30. Adalina
Chapter 30
Adalina
I find a point on the ceiling to fix my eyes on. There’s a little speck of dirt nestled in the corner of the room, or perhaps it’s a spider. With fourteen-foot ceilings and less-than-perfect eyesight, I can’t tell for sure.
With a graceful fluidity, Dante removes the last of his clothes and joins me on the bed. “If it gets too hot or you’re uncomfortable, just tell me,” he insists. But I resolve to keep my mouth shut.
As he orients his body on top of mine, there is a crushing sensation in my chest for a second. It’s a fleeting fear that he will squeeze the life out of me, that this is where and how I will die. But as he wraps his arms around me and our bodies meld together, the fear dissipates and is replaced with a sense of protection and security. The warmth of his body pressed against mine sends tingles through my veins, calming my racing heart.
The sense of familiarity is nearly overwhelming. Dante rests his head on my chest, his arms crossing over mine and the blanket between us. Though there is no physical contact, the closeness feels dangerously intimate. Our hearts begin to beat in unison, creating a steady rhythm.
“Can I do anything?” He asks in a quieter tone. “Do you need more or less pressure?”
I shake my head but realize that he can’t see me. “Oh, uh, no. I’m okay.”
A tranquil silence settles over the room, allowing the soft rays of golden sunlight to pour through the window and drape the space in a warm afternoon glow. As I lay beneath Dante’s weight, my chest no longer buzzes with nervous energy. The worries that consumed me before are now distant memories, forgotten in the presence of his body pressed against mine. He is my solace, better than any stack of books could ever be, but I’ll never tell him.
I wiggle an arm free when the silence grows too suffocating. Dante jerks away from me, balancing all his weight on his hands. “Are you okay?” He asks, his voice laced with empathy and his face lined with concern.
“I’m fine. Lay back down,” I coax. “I just want to run my fingers through your hair.” The words slip unbidden from my throat, a desire I didn’t even realize I had. But the second they touch the air, I realize they’re true.
Dante makes himself comfortable as I untangle my arm from the blankets. My fingers trace soft circles on his scalp, feeling the silky strands beneath my touch. His eyes flutter closed, and I can hear his contented sighs blending with the rustling of leaves outside. “Mhmm,” he groans against my chest, “that feels nice.”
My anxiety resurfaces, coiling around my stomach like a tight knot. “Tell me something about yourself,” I say, hoping he’ll ruin this moment. Part of me wants him to say something that will make me hate him, but another part secretly hopes he’ll surprise me and make me fall even harder for him.
His body goes rigid for a second before he finds a response. “I got a real job when I was sixteen. First one ever. My father disapproved because he wanted me to be completely reliant on him, but I’ve always gone my own way.”
I make a sound of agreement, urging him to go on.
“A friend of the family needed a stock boy at their grocery store. Looking back, it was a shitty job, but I loved it back then. I would race out of my last class of the day just to hop in my car and work a 3-hour shift at the store. It was the time of my life. I was only making a few bucks an hour, but I remember being so damn proud of myself when I got my first check.”
I’m jealous that he got to stock shelves, that he had something to look forward to every day. But that wasn’t what I expected when I asked him to tell me something. I expected a dark and ugly secret because I needed it to deter me from wanting him. “Tell me something else.”
Nothing changes in his posture, but I can feel a shift in his energy. Dante remains still with his head on my chest, quietly listening to my heartbeat. “What do you want, Adalina?” He asks the question gently without a hint of anger or frustration.
For some reason, it unnerves me. “I want you to tell me something about yourself. Something else.”
He takes my insolence in stride. “What else?”
Frustration quickly seeps into my tone, uncontrollable and dripping with exasperation. I wish I had an answer, but all I can do is shrug helplessly as the words escape my lips. “I don’t know.”
Dante raises his head to look at me, his face drawn taut with lines of anger. “Do you want a story where I’m the villain? Do you want me to tell you that I killed a man last year because he took a hit out on my father? Do you want me to tell you that I stuck him in the dungeon and started removing his limbs one by one? That I force-fed him every day and kept him hydrated so he’d stay alive long enough to tell me why he did it? And that even after I’d taken every finger and toe, after I’d flayed his cock while it was still on his body, he died of a heart attack before he admitted the truth? Is this what you want? To believe I’m a monster? Because I am. And I’m sorry if doing one nice thing for you makes me too human.”
Somewhere between his angry breaths and my restlessness, we meet in the middle for a kiss. His lips are on mine, demanding and taking all the passion I have to give. And I don’t know if it’s the warmth of his body on mine or the savagery with which he told the story, but I need to be closer to him. Right now, he is the only person in the world who knows and understands what I’ve gone through, and it blurs the lines between right and wrong.