38. Dante #2
I turned toward the sink to put distance between us. I wiped the cum from my skin with trembling hands. “It meant nothing. I merely got caught up in the moment.”
“Bullshit.” He stepped closer, his reflection appearing beside mine in the mirror. “You don’t ‘get caught up’ in anything, Dante. Nothing about you is spontaneous. Your moves are calculated, and your reactions are controlled down to the last detail.”
“Apparently not,” I snapped. I gripped the edge of the counter until my knuckles whitened. “Since I almost fucked up badly enough to get us both killed.”
“It’s proof that what happened in that room wasn’t a performance. Everything between us was real, tesoro.”
The term of endearment struck deeper in my heart every time he used it. I needed to command him to stop calling me that, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it when a secret part of me savored it every time.
“Nothing in this place is real.” I met his gaze in the mirror. “Everything is a transaction.”
“Not everything.” He pressed against my back, stoking the chaotic reactions simmering within me.
I spun around and shoved him with both hands against his chest. “It was meaningless sex,” I snarled, willing it to be true. “That’s all it will ever be. That’s all it can be.”
Renato absorbed the blow. “You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me.”
“Fuck you,” I spat. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know what matters.” He eliminated the space between us.
“What matters is that we’re risking our lives every second we stay in here.” My voice cracked with the strain of keeping it low. “You don’t know what Salvatore’s capable of.”
“I have a better idea than you think.”
“Then you should know better than this.” I gestured between us.
“All the more reason to not waste time.” He caught my face between his hands. “Why did you almost say my name?”
“I told you, it was a mistake.”
His thumbs stroked my cheekbones, the tenderness at odds with the steel in his voice. “When are you going to realize your body knows the truth you won’t admit?”
“What do you want from me?” I winced at the genuine anguish bleeding into my tone.
“The truth. That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you.”
“The truth is I can’t afford to feel anything for you.” I laughed harshly. “What happened out there can never happen again. No matter how I reacted, I can’t be yours.”
His eyes softened at my words with understanding. “Your body surrendered because it recognized something your mind refuses to accept.”
“And what’s that?”
“That you’re not alone anymore,” he replied. “I’m someone who sees Dragon and the real you hidden beneath and still wants you both.”
The words struck a nerve so deep I flinched. My throat closed around any response I might have made.
“I saw you tonight, Dante.” His hands slid from my face to my shoulders. “Not Dragon. Not the Gennaro heir. You. And what I saw was beautiful.”
“Don’t.” The word came out strangled. “Don’t say shit like that. None of that matters when it isn’t true.” I tried to pull away, but he held me firmly in place.
Renato slid his hand up to cup the side of my neck, his thumb stroking along my jaw. “Stop lying to yourself and admit what happened was real.”
“And then what?” Bitterness crept into my tone. “We can’t do anything about it. Being together isn’t an option. Even meeting alone like this risks both our lives.”
“For now. But that won’t always be true. Salvatore won’t control you forever. Until then, I’ll be here whenever and however you need me.”
My voice sounded hoarse and unsteady. “We need to go before someone comes looking.”
He nodded. “Fine, but I want you to remember how good it feels when you stop fighting and let yourself feel.”
I stared at him, words clogging my throat. To speak them would turn my perilous emotions into something I couldn’t take back. Instead, I surged forward to capture his mouth.
Our kiss served as a declaration. My hands framed his face, and my tongue swept into his mouth to claim rather than surrender. I poured everything I couldn’t say into the pressure of my lips against his.
He yielded to my advance instantly as I demanded what I needed with an absolute greed that shocked me.
When I pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
“That is all the answer you’re getting tonight,” I told him.
Renato’s lips curved into an infuriating smirk. “That’s fine for now. But I’m a patient man, Dante. And I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.”
The familiar banter steadied me. “You need to leave first. We’ve been in here too long.”
He nodded, cleaning the remnants of my cum off his skin. “I’ll go. Give it five minutes before you follow.”
I stepped back, forcing the necessary distance between us as my professional mask slipped back into place. Renato gripped the door handle, then paused.
“Before I go, you need to remember one very important thing,” he said, turning back to me. The playfulness had vanished from his expression, replaced by deadly certainty.
“What?” I asked.
“The oath I swore means my loyalty to you is written in the blood of our enemies. I meant it when I vowed to help you dismantle this empire built on your suffering. Everyone who has profited from your pain will die. Your prison will become their mausoleum. I’ll turn your chains of captivity into Salvatore’s noose while you watch the life drain from his eyes, tesoro. ”
I recoiled as if physically struck. “Stop. You don’t know what you’re saying.
” A treacherous heat pooled low in my belly from the sick arousal that came from imagining Salvatore’s blood spilling across marble floors.
But I couldn’t afford to believe Renato.
I couldn’t let myself need what he was offering me.
“This isn’t a fucking game. He’ll destroy you. He’ll destroy us both.”
Renato held my gaze, completely undeterred. “I’ll kill to protect you.”
The world stopped spinning. It was a pledge spoken by a man with blood-soaked hands and a soul as black as mine. I recognized the look in his eyes because I’d seen it in my reflection. Renato wasn’t merely adjacent to violence. He’d orchestrated it.
Before I could process the threat, he reached out to yank me close enough for a harsh kiss.
Renato stripped away his carefree charm and kissed me like a killer. I tasted carnage on his lips, the brutal violence of a man who’d executed his enemies and left no one alive to tell the tale.
My body burned for him. For the first time in my life, I didn’t need to hide the demon beneath my skin. He wanted the murderer, the survivor, the weapon forged by Salvatore without realizing he’d created something aiming to destroy its creator.
Renato’s hand slid down to grip my ass, his fingers digging into my flesh to claim his territory. His tongue fucked my mouth the way he’d dominated my body so ruthlessly.
He kissed me like a man who’d calculated how many bodies he’d stack in the morgue to keep me safe. Each stroke of his tongue blurred the line between violence and sex, until I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to fuck me again or help me commit murder. Maybe both.
The monster inside me recognized its twin, reveling in finding its equal after years of isolation. With Renato, I wouldn’t need to cage the beast Salvatore had created. Instead, we could hunt together, building a throne from our enemies’ bones.
I grabbed Renato’s biceps to steady myself as he drove me backward until the cold marble counter edge cut into my lower spine.
My body responded to the danger with a rush of adrenaline.
Despite being wrung completely dry from our earlier session, my cock tried desperately to respond.
The physical impossibility of another erection didn’t stop the white-hot need burning through my veins.
Then the kiss transformed. His grip loosened into a caress, while his arm around my waist prevented my knees from giving out on me.
Renato held me with the same gentleness that had shattered all my defenses earlier. His mouth softened in reverence as the executioner who had moments ago promised to rain down blood and vengeance now cradled me like something precious he’d die to protect.
It terrified me more than any physical threat ever could. I could weaponize brutality, but his gentleness demolished every wall I had built.
Each press and retreat of his lips communicated something I’d never experienced before.
The shift was so profound I felt dizzy. He wasn’t speaking of war anymore but of what came after.
His kiss promised quiet mornings and shared laughter, enjoying a life beyond the brothel walls where we answered to no one.
In his touch was a vow that someday we would fuck not just with our bodies but with our souls bared to each other.
I wanted it with an ache so profound it hollowed me out.
Renato pulled back to brush his lips across my cheekbone, the corner of my eye, then my temple. His fingertips traced the curve of my jaw with a reverence that criminals like us didn’t deserve.
He pressed his forehead to mine. For the first time since my parents died, I felt completely safe.
I’d built my entire existence around needing no one but Raphael, yet I was silently begging a deadly man not to let me go while holding space in my heart for Shaw. It left me naked in ways that had nothing to do with clothing and everything to do with being truly seen for the first time.
Then Renato slipped through the door, leaving me alone with the ghost of his touch burning on my skin.
I sank back against the counter, too unsteady to support myself.
Five simple words had upended the careful balance of my life.
Five words that made me want to fight to the death with Renato at my side.
“I’ll kill to protect you.”