10. Sara
Sara
I suck in a gasping breath, and the world shifts as if someone’s yanked the ground out from under my feet. I press myself against the wall, trying to draw in enough air to fill my lungs.
Dante walked into that room as if he belonged, and those men spoke to him as if he were one of their own. As soon as he said it, all the pieces clicked into place, and I cursed myself for not seeing the truth sooner.
The odd hours, the expensive townhouse, the team of men always ready and willing to do his bidding without question, the violence and lies… None of that even gets into how comfortable he is with breaking the law, or the fact that he fucking kidnapped me.
Dante’s mafia ties are probably the reason those men broke into my house and threatened Jeremy and me in the first place.
Shit, shit, shit.
I dig my nails into my palms viciously enough to cut skin, and the pain drags me back to myself mid-spiral. “Why the hell did you bring me here?”
Dante ignores my question, his eyes flashing with annoyance. I’ve officially pushed him too far and can sense him shutting down on me from less than a foot away. In only a matter of seconds, he’ll grab me again and force me into some other ritual humiliation in front of more of his mafia friends.
A fresh burst of panic floods my system.
No. I won’t let him. I want no part in any of this.
Before he can snatch me back, I round the corner and rush past the bar.
I know I won’t get far, but it’s the principal of the matter.
What I learned here tonight changes everything I thought I knew about the man I once loved.
Dante is dangerous. Powerful. More so than I ever could have fathomed. Younger, I was too scared to put a name to it, but I can no longer deny the truth.
Especially now that I know a greater authority looms over him and his Council soldiers.
I’m halfway across the room, weaving through the throngs of dancing bodies, people both young and old, when an all too familiar song begins to play.
I freeze in my tracks. “Die With A Smile” by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga.
Our song. The song we used to dance to in the apartment, late at night, when neither one of us wanted him to leave just yet and touching one another felt like instinct.
The soft tune seems so out of place in the edgy sophistication of the club that several people glance around in confusion.
I close my eyes, unsurprised when Dante’s heat seeps into my back. An arm snakes around my waist, and a large hand cups my face. His warm breath contains hints of chocolate and whiskey as he turns me slowly and teases my lips with his own.
The melody and his gentle seduction flay open my chest. Tears rim my eyes, spilling over before I can stop them, and a sob catches in my throat.
“Why are you doing this?”
When he parts my lips for the briefest taste, his tongue is salty with my tears. “You ruined every memory I had of you when you betrayed me.” He maneuvers me easily, pulling his body flush against my own. “I’m going to return the favor.”
I shake my head, but he continues talking, his voice low and cruel.
“Do you remember our first date? You wore that blue dress that matched your eyes, and I spent the entire time thinking about how much I wanted to fuck you.” He nuzzles the curve of my neck.
“You sat across from me with your knees together, squirming in your chair, but I could tell how wet you were. How much you wanted to fuck me too.”
“Shut up.” My voice wobbles.
I cringe at my body’s reaction. Already, my core throbs as my mind replays the moment upstairs over and over again.
What if he’d lifted my dress just a bit higher?
Showed my aching center off to the rest of the room like some prize?
He could have slipped inside of me right then and there, and I wouldn’t have been able to stop him.
I clamp my thighs together. Nothing about that moment should arouse me…and yet.
A shudder ripples through me. With us mashed so tightly together, I’m sure he can feel the desire coursing through me like a drug.
He’s always been able to read my tells, especially in bed.
His knowing chuckle vibrates down my spine. “You want to fuck me right now, don’t you?”
Bastard.
As if I’ll admit that. “No. I don’t—”
“Don’t lie.” Dante nips my earlobe, and a traitorous, wanton noise emits from low in my throat when he glides a hand between my legs to tease folds already dripping with need.
“This is my pussy, for as long as I want it.” He strokes my clit with his thumb, and my hips arch into his hand in desperation even as I mold my back to his chest. “Say it. Tell me how much you want my cock inside your tight little hole.”
He’s so filthy, but I recognize the words as the weapons they’re meant to be. He knows how much his dirty talk turns me on, and he’s trying to break me.
I bite my lower lip to keep the truth from pouring out.
Of course I want him inside me. I want him to stuff me full of his familiar ridges and curves and make me whole again.
The last person I slept with was Dante, all those years ago.
The thought of some other man’s hands on me, erasing Dante’s touch, repulsed me.
“Dante, please.”
I can’t decide if I’m begging him to stop or continue, but my fraying control may snap at any moment.
His fingers dip inside me and stroke my inner walls, finding that sweet spot so quickly that I nearly come on the spot. My legs widen of their own accord, and I rock into his palm, seeking more friction.
“There she is.” He croons in a cruel, sadistic way. “My little slut.”
I whimper as shame intertwines with desire. Between the darkness and all the bodies on the dance floor, I doubt anyone can tell what we’re up to, but even if they could, I wouldn’t care.
“Beg for it, Sara.” He stops moving, and I dig my nails into the material of his shirt in helpless frustration. Damn him. Damn him and the power he wields over me. The spell he casts is absolute, compelling me to obey his every command.
“Please.” My head blanks. In this moment, only he exists. “Please, Dante. I need you.”
With a growl, he hauls me into an empty booth. Everything’s spinning, and I can’t catch my breath as he drops onto the seat, dragging me backward into his lap, my legs spread open on either side of his.
I shiver, my heart in my throat as a wicked excitement eats through the last of my resolve. The anger should still be present, and so should the fear, but self-preservation and common sense go out the window as soon as he touches me.
A female patient once told me that she kept going back to her toxic ex because she was “dickmitized.” Back then, I told her I didn’t have any treatment to offer her and sent her on her way, but now, understanding floods me in more ways than one.
Dante yanks my dress up to expose me from the waist down, the action rough and impatient.
His fingers tease my slit, and I jerk, mewling pathetically, before his free hand covers my mouth.
My head falls back against his shoulder as his fingers plow in and out of me with enough force to drive the air from my lungs.
The music fades, shifting from our song to a track with a deep, rhythmic bass similar to the house music that played when we first arrived. My hips roll in time with the beat, and I do my best to contain the noises spilling from my mouth with little success.
I continue to tilt my head back until I meet the inky depths of his eyes, my hips writhing for more of his caress.
He growls beneath his breath in Italian, and for a second, I’m sure he’ll kiss me.
I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
Then he cups my chin, dips the pad of his thumb into my mouth, and fucks a third finger inside me.
He knows I can take it. More than that, he knows I need it.
He’s wild, insatiable, demanding as much as I’m giving.
My excitement slicks my inner thighs, and he murmurs his approvals and praises against the shell of my ear just like he used to.
How I’ve missed this. Him. The way he knows my body better than I do.
The way his every muscle tenses with his own desire.
As I grind my ass down against the bulge in his lap and provoke a throaty groan in the process, I grin in triumph.
Using that momentum, I try to reach back for him, to urge his mouth to mine, but he angles his head away, denying me. He punctuates the moment by pressing his thumb against my clit, and on the next foray of his fingers, my body convulses, on the brink of a blinding climax.
Just as I hover on the edge, Dante removes his fingers with a sharp curse, leaving me hollow and clenching on nothing. My looming orgasm fades away, unfulfilled.
Sobbing, I sink my teeth into the flesh of his thumb as my frustration mounts, but he just waits me out. When I finally release him, he pushes me off his lap. I adjust my dress as humiliation sets in. Again.
Will I ever be free of this? Will I ever stop giving him the tools to hurt me?
To carve the gaping hollow he left inside of me even deeper?
I’m not sure how much longer I can stomach this personal hell.
Gasping, I curl in on myself, every part of me still clamoring for release as Dante scoots out of the booth and adjusts the front of his steel gray dress pants.
Disgust twists his features, as if he can see my overwhelming need. When he wipes his hand on the leg of his pants, a fragile part of me that’s struggled to survive ever since he re-entered my life shatters like glass.
He’s alive, and he’s here with me.
But he also hates me.
He might as well have cut open my chest and scooped out my heart. I’d thought…
Stupidly, I’d hoped that…
“Don’t you dare get it into your head that this meant anything.
You’re nothing more than a pretty hole.” Hooking a finger onto the metal piece at the front of my collar, he jerks me to my feet, his eyes dark and his mouth tight.
When he speaks, he breathes his hatred into my mouth.
“And I’ll be damned if I risk breaking the Code over someone like you ever again. ”
Breaking the code? What code? Is this related to the mafia business he mentioned earlier? Whatever the case, I can’t wrap my head around it right now. Not when my thwarted desire wars with all the uncertainty and the ever-growing ache in my heart.
He snaps his fingers, and I spread my legs without hesitation? I’m supposed to be getting under his skin, and instead, he’s worming his way under mine and molding me into someone I don’t even recognize. A plaything that only exists to fulfill his wishes.
With silent expectation, he tosses me the silk blindfold.
I fumble to secure the material behind my head, and only once he’s satisfied that my vision’s blocked does he start the car.
Not being able to see him looking at me in the rearview mirror is a blessing in disguise.
I’d rather he not know that I enjoyed what he did to me, and I have no doubt he’d be able to read the truth in my eyes with ease.
My passion disgusts him now, so it disgusts me too.
I’m supposed to help him rediscover the man he used to be, but whatever existed between us in the past is gone, and this new connection is toxic and rotten.
A consequence of old wounds allowed to fester.
I don’t understand why Dante blames me for his trauma, and since the topic always enrages him, I may never learn why.
Once I accept reality, though, I can finally stop confusing his lust for anything other than what it is.
If I can do that, then the next humiliation won’t hurt as much.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.