Chapter 23
DANTE
“I love that you want to take care of me,” Raquel murmurs, her breath wafting against my neck. “But I can walk, you know.”
She nuzzles closer with a yawn. Her arms are wrapped around my neck as the tip of her nose rubs up and down right below my ear.
My cock hardens while my eyes drift closed. I want inside her so badly, I almost forget she only got home from the hospital earlier today.
“I know you can walk all by yourself,” I groan hoarsely. “But this is a lot more fun.”
“You’re not wrong.” She sighs with contentment. “Where are you taking me?”
“Upstairs. To sleep,” I clarify.
My savagery has bounds, and that includes not getting anywhere near that pussy until her stitches dissolve.
“Okay.” She yawns again. “Will you stay with me?”
Her eyes lift to mine, and this fierce sense of love and protection clasps to my very being. My pulse doubles, triples, speeding to an unruly pace as she gazes deeply.
“I’d never want to be anywhere else, sweetheart.”
She smiles so sweetly, it makes me want to spend every second of every day making love to every piece of her heart and every inch of her soul.
I never thought the man who only knew bloodshed—whose demons were louder than his humanity—would find someone to quiet the monsters and send them back to hell.
Leaning her head on my shoulder, she tightens her arms around me as I take us up the stairs.
She got discharged a few hours ago, and we just had lunch.
But all throughout, I could tell she needed a nap.
I want her strong. Healthy. I want everything with her: a future, a family someday.
She’s my girl, and I won’t let her forget it.
Once we’re upstairs, I flip the covers and lower her onto the bed, moving in beside her. She lies on her back, finding a comfortable position.
Propping myself up on my elbow, I look down at her. “Does anything hurt, baby? Do you need more meds?”
She shakes her head. “I’m okay. Don’t worry.”
But her broken smile betrays her.
I run my thumb across the angle of her jaw. “You don’t have to be brave for me, baby. You know that, right? Nothing would hurt me more than knowing you were hurting and I could’ve done something about it.”
Her eyes glaze over. “I love you. You know that, right?”
My hand drifts to her cheek, cupping her softly in a firm grasp, and the amount of love I feel for her makes my heart fucking jump like it’s about to explode.
“God, Raquel…” I lower my forehead to hers, pulling my eyes to a close while the tips of our noses brush over one another.
“I know,” she whispers.
We don’t need to say it to feel it. The words don’t have to be profound. Love is in everything we do.
We stay that way for mere seconds that might as well fill lifetimes in between. And for the first time, when I close my eyes, I’m not afraid of what I’ll find on the other side.
RAQUEL
A week passes in the blink of an eye, and every day, I’ve spent in Dante’s arms. He’s cared for me. Looked out for my well-being more than my family ever did. With him, I’ve finally found another person besides Chiara that I can count on.
I slip into a long, rose-colored spring dress, running my palms over the material at my thighs while getting ready for the barbecue at Dom and Chiara’s as I stare at myself in the full-length mirror.
She wanted to do something for all of us.
To have a day where we don’t have to think about the awfulness that has been thrown our way.
Enzo and Joelle will be there too. I met Joelle a few days ago when Dante and I stopped by Dom’s.
We didn’t really get to talk, but I know she worked at the club with Chiara, and her son was one of the kids taken by my family.
I still don’t know her story, nor will I ask.
The last thing I want is to dig at her grief.
I can’t imagine having a child and then having him ripped away from me and never seeing him beyond once a month.
My finger crawls over the bandaged gash on my arm, barely resisting the urge to scratch. The wounds have gotten better, and I’m no longer in too much pain, but they’re still there, reminding me of what happened.
But the real trauma is the one inside my head, when no one’s here to see it, hear it, or feel me gasping for air. It’s not nightmares. It happens when I’m awake. When I’m alone. When Carlito finds a way to infiltrate my reality and bring my worst fears to the surface.
Like right before, when Dante went into the shower and I began getting ready for today. It’s as though I’m back there every time. Like I’m still on that chair with his knife to my neck, but this time the blood is dripping from my throat, and in my living nightmares, I die.
I know I should mention it to Dante, that I should see someone about it, but who can I tell?
I can’t speak honestly to a counselor. I guess I could lie and continue the charade about being attacked by someone I don’t know.
The cops still buy the story, so a therapist would too.
But what’s the point of talking if I can’t tell the person trying to help me the truth?
Dante’s shower abruptly stops, whisking me from my thoughts. I place them back in the box of things I’d rather forget.
The door creeps open, and he strolls out, a white towel draped around his hips. The sculpted muscles of his abs, that V dipping lower to that part of him that’s already visibly hard, has me wondering why I didn’t shower with him.
His hair’s damp, falling over his forehead in the sexiest way.
He grins at me while I continue to stare, and it’s like I’m seeing him for the very first time.
It might as well be, considering he’s refused to touch me since the incident.
He’s worried he’ll hurt me, but I’m more than capable of knowing what I can and cannot handle.
And right now, the only thing I can’t handle is the thought of those large hands anywhere else but on me.
He saunters closer, and my gaze runs over his chest and to those eyes I could fall right into without ever wanting to climb out.
His arm curls around my lower back, tenderly moving his body into mine, while his lips fall to my neck, peppering soft kisses before they find the shell of my ear.
His warm breath brushes over my skin, and I groan from the sensation, from the growing need between my thighs.
“I’m not against you objectifying me,” he growls hoarsely, the desire evident in his tone as he repeats the same words from the night we met.
My hand tangles with the soft, wet strands of his hair.
“Dante,” I rasp with a desperate cry, needing him, missing him.
I’m craving that connection between us, wanting it to ground me, to make me forget everything else but us.
The water falls from the tips of his hair, seeping in between my breasts, and the chill hardens my nipples.
“We shouldn’t,” he mutters gruffly.
But his hands don’t accept the denial spilling from his mouth as they find my ass, squeezing and massaging, while the fingers of his other hand grip my hip possessively.
“We should,” I retort, arching myself further into his touch. “I’m fine. Stop denying what we both want.”
He lets out a deep-chested growl as his lips run up my throat, his teeth nipping and raking over my jaw like he wants inside everywhere.
His heavy-lidded gaze flashes to mine. “What did the doctor say yesterday?”
I suck in a breath as he glides the hand on my hip lower, his fingers gathering up my dress and teasing the edge of my panties.
“Sorry,” I gasp. “But I didn’t ask him whether I was allowed to fuck my husband.”
“You should’ve.” His index finger hooks into the lace, sliding it left. “Your husband really needs to know these things.”
“Tell him it doesn’t matter what the doctor says,” I moan, grasping his hand and pressing it into my wet center. “It only matters what I want. And I want you, Dante. Now. Right here.”
I push his touch further into my core, and he swears through gritted teeth.
“We can be careful,” I breathe.
His finger finally dips in between the lips of my pussy while his eyes look up to mine as he reaches my achy clit, rubbing it with slow, agonizing circles.
“I’ve missed you,” I confess on a gasping sigh. “I need this.”
He steels his jaw while his other hand rides up my spine until his palm is around the base of my neck, gripping it like a tight vise. “So do I, baby. I need you bad.”
Then his lips slam to mine, his hungry groans pervading through the silence and latching on to my ravenous moans.
His hands go to my hips, and our mouths refuse to part as he walks us up against the wall.
My nails claw up and down his back as he lifts the dress up with a fist, all the way to my stomach, the towel still somehow covering him.
He’s careful to avoid where I’ve been hurt as he buries his hand in my hair while he kisses me roughly, urgently, like he never wants this to end.
My core tightens, needing him to fill the emptiness. I’m hollow everywhere, wanting his love and the passion between us to quench my dying thirst.
He places a hand right where I’m aching for him, moving my panties to the side again.
Two fingers slowly slip into my most intimate place.
Inch by inch, he enters me, stealing my gasps with his lips.
His fingers curl into my G-spot, his thrusts matching the tempo of his tongue in my mouth as he slams into me harshly.
My orgasm builds as my whimpers tremble out, and he sucks my lower lip, groaning in the most delicious way while curving his fingers deeper.
This feels too good. It’s all I want. This undying desire when we’re together, reaching the point of madness.
“Fuck, you’re so damn tight,” he growls, biting and sucking along my jaw before falling back to my lips, his tongue fighting its way inside.
He fingers me with a barbaric tempo as I cry out unashamedly. His teeth nip my lower lip before his mouth is back on mine. The savagery of his kiss has me delirious.
I’m close, teetering on a tightrope, ready to fall. To surrender.
His thumb brushes harder over me, and before I can come, he stops.
He kneels, those eyes looking up at me as I cry in protest from being denied…
until his tongue finds my core and two fingers slide back inside me.
And when the tip of his tongue flicks around my clit this time, I crash wildly into the eye of the storm, and I welcome its fury.
“Yes! Oh, God, Dante.” His name is a stammered breath.
My hand buries in his hair as I pull while the release hits me with its full force.
He doesn’t give me a second to come down from the high before he’s back, that mouth hungrily on mine, sucking onto my bottom lip.
“Face the wall.”
That commanding tone has my pussy aching for another round as I place my palms there and bend, angling my head toward him. He bunches the dress over my ass and lines the crown of his cock with my entrance, then slams home.
He grabs my neck, pulling me back and kissing me with savage devotion, fucking me harder while swallowing my gasping moans. Another orgasm swells within me, and I swear out his name as our lips part. His gaze remains fixed to mine, the connection unbreakable.
Ours.
Everything else disappears. It’s only us here.
There’s something to be said about looking into the eyes of the one you love while he’s inside you. It’s unnerving, yet unparallel. It’s another level of intimacy and a high like no other.
“I love you,” he rasps as our mouths brush softly, our breaths falling faster.
His hips slam into me with roughened strokes, stretching me to the point where pain mingles with pleasure.
I try to say it back, I really do, but I can’t seem to find the words. I’m devoured by our untamed hunger and the sensations fluttering over my entire body.
He keeps the tempo of his hips hard and deep while his mouth finds my neck. The sound of flesh to flesh, skin to skin…it’s undoing every scar, every bad memory. I’m lost to the lust. To the melody of us. I’m lost to the way he loves my body and my heart. Like no one has before.
Dante Cavaleri.
My husband.
I’ve finally found someone to keep me safe, but he’s so much more than my protector. He’s the one I was waiting for when I believed all hope was lost. But he was merely waiting to find me.
“I wanna hear you come,” he groans.
His cock grows even thicker as his release draws closer, right along with my own. And when he hits my G-spot this time, I fall, screaming out his name as the orgasm tingles through me, curling over my toes.
The warmth. The buzz. It’s everything. Just like he is.
My name is on his lips too as he finds his own release. Feeling him come undone inside me with no barrier between us makes the experience even better. He knew I had an IUD placed, and knew how much I wanted it this way.
Our breaths battle for space as his face falls against my back, and he curls an arm around my stomach as I straighten.
“How late are we to the barbecue?” I try to calm the racing of my heart.
“Late enough that they’ll know why,” he chuckles, kissing the back of my head. “Especially with how messy your hair is.”
“Ugh!” I face him, throwing my arms over his shoulders. “You should probably get dressed while I fix myself up.”
“Probably.” His voice is hoarse and husky against my ear, sending a shiver down my body and throwing me into the fire once more.
My need grows again as his hand finds my inner thigh, slinking upward until two fingers rest over my pussy.
“Or we can be really late.”