11. Dakota #3
It's a relief. That’s the word I couldn’t find.
The shaking is relief, and underneath the discovery that I gave up control, and I’m still here.
I’m still me. He tied me up, and I’m not broken.
He filled me up, and I’m not empty. He took everything I offered and gave it back to me a thousand times over.
Gerald’s ghost was in that room when I walked in. I felt him in my hands when I touched the cuffs. He’s not here now. He’s not anywhere on my skin. There’s just Dante, and warmth, and the slow, steady drum of his heart against my cheek.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Don’t thank me yet.”
“Dante…”
“Every damn time, baby.” He kisses the crown of my head. “Every damn time you ask, you get this. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” I reply.
“Say it back to me,” he demands.
“Every time.”
“Good girl.”
We stay like that for a long time. Long enough that the shaking ebbs to little tremors and then to nothing.
Long enough that my breathing matches his.
He keeps stroking my back and murmuring things I half-hear and half-feel—you’re perfect, you’re beautiful, you’re safe, you’re mine for as long as you want to be—and I let the words sink into me like they were always meant to be there.
Eventually, he tips my chin up. “Let’s get you dressed.”
He slides off the bench, sets me down gently, and goes to the table where he folded my clothes.
He brings them over and places them next to me.
Underwear first: he crouches and lifts each of my feet through the leg holes, slides them up my thighs.
Bra next. He clasps it behind me, his fingers brushing my spine.
Jeans. He kneels again to pull them up over my hips and zip them.
Top, drawn carefully over my head, his thumbs smoothing it down my ribs.
When I’m dressed, he cups my face in both hands and kisses me.
It’s not like the kisses before. There’s no urgency in it. It’s slow and warm and so soft I feel it behind my breastbone.
“This wasn’t a hookup,” he says against my lips.
“I know.”
“You sure?” he asks.
“Dante. I know.”
He nods. His thumb traces my cheekbone. “Then I need to say the next part.”
“Okay.”
“Cruz is gonna want in.” His eyes hold mine. “Brady too. Maybe Coach, if he ever gets out of his own head long enough to let himself have you. I don’t share easy, baby. Never have. But for you and Cruz—” His jaw works. “I’ll learn.”
A breath shudders out of me. “Are you sure?”
“You looked at all three of us in that cage today. You think I didn’t see?” He asks.
My cheeks are on fire. “I—”
“I saw. Cruz saw. Brady saw. Coach is the only one too tied up to admit what he saw. We all know what this is, Dakota. The only question is what do you want it to be.”
I think about it. I think about Cruz’s hands, Brady’s laugh, Eli’s green eyes burning holes through me across the gym. I think about Dante, kneeling, careful, present.
I think about being so tired of fighting that I didn’t know what wanting felt like anymore. And how it feels now.
“All of you,” I whisper. “If you’ll have me. All of you.”
His eyes close for a second. When they open, they’re wet at the corners.
“Yeah, baby. We’ll have you. Fuck, I want you, I want Cruz. Let’s see what happens with Brady and Coach.”
He kisses my forehead. “I’ll go back first,” he says. “Five minutes, then you. We don’t need everyone seeing us walk in together like we just…”
“Yeah,” I agree.
“You good?” He asks.
“I’m good.”
He pulls his shirt on. Buttons it. Smooths his hair in the mirror. When he glances back at me before leaving, something in his face has changed—gone softer at the edges, harder at the center. Like he’s just decided something he knows he’ll never regret, never take back.
“Five minutes, Dakota.”
The door clicks shut.
I sit on the bench in the soft, warm light, breathing deeply. I press a hand to my throat where his fingers were. I press a hand to my belly where he still is. I close my eyes, and for five minutes, give or take, I exist as a person who isn’t afraid.
Then I stand up, smooth my clothes, and go back to the party.
The bass hits me first when I step back into the lounge. Then the lights. Then the eyes.
Cruz sees me before anyone else. He’s leaning against the bar with a drink in his hand, and his head tips when I come in, slow, like a wolf catching scent on the wind. His mouth curves into a grin, and he raises his glass at me.
Eli is in the corner booth where Marco left him. His green eyes track me from the door to the center of the room, and his jaw locks so tight I can see the muscle jump from across the lounge. The glass in his hand is empty.
Brady spots me last. He’s by the speakers with Jonah, laughing at something, and when he turns his eyes flash with what I can only describe as desire.
And across the room, by the doorway to the back hallway, Dante leans against the wall with a fresh drink in his hand. He catches my gaze and smiles, and I can almost hear his deep, sinful voice saying, This is just the beginning, baby.
I take a breath that fills me up. I smile back.
And I walk into the room like a woman who is finally in control.