Chapter 11 Ana
Eight nights of his piano music drilling into my skull like beautiful torture. Eight nights of pretending to sleep while he watches from that leather chair. Eight nights of this impossible patience that makes me want to tear my skin off just to feel something real.
I can't take it anymore.
The hallway stretches before me, afternoon light cutting through windows I've memorized from pacing.
My exhausted brain processes each step like swimming through honey.
His study door stands open, an invitation or a trap.
Cigarette smoke drifts out, mixing with something darker.
Him. Always him, filling every corner of this house until I can't breathe without tasting his presence.
I don't knock. This is supposed to be my home too now, isn't it?
Dante sits behind his mahogany desk, tablet in one hand, cigarette burning in a crystal tray.
The same desk where he helped me with Papa's inheritance papers just days ago.
Behind him, the wall displays an arsenal.
Antique knives, modern guns, all decorative but functional.
A reminder of what he is. He doesn't look up when I enter, but I see the subtle shift in his shoulders. He knows I'm here. He always knows.
My hands move sharply, aggressively signing: "The music bothers me."
Finally, those dark eyes lift to mine. One eyebrow rises, a question without words. He sets down the tablet with deliberate calm, gives me his full attention. The weight of it makes my stomach flip and wetness gather between my thighs. Madonna, why does his attention affect me like this?
"Every night," I continue, my signs getting sharper. "You play that piano like you're trying to drive me insane."
He takes a slow drag of his cigarette, exhales smoke that curls between us. His hands move with that infuriating grace: "Would you prefer silence?"
"I'd prefer you act like the monster you are."
His almost-smile appears, the one that makes me want to throw things. "I am acting like myself."
"Coward," I sign, stepping closer to his desk. "You sit in that chair every night, watching me like some kind of pervert. What kind of man does that?"
Something flickers in his eyes, the same look he probably gets before ordering someone's death, but he doesn't rise to the bait. Just continues studying me with that maddening patience, like I'm a puzzle he has all the time in the world to solve.
"A husband watching his wife sleep," he signs back, each movement precise and controlled. "Nothing perverse about it."
The casual claim makes my blood boil. "I'm not your wife. Not really."
He glances deliberately at my left hand where his ring sits heavy. "The law says otherwise. The Hadley contracts say otherwise. Chicago says otherwise."
"The law can go to hell." My signs are so aggressive my hands ache. "And so can you."
"Eventually," he agrees, that almost-smile still playing at his lips. "But not today."
I want to scream. Want to grab his perfectly pressed shirt and shake him until that control cracks. Make him angry. Make him cruel. Make him something I can properly hate instead of this patient guardian who plays midnight symphonies.
"You sit in that chair like a pervert," I sign viciously. "Every night. Watching me."
"My room," he signs back calmly. "My chair. My right."
My hand goes to the ring, yanking it off with enough force to hurt. The metal flies across the desk, aimed at his chest. He catches it one-handed without even blinking, the same reflexes that probably help him survive assassination attempts.
"There," I sign with shaking hands. "Now I'm not your wife."
He examines the ring, turning it in the light from the window. Then he slips it into his pocket with the same calm that makes me want to destroy everything in this room.
"You'll put it back on," he signs.
"Make me."
The words hang between us, a challenge I shouldn't have issued.
The temperature in the room drops, and I realize I've finally, finally crossed a line.
His cigarette goes out in the tray with a soft hiss.
He stands slowly, unfolding from the chair with that liquid grace that reminds me he's not just patient. He's dangerous.
Even across the desk, his presence fills the space between us. Six-foot-three of silent threat, and I asked him to make me.
Cazzo, what have I done?
Dante moves around the desk with predator grace, and I refuse to back away even as my heart pounds. He stops just short of touching me, close enough that I feel the heat radiating from his body. My back hits the edge of the desk, and suddenly I'm trapped between mahogany and muscle.
His hands come up to bracket me against the desk, palms flat on the surface, caging me without contact.
Hands that have killed, hands that sign death orders as easily as love songs.
I can smell his cologne this close, cigarette smoke clinging to his shirt, and something underneath that's purely him.
My nipples tighten against my dress, so hard they hurt, and I know he can see them through the thin fabric.
He leans down, and I feel his breath ghost across my neck. Still not touching, but every nerve in my body screams awareness. His hands move in the space between us, signing so close I feel the air displacement: "You want a monster?"
My hand twitches toward the knife in my boot. He has to know it's there, but his eyes dare me to try.
"Yes," I sign back, though my hands shake. This is what I wanted. To make him react. To make him cruel.
"Then why," his signs continue, deliberate and measured, "do you stand outside my door every night, listening to my music?"
The question cuts deeper than any physical blow. "I don't…"
"You do." His eyes hold mine, dark and knowing. "You think I don't notice? Your breathing changes when I play certain pieces. You lean against the door during the sad parts."
My face burns with humiliation and something else. Heat pools between my thighs, and I hate myself for the wetness gathering there. "Your music… I already know why you play. You told me it's your voice, how you scream without sound. But why play things that make me…"
"Make you what?" His signs are closer now, intimate.
"Make me forget to hate you."
Pain flickers across his features, gone so fast I might have imagined it. "Maybe that's the point."
"You had a real voice once."
"They took it."
"Who?" Though I know the answer. My family's men. Their revenge.
He doesn't answer. Instead: "The music you hate is the only way I can speak certain truths. And you call it beautiful when you think I can't hear."
"I never…"
"Last night. You whispered 'beautiful' during the third movement."
Caught. Exposed. I shove his chest hard with both hands. He doesn't budge, but he catches my wrists, firm but not painful. Now we're connected, his hands wrapped around mine, and the contact sends electricity shooting up my arms straight to my pussy.
"Let go!" The words burst out in English, broken with emotion.
His grip tightens slightly, his jaw clenching with the effort of control. "You pushed. I pushed back. Don't like the game?"
I try to bring my knee up, but he blocks with his thigh, stepping between my legs.
The position presses us together, full body contact, and we both freeze.
I can feel his chest against mine, the rapid rise and fall of his breathing.
And lower, Madonna mia, I can feel him hard against my stomach through his expensive suit.
My body is a traitor, growing wet where his thigh presses between mine.
This is wrong. He killed Papa. Killed my uncle.
Stole everything that ever mattered. But my pussy doesn't care about revenge, only about the heat of him, the size of him, the way he makes me feel small and protected and furious all at once.
"Dante," I whisper, his name slipping out before I can stop it. The first time I've said it aloud.
His hands tighten on my wrists, almost painful, and I see his control cracking at the edges. His eyes drop to my mouth, and heat floods through me that has nothing to do with anger. His hands shake slightly where they hold mine.
We stand frozen like that. My back against the desk, his body pressed against mine, both breathing too hard for this to be about fighting anymore.
I can feel his heart beating against my chest, fast and wild, nothing like the controlled man he pretends to be.
The rhythm matches mine, two hearts pounding out the same desperate tune.
His cock throbs against my stomach, and wetness floods my panties.
My exhausted brain can't process whether this is desire or just another form of warfare.
Then suddenly he releases my wrists and steps back, putting space between us that feels wrong after that contact. My skin still burns where he touched me, phantom pressure that makes me want to reach for him. No. That's not what I want. It can't be.
He pulls the ring from his pocket, sets it on the desk beside me with deliberate care. The metal makes a soft click against the wood.
"Put it back on," he signs, and there's something different in his movements now. Less controlled. More desperate.
"Why should I?"
His answer surprises me: "I play piano at night so I don't do this."
"Do what?"
"Touch you without permission."
The admission hangs between us, raw and honest. He's been fighting this too. Whatever this dangerous thing between us is, he's been using music to keep it at bay. All those midnight symphonies weren't just expression. They were restraint.
He moves toward the door, then turns back. His hands shake slightly as he signs: "You want me to be cruel? This is my cruelty. Wanting you and keeping myself from taking. Playing music instead of playing with the way your body responds to mine."
My breath catches. He noticed. Of course he noticed. He knows how wet I am, how my nipples peaked for him, how my body betrayed every promise I made to Papa's memory.
"I didn't give you permission to want me," I sign desperately.
That almost-smile appears, sad this time. "No. You didn't."
He leaves me there, shaking against his desk, the ring beside me catching the afternoon light. The door doesn't close. He never shuts me out completely, but his footsteps fade down the hall.
My fingers won't stop trembling as I pick up the ring. The metal is warm from his pocket, and I hate that this detail matters. Hate that I notice. Hate that my body still feels the imprint of his pressed against mine, his cock hard against my stomach, his thigh between my legs.
I slide it back onto my finger, the weight familiar now after eight days. Mrs. Rosetti. The name that's supposed to be my revenge, not my confusion.
From somewhere deep in the house, piano music begins again.
But this is different from his usual midnight compositions.
Darker. Angrier. Full of the same frustration that's eating me alive.
The notes crash and collide, violent and beautiful, and I recognize the feeling in them.
Want. Desperate, unwanted, undeniable want.
He's playing what just happened between us. Translating our dangerous moment into music that makes my chest ache and my pussy throb.
My legs won't hold me anymore. I sink into his desk chair, still warm from him, and the leather smells like cigarettes and sandalwood.
My body remembers his heat, the solid wall of him pressed against me, his thigh between mine.
I press my own thighs together, trying to stop the ache building there.
This wasn't the plan. Santo Dio, this wasn't the plan.
He was supposed to be cruel so I could hate him properly. Instead, he's patient and complex and plays piano to keep from touching me without permission. Instead, my body betrays me every time he's near, growing wet with want for my enemy.
The music builds, passionate and tormented, and I know he's struggling with the same fire that's consuming me. We're both burning in this beautiful prison, circling each other like fighters who've forgotten why they're fighting.
My hand slips beneath my dress before I can stop myself, finding the wetness he caused.
I touch myself in his chair, hating that it's his face I see when I close my eyes, his hands I imagine replacing mine.
The music crescendos as I work my fingers faster, and I bite back his name when I come, my body shuddering with release and shame in equal measure.
Eight nights married, and I'm further from killing him than ever. Because now I know what his body feels like pressed against mine. Now I know his heart beats as fast as mine when we touch. Now I know he wants me too, and that knowledge is more dangerous than any weapon.
My fingers trace the ring, around and around, as his music fills the house with dark confession. Tomorrow I'll try again to hate him. Tomorrow I'll remember why I came here.
Tonight, I sit in his chair with trembling hands and the echo of my shameful orgasm, listening to him play his want into the keys, both of us drowning in desires we never asked for.