naked down to my waist. Sunlight streams in from a wall of windows to my right side, and I fight the urge to cringe away like some ancient vampire.
I’d hunker down under the blankets again if not for the man sitting in a chaise lounge near the end of the bed.
Rev’s bare chest is more muscular than I imagined. His skin is smooth and covered in what looks like light scars. His silver hair is damp from a recent shower. Tendrils hang chaotically over his forehead.
The cut along his jaw is still healing. The one I put there nights ago.
I force my eyes down to the book clutched in his hands. Three shirtless, ripped men embrace each other on the cover titled Tying the Knot. I have to hold back a snort. Of course he’d read something smutty.
And I mean, I assumed he was at least bi. He flirts with me a lot…
Or maybe I’m making shit up in my head because I want him to flirt with me.
To confuse my head further, he’s wearing gray sweats and no socks.
I’m not into feet, but there’s something horribly domestic about seeing him like this.
In another situation, I might find it sexy.
I might pine for a life like this, waking up to a man more beautiful than a work of art, safe up in some luxurious high-rise.
But I got the shit beat out of me…last night? Two nights ago? Fuck. I lift a hand to my pounding temple.
“Medicine on the nightstand for you.” Rev’s tone is gentle.
I scoop the pill up without hesitation and pop it in my mouth, dry swallowing it.
“How long have you been watching me sleep?” I mutter.
“Actively? Four hours. Then I decided I needed to know what happens between the hunky alphas and their little omega librarian.”
He stretches an arm out to a gold and granite side table, picking up a steaming mug of what smells like herbal tea. He brings it to his mouth and sips at it.
My cock twitches. Stripped down and raw like this, he looks like he belongs on the cover of some trendy magazine.
Rich, beautiful, and deadly. This eligible bachelor loves a good romance novel.
I grit my teeth. I don’t know for a fact that he’s single. And I don’t fucking care. I don’t.
“Where did you take me?”
After setting his mug back on the side table, his pale blue eyes move to me. “My home. The best place for you.”
I grimace. “Says fucking who?”
“Says me.”
He runs a hand through his hair, somehow managing to tousle it artfully. Okay, so he’s a step above a magazine cover. He’d probably star in some expensive cologne commercial. I can picture him climbing out of a pool or standing half naked in the rain as droplets run down his face.
Yeah, fuck this.
I throw off the sheets, grateful I still have my jeans on, even though they’re covered in dirt and dried blood. At least he has some idea of boundaries.
Pain shoots through my head as I stand up too fast and sway. Rev simply observes from his chair. He doesn’t try to baby me or tell me to crawl back into his bed.
Jesus, I slept in his bed.
At least he’s not still trying to lecture me about hunting SIXX. Maybe we’re beyond that, or maybe he’s waiting to drop that on me later.
I reach a hand up my back, brushing fingertips over fresh stitches.
“Someone stabbed me,” I murmur in shock.
“That someone is dead.”
I swallow. “Just him or…”
“All of them, Dante. They lost the right to live the moment they had a violent thought toward you.”
A shaky breath slips out. Again, I should be horrified by this man, but all I can think about is how he gathered me off the street and took me somewhere to get me fixed up.
This sucks on so many levels. Red flags wave in my brain. He saved me, and somehow that scares me even more than if he were my enemy.
“Where’s the rest of my clothes?” I ask.
Rev nods to a pile of folded clothes on his fancy dresser. “Washed and ready for you, knife holes and all. Or you can borrow some of my things.”
I clench my hands into fists. “Don’t fucking touch me again.”
“Oh, I’m a firm believer in consent, Dante. I want my partner to be willing and eager. Next time I touch you, it’ll be because you’re begging for it.”
“Like hell I’d ever do that.”
But I’m already thinking about him pushing me down on his bed, ripping my pants and lacy briefs down, and thrusting his cock deep inside my body.
When heat floods low in my core, I clench my teeth together to hold back a growl. I don’t know what messed up part of me likes this game he’s playing, but I need to shut it down. I’m not looking for whatever he thinks he wants from me.
Slipping my hoodie on, I hunt for my shoes. I’m not exactly in a hurry like I should be. I’m too distracted by his home. It’s designer pretty, just like him.
No. Not like him.
The walls are painted in a lovely shade of caramel coffee, highlighted by abstract pieces of art in golds and vibrant, sparkly blues.
His furniture looks too nice to sit on, all bright white upholstery.
There’s a fur rug covering the polished concrete floor in the living area.
He has a tasteful number of artistic pieces accenting small tables.
And the light fixtures…I never thought I’d have a thing for light fixtures, but the pendants above the slab of marble serving as an island look like exploding stars.
I’m gaping up at one when I sense his body heat behind me. Spinning around, I put another foot of space between us. He hasn’t put on a shirt, and I wish I could complain about it.
Fuck me, he’s even got the V that slips below the waistband of his sweats.
My chest heaves with rapid breaths as I struggle to keep my throbbing head from conjuring up more fantasies of him and me tangled up in compromising positions.
“You look confused,” Rev says, tucking his hands in his pockets and leaning against his bedroom doorframe.
“You…live here?”
“I live here. I’ve got an eye for pretty things, yes?” His gaze burns into me.
Flushing, I avert my gaze. Outside the windows, sunlight glints off dozens of surrounding high-rise buildings.
No surprise, he lives in East Bank.
Rev pads around me to the kitchen, stretching an arm over his head to reach inside one of the white cabinets. The movement shows off mouthwatering definition in his back.
The fact that he can turn away from me so easily aggravates me. Does he not believe I’m a threat?
Don’t look at his ass. Don’t fucking do it. God damn it. He’s got a nice ass.
“Do you like your coffee bitter or sweet?” Curious blue eyes flick back to me. I struggle for a response, stuck on admiring every tempting inch of him.
I lift my chin stubbornly. “I want to go home.”
He stares at me for a while, and then his shoulders drop on a heavy exhale. “Give me a minute to change. I’ll drive you.”
I frown as he strides by me. Did he really expect me to stay for coffee?
He doesn’t fucking get it. I can’t let anyone else in. Not when the pain of losing Papi still cuts at me. My brother gets a pass only because he’s always dominated a place in my heart, but I’ve done my best to push him out lately.
Panic ushers me toward the front door like it’s an emergency.
“Dante.” The underlying command in Rev’s tone has my feet stopping automatically. When I turn around, he’s standing too close. A whiff of spicy body wash hits me. It’s the same scent that clung to his sheets when I woke up draped in them this morning.
Fidgeting, I do my best to hold a glare. We’re nearly the same height, but he has more mass than me. I’m lean everywhere but my thighs, where I’ve built up a good amount of muscle from dancing.
Up close, I can better make out the faded marks on his skin. They’re not scars like I first assumed. They’re tattoos. The white ink is so light, the geometric designs have nearly vanished into his pale skin.
Pretty sure he can see the pulse point in my throat pounding.
“Enough of this,” I whisper, almost letting a ‘please’ slip free.
“Okay.” He nods. “But you’re keeping one of my guns.”
“That’s your condition for leaving me alone?”
No demand to stop hunting SIXX. No order to stay here as some sort of prisoner. I’m just free to go if I take a fucking gun?
I swallow, frustrated by the way my body prickles with heat at the way he’s looking at me like he doesn’t want to let me go.
“I can make up more conditions if you want,” he says with a shrug.
My teeth show. “Denied.”
But I can’t ignore my half-hard dick, screaming for me to demand he drop to his knees right now. Somehow, I doubt he’d consider it a hardship.
Almost as if he can hear my filthy thoughts, he takes a step toward me. I react on instinct, fisting a handful of his sweatpants. My fingertips graze his cock in the process. A very warm, very hard cock.
I drop my ass to the floor and use the momentum to flip him over my head and onto the ground. Pain sears through my back as my stitches tug.
Rev doesn’t put up a fight. Not even as I climb on top of him and wrap my hands around his neck in warning. I’m determined to trigger his anger so he can be done with me. So he can order me out that door and out of his life for good.
Rev tips his head to give me more of his neck.
“The fuck. You a masochist or something?” I growl.
“Mmm. You’re delightfully murderous in the mornings.”
Awareness hits me that my ass is settled right over his erection. The one I just accidentally touched.
I scramble off his body and push my back against the kitchen island like I can hide inside of it. “You don’t know shit.”