50. Riley
Riley
A ll it takes is a single flick, and the cold steel whispering along the tender skin of my inner thigh cuts clean through the fabric.
I’m exposed—completely, shamelessly soaked and laid bare beneath his scorching gaze.
My breath hitches as his thick finger glides leisurely, long strokes along my entrance.
I fumble with the buttons of his shirt—one, then another—baring heat and muscle. The faint sheen of sweat slicks his skin draws light to every hard line and shadow down to his tattoo.
The serpent wrapped around his arm. The devil. Him.
His fingers glide between my thighs, dragging slowly along my slit. He groans softly, voice roughened with need. “Fuck, Pom. You’re soaked. So…wet. So fucking pretty for me.”
Then he shifts, and the blunt, thick head of his cock—slick, gorgeous, and glistening with pre-cum—is suddenly right there, nudging gently at my entrance.
Right now, moving is impossible. Hell, breathing is impossible.
All I can do is feel him, crave him, and wait.
Abruptly, he stills.
His lips skim the shell of my ear. “Last chance, Pom. Once I’m inside you, there’s nowhere to run.”
My chest heaves. The breath drags in and out in a daze, my teeth nibble the corner of my lip as my fingers explore his soft, thick waves. I swallow hard. “Is running from you even an option?”
“Run. Fight. Hide. Do your worst, Pom. It’s you—or fucking no one at all.”
His grip on my hair tightens, anchoring me to him. All the pain, the fight, the hate—it surges between us, until it’s nearly stripped away.
Teeth graze my shoulder, a sharp, feral bite that draws a broken whimper from my throat.
Then, with one merciless thrust, he’s in me—buried deep, stretching me, filling every desperate inch.
“ Fuck… ”
His words fracture inside my gasp.
I feel every inch of him inside me, sharp pain smashing into pleasure in one violent, electrifying collision.
My thoughts scatter. Heat flares. He grunts—low and feral—when my nails dig into his shoulders. Marking him. Claiming him, as much as he claims me.
He pauses for half a beat, trembling for control, forehead pressed roughly to mine, breath ragged, strained. “Pom.”
My name slips past his lips like a whispered prayer—a curse, a plea.
Then his mouth finds mine. A kiss. A tasting lick. A slow, needy suck.
A memorizing kiss that sears through every part of me, all at once.
The smallest shift, and I’m pinned beneath him. He’s so fucking deep—stretching me, holding me exactly where he wants me.
He’s holding back, gripping a thread of control I don’t fucking want. His body trembles with restraint, like a bull trapped in a too-small pen, seconds from tearing through everything in its path.
But I don’t want gentle. I don’t want slow.
I want every brutal, dark piece of him forced into every shattered edge of me.
I try to speak, but my voice fractures, splintering into a desperate, messy plea. “More. Harder. Please .”
It’s the please that snaps his control?—
That, and my teeth sinking possessively into his bare chest. The instinctive, greedy grind of my hips. The whimper of his name. “Dante.”
The world spins, tilts, flips—and suddenly, I’m beneath him, exactly where I belong.
He pulls out, slams in.
Again. And again. And fucking again.
His mouth devours me as he takes me. The deep, punishing thrusts shattering every last thread of my restraint.
I take all of him. And he’s a lot to take. Big and breathtaking, Dante is too much and not enough all at once.
His fingers tighten around my throat, pressure exquisitely perfect. And I open that much more.
My pulse races frantically beneath his grip as he fucks me deeper, harder, faster, claiming every broken, desperate piece of me.
“Come for me, Pom,” he growls roughly against my neck. “Right fucking now, baby.”
And I do.
The orgasm hits with a force so intense, so devastatingly raw and perfect, it hurts.
“Dante!”
I scream his name, shattered and utterly owned.
There’s a part of me that knows I’ll never recover from him—and a sick, desperate part that never wants to.
His pace quickens, thrusts rough and erratic, shoving deep, coming so fucking hard—the way he breaks apart—it’s like the universe explodes. Shifts.
I feel it everywhere.
Slowly, our ragged breathing settles, melting into silence that throbs and pulses around us, broken only by our frantic breaths.
For endless moments, we lie tangled, his body still buried deep, anchored together.
When he finally moves—pulling out so slowly it feels deliberate, he stares.
“What?”
Something unsettlingly soft flickers across his face, a shadow of pain darkened by regret. He frowns. “Stay here.”
He rises abruptly, disappearing into the bathroom.
I glance down, stomach knotting painfully. Creamy white—a lot of it—streaked crimson, dotted with tiny flecks of blood.
A bitter stab of panic knots with doubt.
No condom.
Seconds later Dante returns, towel in hand.
“You don’t have to?—”
“Lie down.”
It’s an order. Agonizingly soft, yet impossible to disobey.
With unsettling gentleness, he wipes away the evidence of what we’ve done. His mouth follows, feather-light kisses ghosting tenderly over bruised skin, each caress sending chills rippling through my raw, trembling body.
His lips part like he might speak, eyes traveling slowly up my body—but never reaching mine.
And suddenly, running doesn’t seem like the worst idea anymore.
But the realization hits too late.
Warmth bleeds from his expression, gentleness evaporating completely. In it’s place, unforgiving steel.
Before I can react, hard fingers coil brutally around my throat.
I lunge desperately for Da’s knife, but Dante’s faster. Too goddamn fast.
Cold metal whispers along my skin, sliding between the necklace and my throat.
The shot glass of bravery I was clinging to spills out in a pathetic squeak. “What are you doing?”
“Shh.”
The sound is soft. Chillingly gentle.
The kind of hush I imagine a serial killer offers…right before the blade sinks in and twists.
Blue eyes smolder, darkening to black.
“Stay very still, Pom. Or this will hurt.”
“Is there any fucking version where a knife pressed to my jugular doesn’t hurt?” I hiss, anger spiraling as tears sting.
His grip tightens.
Stars explode in my vision as three savage knocks slam into the door, shattering the silence.
I want to scream, to beg whoever’s out there for help, but Dante’s voice punches through first.
“Come in,” he barks sharply.
My eyes fly wide.
What?
His words hit like a bullet straight to the chest.
I’m naked, vulnerable, seconds away from becoming the victim of a felony—or five—and he’s casually inviting someone to stroll right in?
Humiliation scorches my cheeks, tears spilling hotly down my face. Knox was right. I never should’ve come.
The door swings open brutally, revealing exactly who I feared—the towering, stone-faced bouncer. Not the one from downstairs. No, this is worse.
So much worse, because I recognize him.
Chio.
And if I’m hoping he’ll help, I’m dead fucking wrong.
Dante’s merciless grip holds me perfectly still, humiliation blistering every inch of exposed skin.
But the brick-wall bouncer doesn’t even glance my way. Not even once.
In the fucked-up, glass-half-full realm of catastrophes, thank God for one small mercy.
His eyes stay locked on the floor, spine stiff, posture rigid—the stance of a man who’s seen one too many bodies carted out for forgetting that what happens in Dante’s office stays in Dante’s office.
“Sir, it’s time.”
“Time,” Dante repeats quietly, voice dangerously numb.
The bouncer turns to leave, but Dante’s voice lashes out like a whip. “Stop.”
The man freezes instantly. Doesn’t face us. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t dare move.
Whatever flicker of heat lingered in Dante’s eyes burns away like fog under a mid-day sun.
He wedges the knife higher, pressing cold steel viciously between the necklace and my skin. His fingers clamp brutally tighter, squeezing— squeezing —until even my whimpers choke to silence.
Then, suddenly, it’s over.
A whisper of steel.
A sharp, decisive snap.
The blade slices cleanly through the chain.
Dante’s hand miraculously releases.
He steps right over me without even a glance. Then, casually, coldly, he tucks the necklace into a drawer.
The fucking necklace.
“That’s what you wanted?” I sputter bitterly, words strangled. “The necklace?”
I’m still writhing, gasping, clawing desperately for each raw, painful breath.
And he’s a total cock. “Yes.” His voice is ice. “Give her your jacket. Take her home.”
Without a word, the bouncer shrugs it off, draping it gently over my bare shoulders like I’m some wounded bird, too broken to fly away.
The jacket’s oversized enough I could easily curl up in it and fucking die in it right now.
Gasping, shaking, I force myself to stand, adrenaline slamming through me like a freight train.
With all the grace of a newborn fawn on ice, I plant my feet, choking down coughs as Dante’s narrowed eyes scrape over me—slow, ruthless, assessing.
Whatever he’s thinking, it sure as hell isn’t arousal.
No. It feels a whole lot more like disgust.
I yank the jacket tighter, lifting my chin in defiance. “If all you wanted was a five-hundred-thousand-dollar necklace, you could’ve left my dress intact.”
He steps closer, crowding my space until I have to physically fight the primal urge to flinch—or bolt.
“Five hundred and eighty-nine thousand, Pom,” he corrects coldly. “And if all you wanted were answers, you shouldn’t have brought a knife. Try a gun next time. Put us both out of our misery that much faster.”
He brushes past me dismissively.
Like a masochist with a fucking death wish, I snag his sleeve, yanking him to a stop.
He freezes, voice lethally soft. “What?”
When I meet his eyes—a blank canvas of frostbitten steel—I simply hold out my hand.
He cocks his head, mocking. “I only pay for sex.”
“With charm like yours? Shocker.” I flex my fingers impatiently. “My knife.”
His gaze flicks to the blade still clenched in his grip.
“I’ve grown attached. I’m keeping it.” With a slick metallic click, he retracts it. Flips it once with ruthless ease. “Consider it payment for your lesson.”
“What lesson?”
His smile is pure predator, slow, razor-edged, utterly merciless.
“You’re not the hunter, Pom. You’re the fucking meal. Mine .”