28. Dante
Chapter 28
Dante
The fluorescent bathroom light casts everything in a surreal glow. I drag my fingers across my tongue, chasing her taste. Her eyes meet mine in the mirror, dark and bottomless.
Fuck.
Ramsey’s there when we stumble out, his disapproval a tangible thing. My hands shake with the need to touch her again, to make sure she’s real.
“Boring party,” I manage, the lie clumsy on my tongue.
She grabs my hand, and I follow like I’m tethered to her, like there was never any other choice. The need to have her is like a physical ache.
We make our way out of the club. The elevator doors open to chaos. Camera flashes explode, and each burst makes my muscles coil tighter. White spots dance across my vision, but my hand finds the small of her back instinctively. Ramsey parts the crowd with efficiency.
The questions hit fast.
“Reese, how’s the Robyn Hood set without Felix?”
“How long have you been together?”
“Look here!”
“Did you make Felix Langford quit?”
They surge forward, hungry and vicious. My teeth grind together.
“Get back!” Ramsey roars, using both hands to push people out of the way.
The paps press closer, their cameras glinting like knives in the half-light. Every muscle in my body remembers the ring, remembers the dance of violence. A photographer drops low, his lens sliding up her torn skirt, and something inside me snaps clean in half.
“God,” she whispers. “They’ve never—I’ve never seen them like this.”
I knew she was famous, obviously, but this tabloid attack is different. I’m already moving, already stripping off my jacket. The fabric settles around her shoulders like armor.
“I’ve got you,” I say into her hair, resisting the violent urge boiling under my skin. Hold yourself together. My somewhat violent protective instincts would destroy my chances at the disciplinary review. Keep her close.
“Give us some room!” Ramsey says again, but they’re beyond hearing as he continues to swat them away.
They’re animals now, pressing closer. A camera swings wildly, arcing toward Reese’s face like a meteor.
My body moves before my brain can catch up. I extend my hand, protecting her face from the lens coming at her. The camera hits concrete instead of skin. Glass shatters.
“My goodness,” she says against my neck. “Thank you.”
When a photographer lunges too close, I move to extend another protective arm over her, but Reese pivots away from them, ducking fast, redirecting his momentum. Her reflexes are fucking impressive. The paparazzi hesitate, parting away from us.
I keep my focus on her and instinctively tighten my grip as we slide back into my limo, drawing figure eights over her palm—a silent promise.
I’ve got you.
She looks up at me then, eyes fearful but trusting. Her fingers curl into my jacket, and I let my steady heartbeat become her anchor. I’ve never seen someone so fierce yet vulnerable—it makes me want to be worthy of that trust.
To be steady. Safe.
I want to make it clear she’s mine to protect.
Our breath fogs the windows, creating a barrier between us and the predators outside.
“Hey,” I whisper, searching her face in the limo’s dim interior. Red shadows slice across her cheekbones. Her mouth parts, barely, and something inside me breaks. “Are you alright? Are you safe?”
“Yeah.” She swallows hard. Her touch ghosts over my pecs. “God. That was—I can’t believe—I can’t believe I just did that. Did you see how I dodged that photographer?”
“I saw that.”
She laughs. “That is going to be everywhere tomorrow. Me standing my ground? I feel invincible.”
I smile. “Because you are.”
“I want—this is going to sound crazy, and it’s probably the adrenaline talking, but I want to finish what we started back there.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Tell me again.” My voice comes out desperate.
“I want—” Her breath hitches. “I need you. All of you, Dante.”
“Reese—”
“Just us. Please. You and me.”
She punctuates each word with an open-mouthed kiss along my jaw, and when she finally reaches my lips, everything else falls away. She tastes like liquor and bad decisions. My hands find her hair, her waist, desperate to memorize every curve of her. The way she melts against me only makes me harder, hungrier, more desperate.
“I’ve ached to savor you,” I growl against her neck, my fingers digging possessively into her spine. Each touch is a claim, a mark of ownership. “Patiently waited through the torture of being so close to you.
“Really?” she challenges, pulling back with swollen lips and eyes dark with need.
“Watching you train day after day, those sweats hugging your ass, your pretty tits in your sweatshirt.”
“Roll up the partition,” she moans between kisses. A growl rumbles in my chest as I reach for the button, unwilling to break contact for a second.
My mind short-circuits at the realization—I’m about to fuck the Reese Sinclair. I haven’t just wanted this for weeks; I’ve had a craving for her in the back of my mind for years. And I haven’t just wanted. I’ve needed, craved, burned for. And now she’s here, beneath my hands, surrendering to me, and I’m going to make damn sure she never forgets what it’s like to be with Dante Hastings.
“You’ve turned me into someone I don’t recognize,” I pant. “Made me so obsessed with you since I had that first taste of your lips.”
She gasps, arching against me, seeking more.
“I can’t think straight when you’re near me,” I say. The words feel inadequate against the weight of what I’m trying to convey. “Can’t think about anything but you.”
My mouth crashes against hers with barely restrained violence. The streetlights flicker across her face.
“Me too,” she moans.
“You drive me out of my mind, Reese. Then you go and put my ring around your pearls.” I suck in my teeth.
She touches it with a deliberate slowness.
“Do you like it?”
“Fucking love it.”
“Take me.” She’s begging now, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
“I’ve got what we need.”
I pull out a condom from my wallet.
Nothing exists beyond us—just the leather seats creaking beneath us, her soft body molding perfectly to mine. I push aside the rest of her skirt. She slides down her panties while I roll the condom on.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Reese. I’m going to fill this pussy up with my cock. And you.” I exhale, not wanting to rush this. “You are going to take every last inch. Understand?”
She nods. Positioning myself at her entrance, her body splayed out before me, I slowly break my forty-four-day streak while staring into her beautiful brown eyes.
The sensation is overwhelming—tight, hot, enveloping me completely. Her body accepts me as if we were designed for this.
Her lips are my new addiction, sweet and pliant and perfect. The delicate scent of her perfume fills the confined space until I’m dizzy with want.
She moans, jutting her hips, and fuck, I’m about to come on the spot.
It’s too good. Better than I imagined.
Fuck.
I’ve always prided myself on being in control, on keeping things casual. But with her, it’s different. Every touch feels like coming home. The way her eyes flutter shut when pleasure overtakes her.The way she seems to always fight two parts of herself. Maybe that’s the Gemini in her. Maybe that’s the real Reese and Reese Sinclair.
Tonight, I get to have both. Tonight, I’m making all of her mine.
“More,” she begs. I take a nipple between my lips. She rocks on my cock as I savor the salt on her skin. I’ve never felt this fucking turned on before. I’m trying so hard not to come. I want to make her feel good first.
“Fuck, wait—” I swallow the rush. “This feels so fucking good. I have to slow down.”
She doesn’t care. Her hands wrap around my waist, pulling me closer. The way she surrenders to me awakens something fiercer than desire, her inner muscles fluttering around me in a rhythm that makes my vision blur.
“Dante.” She says my name like a prayer, and her pussy tenses around me.
Get it the fuck together, man.
“ Milaya ,” I whisper against her ear, and she shivers at the Russian endearment. “The things you do to me.” My hands slide down to her hips, steadying her as she arches against me. “ Ty menya okoldovala. ” The foreign words roll off my tongue. “You bewitch me.”
The way she envelops me is unlike anything I’ve ever known—as if she’s wrapped herself around my very existence.
“I’m going to mess you up again and you’re going to love it, aren’t you?” I don’t break my pace inside of her as I unclasp her pearl necklace and yank it off. I roll the gems between my fingertips.
“I am,” she exhales.
I trail the pearls down her body, watching her shiver at their smooth touch. I keep slowly rocking into her. Her skin is a perfect shade of flushed. I wrap her necklace, with my ring still attached, around my fingers and place it on her clit, tortuously rolling the beads over her.
“Oh,” she mewls. So fucking beautiful. “Oh my god. That—”
“Feels good, huh?” I groan, lost in the way she feels. “Your precious pearls rubbing up against your pussy.” She parts her lips in this expression of pure pleasure that makes my chest tight. Then comes her smirk—that goddamn confident smirk that’s haunted my dreams—and I drive deeper, claiming more of her, rolling the pearls faster.
Her eyes go wide, pupils blown with pleasure, and I know I’m moments from getting her there. But I don’t want this to end too soon.
“Keep talking in Russian,” she demands. She’s close. Not hiding, not performing—just present, real, desperate.
“ Ty moya ,” I growl. “Right now, wrapped around my hard cock, you’re mine. Every. Damn. Part of you.” My free hand digs into her hips, probably leaving marks. Good. “Aren’t you, Reese? Getting fucked just how you like.”
When she tightens around me, I have to stop moving entirely. Sweat trickles down my temple as I fight for control, wanting to make this last forever.
“You’re making me—Dante—” She falters. The car fills with her scent—cedar and magnolias mixed with leather and sex.
“That’s my girl.” The words come out rough, primal. Her eyes lock with mine. “Come for me, baby. Come all over this cock and fucking mean it.”
She tries to hold back the wave of pleasure, her teeth sinking into my shoulder as she conceals her gasping release. I come at the same time as her, wrapped in latex and the tight heat of her warmth.
Fuck . It’s even better than I imagined. This release after forty-four days without any—I nearly pass out.
The windows are completely fogged now, like we’re in our own private universe. But reality intrudes with a cleared throat.
“Mr. Hastings, we’ve arrived at Miss Sinclair’s house,” my driver announces through the intercom. My cock still throbbing inside her, I curse under my breath.
I pull out reluctantly, working off the condom and dropping it into the bin in the back of the limo before buttoning up my pants. “Come to my hotel. Let’s not call it a night.”
“Not tonight.” The words carry a teasing lilt. The way she keeps me wanting more is maddening.
I help her smooth down her dress. She allows me to fix her lipstick, watching me with those eyes that seem to hold entire conversations we never speak aloud. When I tuck a stray curl behind her ear, my fingertips brush against her skin, and time stretches, thin and delicate.
I get out first, Ramsey’s presence a dark outline in the window as I open her door. She steps out and turns to leave, and there’s something devastating about watching her choose to walk away.
I find my voice. “Don’t forget your pearls.”
She looks over her shoulder, and I toss her the necklace, watching it trace a gentle arc through the air between us. She catches it, as if she knew exactly where it would be.
“See you back on set in a week, Mr. Hastings.”
There goes Reese. She is both the woman I spar with, who lets me be myself, and Reese Sinclair, the untouchable star I’ve wanted since before I understood want. The distinction between these versions of her grows less clear each time we’re together.
We’ll return to set and maintain our arrangement—sex without complications, and by December we’ll wrap up filming. Next year, the USFA committee will have me back, image sparkling clean, and she’ll have drummed up sufficient publicity for Robyn Hood .
But then what?
This ache in my chest, persistent and unnamed, will fade. It has to.