Chapter 14
DANTE
It’s been two weeks of holding back and I’m at my breaking point now.
I’m sitting in the dark kitchen at three in the morning with whiskey burning down my throat, trying to drown out the awareness of her sleeping two floors above me. But it’s not working. Nothing works anymore.
Every day I watch her walk through my house with that graceful fluidity. Hear her laugh with our son. Argue with her over breakfast and dinner and every moment in between. Watch her refuse to back down, refuse to be intimidated, refuse to do anything that’s not her will.
And fuck…fuck, I want her. God, I want her so badly it’s making me insane.
Not just physically, though that’s there too, constant and demanding. I want to own her. Possess her. Keep her so close she can’t breathe without me knowing it.
I pour another drink and stare into nothing. This is dangerous territory. I’ve come this far by being in control and never letting emotion override logic. On making calculated decisions that benefit my position.
But there’s nothing calculated about what I feel for Scarlett.
There’s nothing logical about how I’ve held onto the memory of one night for six years. How I searched for her like a man possessed. How having her here now, within reach but untouchable, is slowly driving me out of my mind.
The whiskey isn’t helping. If anything, it’s making it worse.
I should go to bed, get a few hours of sleep before Luca wakes up wanting breakfast and stories and all the things I never knew I needed until I had them.
But I don’t move, I just sit here in the dark like some pathetic fool waiting for something I can’t name. That’s when I hear footsteps on the stairs.
My body reacts immediately, every sense sharpening. It’s three in the morning. Nobody should be awake except the guards on patrol.
Then she appears in the kitchen doorway and every thought in my head goes silent.
Scarlett stands there in a thin tank top and sleep shorts that show entirely too much skin. Her hair is messy from sleep, falling around her shoulders. No makeup. No defenses. Just her, soft, feminine, rumpled and absolutely perfect.
Those green eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that makes my chest growl. For a second neither of us moves. We just stare at each other across the kitchen, and the air between us heats with something electric.
She’s debating whether to run. I can see it in the way her body flares, ready to bolt.
“Stay.” My voice comes out before I can stop it. “That’s not a request.”
Her chin lifts in that defiant way I’ve come to know so well. Always ready to counter me. “I came down for water.”
“Then get it.”
But she doesn’t move toward the sink or the fridge. She just stands there looking at me like she’s trying to decide something.
The silence stretches between us, neither of us ready to break it.
I should look away and give her space to get her water and leave. Should maintain the distance we’ve been carefully keeping for two weeks. But I don’t.
I just sit here and let her see exactly what I’m feeling. Let her see the hunger I’ve been trying to hide. Let her see that my control is hanging by a thread and that thread is about to snap.
She, on other hand, is not left out. Something shifts in her expression, like a decision being made. Then she moves.
Not toward the sink. Not toward the door, but toward me.
Each step is graceful and slow, her eyes never leaving mine. My hands tighten on the glass I’m holding hard enough that I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter.
She stops a few feet away, close enough that I can smell her.
“I’m done running,” she says quietly. “I’m done pretending I don’t want this.”
The words throw me off guard as nothing could have prepared me for this admission, from this stubborn and proud woman.
I set down my glass very carefully because if I don’t, I’m going to break it. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Scarlett—”
“I’ve spent six years running from you. Six years trying to forget that night. Six years lying to myself about what I felt.” Her voice is steady, but I can see her hands shaking. “And I’m tired. I’m so tired of fighting this.”
I stand slowly, and she doesn’t back away or put distance between us like she should.
“If we do this, there’s no going back.” I need her to understand exactly what she’s agreeing to. “I’m not the kind of man who does casual. Who lets go of what’s mine.”
“I know what you are.”
“Do you? Because once I have you, I’m keeping you. No running. No escape. No changing your mind when things get difficult.”
Her eyes flash with defiance. “Then stop talking and prove it.”
That’s all it takes.
I close the distance between us in two steps and kiss her like I’ve been starving for six years. Like she’s air, and I’ve been drowning in the ocean of want. Like nothing else in the world matters except getting my hands on her.
She kisses me back just as desperately, rising up on her toes to get closer, her hands fisting in my hair. All the anger and longing and everything unsaid between us explodes in that kiss.
I grip her hips and lift her onto the counter, stepping between her thighs before she can protest. Not that I’ll pay heed if she does. She wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me closer, and the feel of her against me makes my vision go hazy.
My hands are everywhere. Sliding up her sides, cupping her face, tangling in her hair. I can’t get enough. Can’t touch her enough. Six years of wanting this, of dreaming about this, and nothing compares to the reality.
She breaks the kiss to gasp for air and I immediately move to her neck, tasting the skin there, feeling her pulse race under my tongue.
“Dante,” she breathes.
Hearing my name like that, breathy and desperate, makes something primal wake up inside me. I bite down on the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, not hard enough to truly hurt but hard enough to mark. My mark. To claim. She cries out and arches into me, her nails digging into my shoulders.
“Tell me to stop,” I growl against her skin, giving her one last chance even though stopping might actually kill me. “Tell me now, because in another minute I won’t be able to.”
“Don’t you dare stop.”
The words snap whatever restraint I have left.
I grab the hem of her tank top and pull it over her head in one smooth move. No bra of course. She’s perfect, all soft curves and smooth skin that I need to taste immediately.
I lower my head to her breast and she gasps, her fingers threading through my hair and gripping hard. I take my time, worshiping every inch of her with my mouth, learning what makes her gasp and what makes her moan and what makes her body tremble.
When I scrape my teeth across her nipple, she cries out and her hips buck against me hard enough that I feel it everywhere.
“Please,” she whispers, and I’ve never heard anything more perfect than Scarlett begging.
“Please what?”
“Touch me. More. I need—”
I kiss her hard to swallow whatever she was going to say then slide my hand down her stomach to the waistband of her sleep shorts. She lifts her hips to help me, and I pull them down along with her underwear, leaving her completely bare on my kitchen counter.
The sight of her like this, spread out and wanting and mine, makes my control crack even further.
I slide two fingers inside her and she cries out, her head falling back and exposing the long line of her throat. She’s already wet, already ready, and the knowledge that she wants this as badly as I do makes me feel savage.
I work with my hand, curling my fingers to hit that spot that makes her whole body jerk. She’s gasping now, grinding against my hand, chasing the pleasure I’m giving her.
“Look at me,” I command.
Her eyes snap open, blurry and dark with want.
“I want to watch you fall apart.”
I add a third finger and she cries out, her nails digging into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood. I can feel her getting closer, can feel the way her body starts to tense and tremble.
Then I pull back completely.
Her eyes go wide with shock and frustration. “What—no, don’t stop—”
“You come on my cock or not at all.”
The demand makes her pupils dilate even further. She reaches for my pants with shaking hands, but I catch her wrists and lift them over her head, her breasts arching closer to me.
“No. I do this.”
I free myself from my pants with one hand, the other gripping both her wrists still above her head. For a second we just stare at each other, both breathing hard, both knowing we’re about to cross a line we can’t uncross.
“Last chance,” I say, even though I’m not sure I could actually stop now if she asked.
“Stop giving me chances and just—”
I enter her in one hard thrust and we both groan at the sensation. The perfect fit. The overwhelming rightness of it hits me hard.
For a second neither of us moves. Just feel. Just exist in this moment where nothing else matters except this connection between us. Then she shifts her hips and that’s all it takes.
I pull back and drive in again, harder this time. She gasps and I guide her arms around my neck, letting her hold on as I set a rhythm that’s claiming and demanding and everything I’ve been holding back for two weeks.
This isn’t gentle. Isn’t sweet or careful or any of the things it probably should be.
This is six years of frustration and longing and rage pouring out in the most primal way possible. This is marking her as mine. This is making sure she understands exactly who she belongs to now.
She meets me thrust for thrust, her nails raking down my back hard enough to draw blood. The slight pain only drives me harder, makes me want to push her further.
I grab her hips and adjust the angle, going deeper, and she screams my name.
“Shh,” I murmur against her ear. “You’ll wake our son.”
The reminder of Luca sleeping upstairs should probably make us stop. Should make us think about what we’re doing.
Instead it just makes me more possessive. More determined to claim every part of her.
“Mine,” I growl against her neck. “Say it.”
“Yours,” she gasps out. “God, Dante, I’m yours.”
Hearing those words in her voice pushes me right to the edge.
I slide my hand between us and find her clit, working it in tight circles while I keep up the brutal pace. She’s close, I can feel it in the way her body tenses, in the way her breathing changes to short gasps.
Her inner walls start to flutter around me and I know she’s right there.
“Come for me,” I command, pinching her clit slightly. “Let me feel it.”
She shatters around me with a cry of my name that I swallow with another kiss. Her body clenches around me in waves, and that’s all it takes to drag me over the edge with her.
I bury myself deep and finish inside her, marking her in the most primal way possible. The sensation goes on and on, pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
For a long moment we just stay like that, tangled together and breathing hard, both of us trembling from the intensity of what just happened. Then reality starts to creep back in.
I pull back enough to look at her face. Her eyes are still closed, her breathing still uneven. She looks wrecked and perfect and completely mine.
I cup her face with both hands, forcing her to look at me.
“There’s no running this time,” I say, and my voice is rough and firm. “You’re mine. Luca is mine. I’m keeping you both, and anyone who tries to take you from me will die screaming.”
The possessiveness in my voice should scare her—it would scare most women. The promise of violence against anyone who threatens what’s mine.
But instead of fear, I see something else in her eyes. Something I can’t fathom until she spells it out for me.
“I stopped running the moment I called you,” she says quietly, and there’s a vulnerability in her voice that I’ve never heard. “I think…I think I’ve been yours since that first night, and I’m terrified of what that means.”