38. Dante
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
DANTE
The first part of Renato’s name still vibrated on my lips as terror crashed through my body. That single, forbidden syllable hung in the air.
Fuck. I’d almost said it. His real name. Not Lorenzo. Renato.
My pulse hammered so violently I could feel it in my fingertips, which clutched his shoulders as his cock remained buried inside me. I stared up at his golden-hazel eyes, stripped of every layer of protection I maintained to survive.
Barlinger. The cameras. Salvatore.
Reality slammed back into me. Every movement and expression was being recorded, and I’d almost spoken Renato’s real name while he gave me a type of pleasure I had never experienced before.
He opened his mouth to speak. I kissed him before he could say anything dangerous. My teeth caught his lower lip as my fingers dug into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
Don’t speak. Don’t say another word. They’re watching.
He understood the warning. He stroked my face with tenderness for our audience.
“Your submission pleased me beyond words tonight,” he murmured, his voice carrying loud enough for our client to hear. “Such perfect surrender.”
His praise vibrated through me, sending fresh tremors across my oversensitive skin.
“You took everything I gave you,” he continued. He rolled his hips in a subtle motion that forced a gasp from my throat. “And begged so beautifully for release.”
The afterglow morphed into something almost painful. I bit my lip to stifle a whimper as he shifted inside me. He remained thick and unspent within a body he’d already wrung out through ruthless edging, and every fractional movement dragged across nerves that had no defenses left.
“No one responds to me as sensually as you do.” His fingers traced from my jaw, down my throat, to my collarbone.
I arched beneath him as the praise sank its hooks deep within me.
Despite being spent, my cock twitched with interest against my stomach.
The traitorous flicker of interest horrified me.
My release had emptied me so violently I’d stopped being able to form words, and yet my arousal stirred again at nothing more than the sound of his voice.
“No one else will ever see this side of you,” he murmured. “Your beautiful surrender belongs only to me.”
His hips shifted, pressing his cock against my sensitive prostate.
“You were made for my pleasure. The way you tremble when I claim you is proof.”
Soft moans escaped unbidden as every word pushed me higher. His voice stoked my exhaustion into renewed arousal. He rocked into me in slow, shallow degrees, each one grinding against that swollen spot inside me until my thighs shook uncontrollably around his hips.
Heat gathered low in my belly with nowhere to go, coiling on itself, building without any promise of relief until the pleasure hurt. The ache spread outward through my hips and hollowed me out until I stopped being able to tell where the pleasure ended and the damage started.
“I can feel you want more,” he whispered against my throat. “You’re still hungry for me, even after I’ve filled you so completely. I love how you’re so greedy.”
“You’re wrong.” The admission scraped out of me, ruined, desperate, and not entirely just for our audience’s benefit. My hands scrabbled at his back with no strategy behind them. “There’s nothing left.”
His mouth brushed the shell of my ear as his hips rocked deeper. “Liar. Feel how your body is still working me. Still trying to give me something.”
He held still and let me prove it for him. My hole clenched around his cock in a rhythm I hadn’t authorized, working him in slow, greedy pulls. A low whine escaped me, because I hated the sound I made as much as I hated how much I wanted him to do move again.
“You’ll give me one more because I want it.” His mouth found the shell of my ear, and his voice dropped into something reverent and merciless all at once as he rocked harder. “Give it to me now.”
Despite years of training myself to lie, something ugly and honest in me answered him before I could stop it.
My thighs clamped harder around his hips and dragged him deeper as my body scrambled to obey a man I had promised myself I would never yield to.
I rocked harder against him as a crescendo of sensations threatened to overtake me.
“That’s it,” he praised, his voice thick with satisfaction. “Come one more time for me. Show me how perfectly I own your pleasure.”
A dry, ruthless orgasm staggered me. My cock jerked against my stomach, desperately trying to pump out what wasn’t there.
I clutched at his shoulders and completely surrendered to the merciless spasms. My thighs trembled from the strain of holding him close, my muscles fatigued but unwilling to release him as quakes kept tearing through my core.
Each built on the last until I wasn’t sure I’d survive the onslaught of pleasure.
Renato watched it all with a possessive satisfaction that would have terrified me if I’d been capable of coherent thought. He had weaponized his voice, dominating my desires with absolute mastery.
The power he wielded over my physical responses was incredibly dangerous. If he could break my control with mere words, what else could he make me surrender?
The contractions released me one by one, each weaker than the last, until my body offered only a hollow flutter that hurt worse than it pleased.
My fingers uncurled from his shoulders, leaving crescents pressed into his skin.
He stayed inside me, one palm splayed across my hip to hold me.
A quiet, shameful instinct wanted him to remain exactly where he was.
A sharp knock at the door interrupted us.
“Your client has departed,” a member of the security staff announced. “Your session is complete.”
We lingered in our intimate embrace for a moment longer before Renato pulled out of me with excruciating slowness.
My body fought against the withdrawal, not ready to give him up yet.
When he slipped free, my inner muscles clenched around nothing, greedy and unsatisfied despite the powerful orgasms that had torn through me.
He disposed of the condom in a nearby waste basket. “We should clean up,” he said smoothly for the benefit of the cameras.
When I tried to stand, my legs almost buckled. Renato steadied me with a hand on my elbow. The contrast between his restrained contact and the way he’d claimed me in bed made something ache in my chest.
We headed toward the bathroom, the only blind spot in the entire brothel. Walking on shaky legs, each step reinforced the evidence of what we’d done. My hole still felt open, used, and sensitive in ways that would remind me of him with every movement for the rest of the night.
The heavy door clicked shut behind me. The small space forced our bodies flush against each other.
Tension crawled up my spine. I braced myself for the inevitable interrogation, searching for words to rebuild my defenses he’d completely demolished.
All I needed was for him to say something to antagonize me, to give me an excuse to hide my real self in a fight.
But Renato didn’t demand explanations. Instead, he wrapped his arms tightly around my chest in a comforting embrace. The cooling mess of cum on my stomach smeared against his skin. He didn’t seem to care as his fingers threaded through my hair while his other hand anchored the small of my back.
The unexpected tenderness broke my resolve.
I sank into his warmth, grounding myself against his reassuring presence.
His arms didn’t seek to cage me but to shelter me.
The possibility that I could rest against someone else’s fortitude, even briefly, made my breath catch.
I never imagined it was possible I could trust another person with the most fragile parts of myself without risking Raphael or my plans for freedom.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face against his neck, hiding from truths I wasn’t ready to face. His spiced cologne filled my senses, stirring embers of desire despite my body’s recent satisfaction.
I shamefully clung to him like a lifeline as tremors shook my shoulders.
His touch remained steady, one hand stroking my hair with a gentleness that threatened to dismantle me. The other traced soothing patterns against my lower back, his palm warm and solid against my skin. His unyielding care surrounded me and offered a dark sanctuary.
Though I stood taller than him, I curled inward, making myself smaller to fit more completely in his embrace. His hands spanned across my back, strong and sure, holding me together when I felt seconds from shattering.
I needed to let go so I could rebuild the walls Renato had dismantled so effortlessly.
Every second I remained in his embrace, he tunneled deeper under my defenses, unearthing parts of me I thought Salvatore had extinguished years ago.
The seasoned professional in me blared alarms about the danger of our connection, about the fatal mistake I was making.
But instead, I pressed closer to hoard the comfort he offered.
Each touch was a promise I didn’t dare believe, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to crawl inside his soul and wrap myself in the strength he offered so freely.
If I were braver, more foolish, I might have believed I could find a home in the space between his heartbeats, safe where no one could reach me.
When he finally pulled back, his hands moved to cup my face, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“You almost said my name,” he stated.
I jerked backward to rebuild my ruined defenses. “It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Was it?” His eyes searched my eyes for truths I wasn’t ready to give.
“Of course it was.” My voice came out harsher than intended, brittle with fear disguised as anger. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I couldn’t hold back any more than you could.” His calm infuriated me further.