Chapter 4 Serena
SERENA
His mouth is at my throat when I whisper, “If you keep breathing me in like that, I’ll burn the fish.”
“The fish can wait,” Dante murmurs, lips brushing the place just under my jaw. His hand is steady at my hip, thumb dragging over the seam of my jeans like he’s already mapping where to open me.
I kill the flame and set the pan aside. The counter is cool beneath me, marble against the heat rising in my skin. I grip the edge just to remember where I am, but he catches my wrist, presses it flat, and kisses down my palm.
“You smell like lemon and fire,” he says, low.
“You smell like trouble,” I shoot back, and my voice shakes in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
His gaze drops to the cutting board beside us, where I left a plate of blood oranges waiting for garnish. He picks one slice up between thumb and forefinger, holds it to my mouth. “Open.”
The word isn’t loud, but it’s command enough. My lips part. The citrus hits my tongue, sharp and sweet, and before I can swallow, his mouth is on mine, chasing the juice. His tongue tangles with mine, slick and urgent, stealing the taste straight from me.
“Fuck,” I breathe into him.
“You like that?” His voice is rougher now, not as careful.
“Feed me again,” I say, and I don’t recognize my own hunger.
He takes another slice, brushes it against my bottom lip until the juice drips down my chin. He licks it off with a growl that makes my stomach clench. His hand slides under my shirt, palm hot against my ribs, thumb grazing the side of my breast. I arch, shameless.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
“You’re watching,” I throw back. “Touch me properly.”
His answering laugh is a dark rumble. He drags his mouth down my neck, teeth scraping, while his fingers slip under the lace of my bra. When he pinches, I gasp, and he bites the hollow of my throat like he wants to mark it.
“Say my name,” he orders.
“Dante.” My voice breaks on it.
“Again.”
“Dante.”
He takes another piece of orange, but this time he presses it between my breasts, juice slicking my skin. His tongue follows, hot and greedy, and I hear myself moan like I’ve forgotten anyone else could ever hear me.
“You taste better than anything I’ve put in my mouth,” he growls, lifting his head just enough to look me dead in the eye.
I grab his hair, pull him back down. “Then don’t stop.”
His mouth trails lower, over the sticky trail of juice, down to where my shirt is already rucked up against my ribs. His tongue dips beneath the lace edge of my bra, catching another drop before it can slip lower.
“Dante.” My head tips back, hair tangling against the cool marble. “You’re making a mess of me.”
He looks up at me from under his lashes, wicked as sin. “That’s the point.”
He palms my breast through the lace, squeezes hard enough to make me gasp, then flicks his thumb over my nipple until it’s peaking, straining against the fabric. “You want me to touch you properly? Then lose this.” His fingers tug at the bra strap, sharp and commanding.
I wriggle out of it with his help, the straps sliding down my arms like surrender. The air is cool on my bare skin, but his mouth is hotter and he closes over my nipple, sucking hard, groaning like he’s starved. “Jesu—oh, God.” I fist his hair, arching into the wet pull of his mouth.
“Say it again.” He bites lightly, enough to make me jolt. “Say my name.”
“Dante. Please.”
He smiles against my skin, smug bastard, and reaches for the plate again.
A smear of blood-orange juice glistens across his fingers as he presses the slice directly against my nipple, the cold sting making me cry out.
Before I can recover, his tongue is there, hot, rough, licking the juice away until I’m trembling, sticky, desperate.
“You taste like dessert. Sweet, messy, fucking addictive,” he growls, moving lower, kissing between my breasts and down my stomach.
His fingers snap open the button of my jeans. “Take them off,” I pant.
“Oh, I will.” His voice is molten. He drags the zipper slowly, like he wants me shaking apart just from the sound. My jeans slide down my thighs with his help, my panties already damp and clinging. He noses against the thin cotton, breath hot.
“Wet for me already,” he says, voice dark velvet. “Open for me, Serena.”
I spread my legs without thinking, desperate.
He hooks his thumbs in the band of my panties, pulls them down, and the cold hits me and finds me bare, slick, aching.
“Fuck, look at you.” His tongue darts out to taste me once, a slow, cruel lick over my folds that makes me choke on a moan.
“You’re dripping for me. Say you want my mouth. Say it.”
“Dante—please—eat me. Don’t stop.”
His laugh is rough, hungry. “That’s all I needed to hear.” And then his mouth is on me, tongue working me open, sucking, lapping like he wants to drown in my taste. My thighs shake around his head, my hands clawing at the marble just to hold myself together as he devours me.
His mouth is relentless, tongue stroking deep, lips sucking at my clit until I’m thrashing against the marble, biting my own hand to muffle the sounds. He growls at that, pulls my hand away, pins it flat again.
“Let me hear you.” His voice is ruined, muffled against me, then he licks harder, faster. His teeth graze, and I come undone.
The orgasm rips through me, sharp and hot, my body clenching around nothing while I cry his name like a prayer. He doesn’t stop—he eats me through it, drinking every shiver, every drop, until I’m shaking so badly I have to shove at his shoulders.
“Dante, enough.”
“Never enough.” He licks me one last time, slowly and possessively, before dragging himself up my body. His face is wet, his mouth glistening, and when he kisses me, I taste myself mixed with citrus. Filthy. Addictive.
I claw at his shirt, buttons scattering as I rip it open. His chest is hard, scarred, hot beneath my palms. He shrugs it off, drops it on the floor, and I’m already tugging at his belt.
“Take them off,” I gasp. “I need—”
“You need this?” He fists his cock through the fabric, and the outline alone makes my mouth water. He unbuckles with a snap, trousers dropping, and then he’s bare against me, thick, heavy, already leaking. I wrap my hand around him, stroking once, and his head tips back with a guttural groan.
“Christ, Serena—keep doing that and I’ll lose it before I even get inside you.”
“Then don’t wait.” I hook my legs around his hips, dragging him closer. “Fuck me, Dante.”
He frees himself just a moment to retrieve a condom, slips it on, and lines himself up, the blunt head of his cock sliding against my slick folds, and my whole body trembles with anticipation.
He pushes in just an inch, then pulls back, teasing, torturing.
“Say it again.” His mouth is at my ear, voice like gravel. “Beg me.”
“Please,” I whimper, nails digging into his shoulders. “Please, Dante, fuck me.”
That’s all it takes. He drives into me with one hard thrust, stretching me open, stealing the air from my lungs.
My cry turns into a kiss because his mouth claims mine at the same time.
The marble is cold under my back, but everything else is heat—his hips pounding against mine, his tongue shoving into my mouth, his hand fisted in my hair.
“God, you feel so fucking tight around me,” he groans against my lips, driving deeper, harder. “Like you were made for my cock.”
I clutch him closer, kissing him through every thrust, our mouths messy, our bodies colliding, the kitchen filling with the sound of skin on skin and both of us gasping like we’re starving.
His thrusts hammer into me until I can barely breathe between kisses.
My nails rake his back, dragging down over hard muscle and sweat-slick skin.
He groans into my mouth, hips slamming harder, and then he breaks the kiss, panting against my cheek.
“Up,” he orders, voice wrecked. His hands are on my thighs, prying me open wider. “Hold on to me.”
Before I can argue, he lifts me clean off the counter, my legs wrapping around him instinctively.
My back hits the cold glass of the kitchen window, the pane rattling as he slams me up against it.
“Oh, fuck.” The shock of cold against my bare skin, the heat of him inside me, it’s too much.
My breath fogs the glass, every thrust jarring the window in its frame.
“Look outside,” he growls in my ear. “Let anyone walk past, let them see you pinned here, dripping on my cock. Tell me you love it.”
“I love it,” I gasp, my voice breaking. “God, I love it—don’t stop—”
He grips my ass hard enough to bruise, driving up into me so deep, I cry out. His teeth sink into the side of my neck, sucking, marking me as his hips slam forward again and again. My head tips back against the glass, my whole body shaking as he pounds me against the window.
He pulls out halfway, just to slam back in, the impact making the glass rattle like it might shatter.
My nails claw at his shoulders, desperate to hang on as he fucks me up against the pane.
“Beg louder,” he snarls, thrusts savage.
“I want the walls to hear it. I want the whole fucking house to know whose cock you’re split open on. ”
“Dante! Please—harder—fuck me harder!”
His answering growl is animal, hips pistoning into me until the glass behind me fogs with heat and my voice breaks into raw, desperate sounds.
His mouth claims mine again, all tongue and teeth and need, kissing me like he’s trying to devour me while he pounds me against the window, the world outside disappearing into nothing but sweat, skin, and the rhythm of him inside me.
The glass squeals under the force of each thrust, my breath fogging white against it as his cock drives into me over and over.
My legs tremble around his waist, my nails digging into his shoulders, but he doesn’t let up.
He’s feral, slamming me into the pane like he wants to fuck me straight through it.
“Oh, God. Dante. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” His teeth graze my jaw, his voice low and lethal in my ear. “You’re going to come for me right here, messy and loud, so I know you’re mine.”
His hand snakes down between us, two fingers circling my clit in rough, fast strokes. The shock of it rips through me and I cry out, my body tightening around him, every thrust pushing me higher until I’m nothing but desperate sound and heat.
“Fuck… yes, don’t stop—”
“Come, Serena.” His command is guttural, hips driving harder, fingers relentless. “Soak my cock. Give it to me.”
It hits me like a lightning strike and I shatter, screaming his name, my pussy clenching around him in hard, merciless pulses. The orgasm tears through me, flooding everything, my body locking down on his cock like I’ll never let him go.
The second I clamp around him, he growls deep in his chest, hips jerking.
“Jesus. Fuck.” He buries himself to the hilt, trembling as his own climax rips free.
The sharp sound of latex snapping taut tells me he’s spilling inside it, driving through his orgasm with savage thrusts that match mine.
We’re both shaking, bodies slick, mouths crashing together in a kiss that’s more bite than softness, swallowing each other’s cries as we ride it out.
When he finally lets me down from the window, my legs almost give out beneath me.
Dante catches me with one arm, steady as if I weigh nothing, and presses a kiss against my temple.
My body is wrecked, trembling from the way he wrung me out, but he holds me close, easing me back to the counter and reaching for a towel to wipe the sticky trail of orange juice and sweat from my skin.
His hands, which just minutes ago had been merciless, are gentle now, soothing, careful with every touch.
I hate how much I lean into it. I hate how safe I feel in arms that should never feel safe.
He murmurs something in Italian I can’t quite catch, his voice low and husky, and even if I don’t understand the words, the tone unravels me all over again.
He presses water into my hand, makes me sip, then strokes his thumb over my lips like he can’t quite stop touching me.
I tell myself this was a mistake, that I should take my bag and go, but the way his gaze burns into me makes it impossible.
The days that follow blur with him. I cook in the kitchen and he hovers nearby, always too close, always watching like he can’t decide whether he wants to devour me or worship me.
The sex doesn’t stop. It never even slows.
On the marble counter again, in the pantry where spices rattle from the shelves, in his bed with silk sheets tangling around our legs—he takes me in ways that leave my body sore, marked, branded.
And every time he touches me afterward, it’s with that same tenderness that undoes me more than the roughness ever could.
I tell myself not to fall, but it happens anyway.
Somewhere between his mouth against my shoulder in the quiet mornings and his hand at the small of my back when we walk through the garden at night, I feel the slide of it, terrifying and inevitable.
Falling in love with a man like Dante is the worst thing I could do, and still, my heart refuses to listen.
One evening after dinner, when the house has gone quiet and he’s left his coat draped over the back of a chair, I slip it on for warmth, burying myself in the scent of smoke and citrus that clings to him.
My fingers brush the lining, catch on something hard, and I freeze.
I reach in, expecting maybe a flask or some forgotten trinket, but what I pull free is cold steel, heavy, undeniable.
A gun, tucked neatly inside as though it belonged there all along.
My stomach drops, breath snared in my throat.
I shove it back into the pocket, the weight of it burning through the fabric as if it could sear my skin.
I tell myself not to think, not to imagine, but the sound of his voice cuts through the silence before I can even decide what to do.
He’s in the next room, phone pressed to his ear, his tone sharp, commanding.
“I’ll handle it,” he says, clipped and final. “Clean it up quietly. No loose ends.”
The words chill me more than the gun did.
I stand there in his coat, heart pounding, pretending for one dangerous moment that I don’t understand what they mean.
But I do. And the knowledge makes me shake, not from fear alone but from the aching truth that I don’t know if I could leave him, even if I should.