35. Shaw
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SHAW
Dante’s face showed the strain of his self-control as his muscles tensed while waiting for me to adjust. The burning stretch had faded to a dull pressure.
“You okay?” Dante asked, his voice tight with restraint.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. The vulnerability of being so exposed left me speechless.
He covered me, his weight pressing me into the mattress. “Tell me when I can move.”
I took a deep breath, testing the sensation. My body clenched, pulling a groan from his throat that spiked my arousal.
“Now,” I said. “Please.”
He withdrew slightly before pushing back in. The slow friction left me aching for more.
“Are you okay?” Dante asked, studying my expression.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “It’s different. Good.”
He smiled, repeating the slow motion. “It gets better.”
Each thrust pushed a little deeper than before. The initial discomfort burned away into a rushing heat.
He shifted his angle to brush against that perfect spot again, pulling a strangled sound from me.
“There it is,” he murmured with satisfaction.
The sensation rippled through me. My hands scrambled for purchase, digging into his shoulders. “Do that again.”
He obliged, rolling his hips to strike the exact spot. My cock hardened against my stomach. “More,” I groaned. “Faster.”
“Not yet. Let your body adjust first.”
I wanted to protest, but the next deep roll of his hips silenced my argument.
“This is everything I hoped it would be,” he murmured, dipping his head to press a kiss to my collarbone. “You’re perfect.”
His words sent a flush of heat through me. No one had ever spoken to me like that before. My body responded by clenching around him.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Do that again.”
I repeated the action, intoxicated by the groan it tore from him.
He retaliated by wrapping his hand around my cock, stroking me in time with his thrusts.
“Dante,” I gasped, my voice breaking.
“I’ve got you,” he promised, his strokes matching the rhythm of his hips.
The pressure built inside me, deeper and more intense than before. I could only whimper his name as I held on.
“Fuck, you’re amazing,” he said, his voice strained with the effort of maintaining control. “You’re taking me so well.”
I lifted my hips to meet his movements. “I can’t,” I panted. “It’s too much.”
“You can take it,” he assured me, his hand on my cock never faltering. “I know you can. Show me how much you want it.”
My hands swept over his back and shoulders, mapping the hard muscles sliding under my palms.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this?” Dante asked.
“Since I first beat you on a test?” I guessed.
He lifted my hips more. “Third time.”
I laughed. “Seriously?”
“Mm-hmm.” He thrust hard to punctuate each of his points. “The first time, I figured it was luck. The second one surely must have been a fluke. But the third time was infuriating enough to capture my attention.”
“So, because I beat you,” I tried to reason, breaking off with a groan when he hit something new within me that made me squirm, “you wanted to do this with me?”
His wicked smirk suited him. “And so much more.” He leaned down and kissed me hard. His hips picked up speed, driving into me with newfound urgency.
I gasped against his mouth. “I’m close.”
“Look at me when you come around my cock,” he commanded. “I want to feel you, Shaw.”
In all our encounters at the brothel, he’d never once used my real name during sex. Hearing it in my bedroom proved I held Dante right now, not Dragon.
“Say it again,” I begged.
“You’re mine, Shaw,” he murmured.
His possessiveness tipped me over the edge. I cried out his name, seizing around him as I spilled across my stomach.
Dante’s movements turned erratic. With a few sharp snaps of his hips, he followed me over, moaning my name as he came.
Dante eventually eased backward, making us both wince at the separation.
When he slipped completely free, I gasped at the awful absence.
My body didn’t know how to process the hollow feeling.
I shifted my hips, feeling a trickle of wetness from the lube between my cheeks, a physical reminder of what we’d done.
I now existed in two states of before Dante completely dismantled me, and after.
He disposed of the condom while I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand. When he returned to bed, he gathered me against his chest without hesitation.
“How do you feel?” Dante asked, his hand tracing idle patterns on my back.
“Better than okay,” I replied.
“Good.” Sincerity and satisfaction coated the single word. His fingers combed through my hair.
“I didn’t know it could be like that,” I admitted.
Dante took a deep breath. “It usually isn’t.”
I hesitated, weighing the risk of asking against the safety of silence in the face of Dante’s rare vulnerability.
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
“This changes things, doesn’t it?” I asked.
His hand stilled before resuming its gentle motion. “Yes.”
“In what way?”
Dante stayed quiet for so long I assumed he wouldn’t answer. Finally, he said, “I’m not sure, but it’s different now.”
“Because I’m not just a client?”
He squeezed me closer. “You’ve never been a mere client. My interest in you started long before you ever set foot in Gennaro Corporation.”
While I knew it was true, it still felt good to hear him say it out loud.
“But I can’t be your boyfriend,” he added gently. “Not when Salvatore owns me.”
I nodded against his chest, refusing to let the sharp truth sting. “I know. I’m not na?ve enough to expect happily ever after right now.” No matter how much I want that, I added to myself. “It’s enough to know I’m different.”
Dante’s fingers moved down to my spine. “I can’t promise exclusivity, but don’t think this isn’t significant. When I’m free of Salvatore someday, maybe things will be different.”
Coming from Dante, a man who kept every facet of his life locked down in secrets, it was a staggering admission.
“That would be nice,” I replied.
The reality of Dante’s situation would intrude later. But at least for the moment, Dante belonged only to me.