Chapter 16 #2
He nodded like that answer settled something inside him. Then he tugged her jeans down her legs, inch by inch, not rough but methodical. Her underwear went with them. She was naked before him, bare on the sheets, hair wet and tangled across her shoulders.
Dante stood just long enough to strip the rest of his clothes. His body was taut, hard, and roped with muscle—not sculpted for show but built for endurance.
He slid a hand down her thigh and parted her knees. She was already wet.
He leaned over her, breath against her ear. “I’m not here to save you. I’m here to see you.”
She pulled him down onto her. Dante didn’t rush. He never did, not in the field, not in a fight, and definitely not here, with her.
Shannon was naked in his bed, her chest rising and falling like the only thing anchoring her was his body pinning her there. She wasn’t timid, but he could feel the static under her skin. That edge of restlessness that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with history.
His eyes traced every freckle across her shoulders. His hand rested, unmoving, over the curve of her hipbone, warm and steady. Her thighs shifted under his with tension. “You don’t have to be anyone right now.”
Her eyes flicked open and held his.
“No rank. No file. No ghost to live up to.” His hand moved slowly, his rough palm skimming over her stomach. “Just you.”
Her breath trembled out of her like she’d been holding it forever. “I don’t think I know how.”
“Just you.” He kissed her neck, right below her ear, not to tease, but to say I’m here. Her fingers clenched his forearm, dragging nails lightly down his skin. That was all he needed.
His mouth moved lower—collarbone, sternum, the swell of one breast. He closed his lips around her nipple, slow pressure and nothing more, letting it tighten in his mouth as she arched. The other, he cupped with his palm, thumb grazing the peak in time with the roll of his tongue.
Her legs shifted, thighs spreading wider now, no hesitation. She pressed against him, skin to skin, the heat of her against his thigh. His cock was already hard and aching, but he didn’t push into her. Not yet.
He dragged his mouth lower, across her ribs, over the soft plane of her stomach. He kissed the inside of one hip, then the other. She gasped when his stubble scraped her skin, but she didn’t pull away.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, voice rough with restraint.
She blinked down at him, lips parted. Then, breathless: “You.”
He let his hand slide down, his fingers tracing through her wet heat. She jerked, hips rising off the mattress. Not shy, just unprepared.
“You’re soaked,” he murmured.
“I’ve been waiting a long time.”
He pressed one finger into her, slowly, shallowly. Just enough to feel her clench. Her head fell back. He added another, curling just slightly, thumb brushing her clit.
Her whole body shuddered, not from technique. From desire. No rush. Just fire.
Her hands fisted the sheets, knees falling further apart. Her hips rolled into him without thought. Months of tension were unraveling under his hands.
He leaned up, eyes locked on hers, his fingers still working slowly inside her. “I want to taste you.”
“Later,” she gasped. “Just please, I want you inside me.”
It hit him like a fucking gut punch. He pulled his hand back, reached for his jeans on the floor, then paused. He looked down at her again. “You said birth control.”
“I meant it,” she said. “No disease. You?”
His eyes didn’t leave hers. “None.” He gave her that last chance.
She reached for him, wrapping her hand around his cock, guiding him to her, heat against heat. “Then don’t make me wait anymore.”
He pressed forward, slowly sliding into her inch by inch, and her body welcomed him.
Her breath caught. Her thighs locked around his hips. He bottomed out, hitting her cervix with a low groan that barely made it past clenched teeth.
For the first time in years, Dante didn’t feel like a weapon. He felt like a man she’d chosen.
She moved with him, not to impress or seduce, but because something in her had finally let go. There was no mask now. No distance. No forcefield of sarcasm or sharpness to deflect attention. She met his eyes and let him see.
Dante braced one arm beside her head, the other gripping her hip, and every thrust was steady, not a chase for climax but a claim of space. A moment no one could take from her, that no one could twist into something else.
Shannon arched beneath him, hands clutching his back, her breath catching with each slow surge. Her fingers moved like she was mapping the terrain of someone she thought she’d never be allowed to touch and maybe never fully trust.
But she trusted him now, which meant she let him set the pace. She didn’t hide her sounds. Some were soft, some gasping, all real. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes fluttered shut only after she knew he was watching.
Dante murmured her name once, voice almost broken with need. She pulled him down until their chests pressed, her mouth brushing the curve of his jaw.
“I feel…” she whispered, not finishing the sentence because what word could explain this?
He pressed his forehead to hers and kept moving inside her like it was the only language left between them. When her breath hitched hard, when her hips rolled up into his with frantic rhythm, he caught her face in both hands.
“Look at me,” he said, rough and tender all at once.
She came like that, with eyes wide open, body arched, shaking in his arms. And he followed a moment later, buried deep, jaw clenched, one hand fisting the sheet beside her head as every part of him gave in.
There was no sound except breathing afterward, uneven, raw. No space between them.
He rested his forehead against hers and breathed. Shannon wasn’t trembling anymore. She was still. Centered. Eyes closed, a slow exhale escaping her chest like a storm had passed, and she’d somehow remained standing. Or maybe she’d fallen. But into something. Not away.
The air conditioner buzzed faintly from the wall unit near the window, stirring the curtains that framed a storm-soaked skyline. The rain had softened now. It was still falling, but slowly and steadily, like the world outside was trying to catch its breath too.
Inside his hotel room, the quiet between them had weight. Shannon lay across Dante’s chest, one leg wrapped over his, one hand resting just beneath his collarbone. Her skin was warm against his, damp only from sweat now, not the rain that soaked them before. The sheets beneath her smelled like him.
She realized then she hadn’t felt safe in a space that was fully hers in… years, maybe. But here she did.
Dante hadn’t moved since they'd collapsed back against the mattress. One arm remained wrapped around her shoulder like a steel band, the other hand resting gently in her hair.
His stillness wasn’t discomfort. It was presence.
Shannon’s fingers traced a scar just beneath his sternum. She didn’t even realize she was doing it until he shifted slightly under her touch. “You don’t look at me like I’m broken.”
Dante’s hand settled between her shoulder blades, firm and grounding. “That’s because you’re not.”
She nodded slowly, brushing her cheek against his chest. “I don’t think I believed that until tonight.”
“You didn’t need me to fix you, Shannon.”
“I know,” she said. “I just… I needed someone to see that I’m not just the daughter. The cadet. The project. The… survivor.”
He exhaled through his nose. Quiet. Listening.
“I’ve never said that out loud,” she added, her voice softer now.
“You didn’t have to.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You lived it.”
She was silent for a beat. “Do you regret this?”
Dante shifted to look at her, his hand sliding from her back to cradle her jaw. “Making love to you? No,” he said plainly. “Not for a second.”
“It’s your hotel room.” A faint smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “You could’ve kicked me out after.”
He arched a brow. “You think I’d ever do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I’ve never let anyone take me to a hotel before. I’ve never been touched like this.” She swallowed the sentence, lips pressing together. “Do you want me to stay?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, not possessive but certain.
She fell asleep on his chest, still naked, still warm, her dog tags caught between his fingers and her name echoing in his head like something unspoken and irreversible. Dante kept his eyes open a while longer. Because she was his now. And everything had changed.