4. Dante
CHAPTER FOUR
DANTE
When class ended, Jace stormed out of the room. His rage meant nothing to me. My focus remained fixed on Shaw, who had consumed my thoughts every waking moment since he left my room the night before.
I waited by the door as he packed his bag. He fell into step beside me as we walked to our next class. Those few moments alone with him were worth more than the thousands of dollars clients paid to rent my body.
“Did you think you were being subtle earlier?” I asked.
“Oh, shut up. You don’t help the situation any.” His irritation only made me want to push harder.
“I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to be helping,” I replied with feigned innocence, the same tone I used when Salvatore asked if I knew anything about something I needed to keep secret.
“You know what I mean.” He tightened his grip on his bag strap.
Riling him up was too easy. “Besides, how much help do you need with someone too dense to make the connection between me and Dragon?”
His jaw dropped at my careless mention of my other life. He scanned our surroundings, confirming no one lurked close enough to overhear. “What makes you think he didn’t?”
“If he had, you wouldn’t be on speaking terms with him, and he most likely would have made an unwise attempt at punching me.
” His scowl made me feel victorious. “That tells me you either talked him out of figuring it out, or he really is too stupid to figure it out on his own, despite the very obvious connection to my last name.”
“Stop insulting him.”
I grabbed his wrist and yanked him into an empty classroom, where I pinned him against the wall. My body caged his smaller frame.
He stared up at me with conflicting want and anger that made my cock stiffen. I wanted him until neither of us remembered where Dante ended and Dragon began. Instead, I savored the battle.
“Would he still be friends with you if he knew what we did last night?” I murmured. “Would he forgive you if he knew how badly you want to beg me to fuck you and scream my name when you came?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Shaw struggled against me with an impressive growl.
Capturing both his wrists in one hand, I pressed them above his head against the wall. I used my height to loom over him and force him to look up at me.
“Liar,” I breathed against his ear, my free hand gripping his jaw to hold him still. “It’s all you can think about now. How it feels to kiss me. How I made you come harder than anyone ever has.”
I dragged my teeth along the shell of his ear, making him shudder beneath me. “Every time you close your eyes, you can’t stop wondering what it would feel like to have me inside you, stretching you open, making you take every thick inch of my cock until you’re sobbing with pleasure.”
“That’s not true,” he protested, but his voice cracked, betraying him.
I pressed my thigh between his legs to tease his hardness. “Your cock says otherwise.” I applied more pressure, and his eyes fluttered shut. “Tell me what you want, Shaw.”
He remained stubbornly silent.
“Admit it. You want me.” I moved my hand up to trace his bottom lip with my thumb, pushing it into his mouth. “Desperately.”
His pupils dilated, nearly swallowing the green of his eyes. “I can’t—I shouldn’t—” Shaw protested, even as his tongue darted out to taste me.
“But you will,” I whispered, sliding my thumb in deep enough for him to suck on, moving it in and out in a mockery of a blow job. “You’ll pay whatever it costs because you can’t stop thinking about being inside me. About making me yours, even if it’s only for an hour.”
“No,” he spat, but he ground against my thigh.
I chuckled. “Another lie.” I slid my hand between us, cupping him through his jeans and squeezing hard enough to make his breath catch. “Too bad your body can’t lie as well as your mouth.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I reached down to unbutton his jeans, the sound of his zipper loud in the empty classroom.
A small, desperate sound escaped him. His head fell back against the wall. Anyone could walk by the door, peer through the small window, and see him falling apart under my touch. “Someone could see,” he complained, but made no move to stop me.
“Let them,” I replied, leaning closer until our lips were almost touching. “I never mind having an audience.”
A tremor ran through him as my hand slipped inside his underwear, wrapping around his already hard cock. “Why are you doing this?” His hips thrust into my grip.
“Because I can,” I said, stroking him slowly, my thumb collecting the wetness at his tip. “Because you want me to.”
“Did you go home last night and jerk off thinking about what we did?”
His flush deepened, spreading down his neck. “Stop.”
“Make me,” I challenged, giving him a slow, deliberate stroke that made his eyes roll back. “You can’t, can you? Because despite all your protests, you want this. Want me.”
I stroked him faster, watching his face contort with pleasure. When his breathing quickened, I stopped.
“No,” he gasped, his hips jerking forward, seeking contact that wasn’t there.
“No?” I echoed. “I thought you wanted me to stop.”
He glared at me. “You know what I meant.”
I traced the head of his exposed cock with my index finger, collecting the precum beading at the tip. “Maybe you should be more specific about what you want.”
“Touch me,” he gritted out.
“Where?” I asked, my finger hovering just above his skin. “How? Be exact, Shaw.”
His jaw clenched. “My cock. Stroke me like before.”
I rewarded his honesty by stroking him but kept my movements maddeningly slow. “Tonight, at ten o’clock, I want you back at the brothel.”
He hesitated, and I stopped moving. “I can’t afford it.”
“If you were allowed on my floor, then you can definitely afford it,” I said, cutting him off with a hard squeeze that stole the words from his throat. “And you will. The alternative is an endless need with no release.”
“That’s cruel,” he groaned, the strain clear in every line of his body.
“I never claimed to be kind,” I replied, resuming my slow strokes. “Tell me you’ll visit me tonight. Come fuck me, and I’ll make it worth every penny. Every risk. I’ll ruin you for anyone else, and you’ll thank me for it.”
He countered with a tight “I’ll think about it.”
Without a word, I removed my hand and stepped back. “Wrong answer.”
He made a sound of frustration, his cock hard and exposed. “What do you want from me?”
“Your obedience. Your surrender.”
“Fuck you,” he snarled, his anger a thin veil over his desperation.
I laughed, the sound cutting through the tension between us. “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Bend me over and fuck me until I stop talking? Until I’m the one begging?”
His gaze locked on mine. “Yes.”
“Then earn it,” I challenged, moving closer but not touching him. “Prove you deserve to have me.”
“How?”
I wrapped my hand around his erection again, stroking him hard. “By admitting what you are. What you want.”
His hips bucked into my grip, seeking more friction. “Fine. I want you. Happy?”
“Not good enough,” I said, slowing my strokes to something torturous. “What are you?”
Confusion clouded his features. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re mine,” I told him, increasing my pace again. “Say it.”
Defiance flared in his eyes. “No.”
I pulled away once more. “Then we’re done here.”
“Wait.” Panic edged his voice.
I raised a challenging eyebrow.
The battle of resistance versus surrender played out across his face. Finally, need won. “I’m yours,” he whispered.
“Louder,” I demanded.
“I’m yours,” he repeated with more conviction.
I moved close again, wrapping my hand around him and jerking him off with renewed purpose. “And what will you do tonight?”
“Visit you at the brothel,” he gasped, hips matching my pace. “Ten o’clock.”
“And you’ll pay whatever I ask to fuck me?”
“Yes,” he agreed with a whine. “Anything.”
“Good boy,” I purred, bringing him right to the brink again. When his muscles tightened on the edge of climax, I squeezed the base of his cock to prevent his release.
“No,” he groaned, actual pain in his voice now. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Let me come,” he begged, all pretense of resistance gone. “I need to come.”
I leaned in, my lips hovering above his. “Tonight. If you’re good.”
“But I can’t wait that long,” he protested, desperation making him bold enough to grab my wrist to force my hand to move without success.
Twisting out of his grip, I pinned both his hands back against the wall. “You can. And you will. Because that’s what I want, and you swore you’re mine.”
My lips brushed his ear. “Think of it as a test. If you can’t even wait a few hours for release, how will you ever survive what I have planned for you tonight?”
A shudder of anticipation ran through him. “What have you done to me?”
“Nothing,” I murmured against his mouth without touching it, “yet.”
I stepped back as he tucked himself away, wincing at the constraint of his briefs against his still-hard cock. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late for class.”
He followed me into the hallway on unsteady legs, his face flushed, his gait awkward from the persistent erection straining against his jeans. Anyone looking at him would know what we’d been doing, or more accurately, what we hadn’t finished.
That was the point. He’d spend the rest of the day in a haze of unfulfilled arousal, unable to focus on anything but the promise of tonight. By the time ten o’clock rolled around, he’d be so desperate to fuck me he’d pay any price I named.
Shaw resumed our previous conversation, his voice still unsteady. “You can’t keep provoking Jace, especially not on that topic.”
“Are you worried he’ll say something stupid?”
“He doesn’t think before he speaks when he gets worked up like that.”
“That implies he thinks at all.” The barb slipped out automatically, honed from years of watching Jace fumble through life.
“Dante!”
I turned to face him outside our classroom, calculating the risk of being overheard against the pleasure of watching him squirm. “And here I thought I broke you of the habit of saying my name.”
“That was there.” His cheeks flushed crimson, his voice strengthening as he continued. “Besides, that’s not the point.”
“The point is, I can take care of myself,” I cut him off. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you were concerned for me.”
“How could I not be? I mean, you’re working in a place like that.”
Before I could respond or explain how the brothel was the least dangerous part of my life, our professor interrupted. “Well, well. It almost seems like you’re having a civilized discussion for once instead of an all-out war. There’s hope for a peace accord yet.”
“Something like that,” I replied with the same smile I used when Salvatore introduced me to his business associates, the ones who later paid to fuck me while he watched through hidden cameras. I moved to follow our professor, but Shaw grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong.
He spoke in a soft undertone to avoid drawing attention from the others in the classroom. “This isn’t over.”
“You’re right. The fun is just beginning.”