Chapter 25 #2
I am going to swoon. Right here, right now, on this hideous orange sofa. I am going to pass out from the sheer overwhelming intensity of being kissed by Dante, and then I will have to live with that embarrassment for the rest of my captivity.
His teeth catch my lower lip, a gentle scrape that makes my hips jerk involuntarily. He soothes the sting with his tongue, then claims my mouth again with renewed intensity. The hand on my hip tightens, pulling me closer, and I realize with distant shock that I am in his lap.
When did that happen? When did I climb on top of him? I have no memory of moving, no conscious decision to straddle his thighs, but here I am. Pressed against him from chest to hip, my fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt, making sounds I will definitely be mortified about later.
Dante pulls back just far enough to breathe, and I chase his mouth instinctively, not ready for this to end. He huffs something that might be a laugh against my lips and presses a softer kiss to the corner of my mouth. Then another to my jaw. Then a third to the sensitive spot just below my ear.
Stars dance behind my closed eyelids.
“Dylan.” His voice is rough, wrecked, nothing like the controlled tone I have grown used to hearing. “Look at me.”
I force my eyes open. His face is right there, so close I can count his eyelashes if I wanted to. His pupils are blown wide, dark and hungry, and there is color high on his cheekbones. He looks just as undone as I am.
“Hi,” I whisper, because apparently my brain has stopped working entirely.
His lips twitch. That almost smile I have learned to recognize, the one that feels like a victory every time I manage to coax it out of him.
“Hi,” he replies.
We stare at each other. The film is still playing in the background, forgotten entirely, and I cannot bring myself to care about anything except the way his hands feel on my waist and the warm press of his body beneath mine.
“I have wanted to do that,” he says slowly, “for longer than I should admit.”
The confession hits me like a physical blow. Not because it is surprising, exactly. I have suspected for days now that his feelings run deeper than a stern captor should allow. But hearing him say it out loud, with that raw honesty in his voice, makes something crack open in my chest.
“How long?” I hear myself ask.
“Since you fainted at the sight of my pliers.” His thumb traces absent circles on my hip. “Possibly before that. Possibly from the first moment you looked at me with those eyes and swore you were innocent.”
The first moment. When I was tied to a chair in his torture room, terrified and recently drugged and convinced I was going to die.
“That’s very messed up,” I say.
“I know.”
“I was your prisoner. I am still your prisoner.”
“I know that too.”
His hands have not moved from my waist. His gaze has not wavered from my face. He is not pretending this is normal or acceptable or anything other than exactly what it is. Complicated and wrong and utterly undeniable.
“I should not have kissed you,” I whisper.
“No, you probably should not have.”
“It was impulsive. I was not thinking clearly. The whiskey, and the film, and your stupid knee touching mine...”
“My stupid knee?”
“You were manspreading. It was very distracting.”
That almost smile widens into something closer to genuine. It transforms his face, softens the hard edges, makes him look younger and more human.
“I will try to contain my knee in the future.”
“Good. See that you do.”
We are bantering. Flirting. Having an actual conversation while I sit in his lap with swollen lips and a racing heart. This is surreal. This is insane. This is so far outside the bounds of my seduction plan that I have no idea what to do next.
I should climb off him. Put some distance between us. Return to my designated spot on the sofa and pretend this never happened.
Instead, I lean forward and kiss him again.
It is softer this time. Slower. Less desperate and more deliberate.
I explore the shape of his mouth with careful attention, cataloguing every detail.
The way his breath catches when I trace my tongue along his lower lip.
The small sound he makes when I run my fingers through his hair.
The way his hands flex on my waist like he is fighting the urge to pull me closer.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, my entire body is tingling.
“That was also impulsive,” I admit.
“I noticed.”
“I don’t know what I am doing.”
“Neither do I.”
It should not be comforting, hearing that. He is supposed to be the one in control, the one with all the power in this dynamic. But somehow, knowing that he is just as lost as I am makes this feel less terrifying.
We are both adrift in unfamiliar waters. We are both making it up as we go along.
Dante shifts beneath me, and I become suddenly, viscerally aware of just how close we are. Every inch of our bodies pressed together. The heat building between us. The undeniable evidence of how much he enjoyed that kiss pressing against my thigh.
My face catches fire.
“I should, um.” I gesture vaguely. “I should probably...”
“Yes.” His voice is strained. “That would probably be wise.”
I climb off his lap with as much dignity as I can muster, which is not very much at all. My legs feel shaky, my lips feel swollen, and there is a persistent warmth in my belly that has nothing to do with whiskey.
We sit side by side on the sofa, a careful few inches between us now. On the screen, credits are rolling. The film is over. I have no idea how it ended.
“So,” I say.
“So,” he agrees.
Silence stretches between us, but it is not uncomfortable. It is charged, electric, full of everything we just did and everything we very deliberately stopped ourselves from doing.
My seduction plan has officially gone off the rails. Whatever this is, it is not strategic. It is not calculated. It is not a means to an end.
It is something else entirely. Something I don’t know how to name.
And I have absolutely no idea what happens next.