by Katee Robert
He liked that she wasn’t afraid of him, that she constantly provoked him because she trusted him not to cross the line. He liked it a lot. Dante moved around the coffee table so he could sit on it in front of her. Not much space separated them, giving him a front-row view of how her breasts shook with each breath, her dark-pink nipples tight and distended. “Spread your thighs, nice and wide. Let me see you.”
She obeyed slowly, her breathing picking up without him so much as touching her. Her panties, a bright-blue thong, were already wet and tangled from their early interaction, and they gaped, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her pussy. He hadn’t noted it in the shower because he’d been too focused on how good she felt clamped around his fingers; now there were no distractions. She looked different here, too. “You waxed for him.”
“Da.” She obviously meant for that to come out sharp, but she was panting too hard to pull it off.
Dante hooked two fingers around the front of her panties, tugging the damp fabric from her skin. He shifted his fingers up and down, dragging his knuckles lightly over her. He didn’t have preferences about grooming one way or another—she was Rose, and therefore, he wanted her—but knowing she waxed for another man, that she intended to let him touch her like this…
Jealous was too tame a word.
“Dante.”
“Hush, I’m thinking.” He kept up the slow movements, very aware of how she became wetter and wetter in response. Her pussy fucking bloomed for him.
Would it have bloomed for Romeo?
“You’re mine, Rosa.”
“Nyet.”
“Si.” He held her gaze and pressed two fingers into her. “This pussy, this body, that fucking brain of yours. Mine.”
“Nyet.” But she spread her legs wider and rolled her hips, urging his fingers deeper. “It’s just sex.”
“Always the lies with you.” He twisted his wrist, finding that spongey spot inside her that had her sucking in a breath. “Will you pretend you’re faking this, too? No. No more lies, Rosa. You’re going to come for me again and again until I’m satisfied, and then I’m going to fuck this pretty pussy until you forget his name.”
“It’ll never happen.”
Why did she keep fighting him even as her body took him eagerly?
Why did he like it so much?
“You make me crazed.”
“Dante.” She cupped her breasts, rolling her hips as she tried to fuck his fingers. “God, that feels good. Don’t stop.” She reached out a shaking hand. “Kiss me.”
“No.” He pressed a third finger into her, staring at her lying mouth. He wanted to taste her again more than he wanted his next breath, but he wouldn’t. “Not until you tell me truth instead of the bullshit you keep spouting.”
“But—”
“Not until you stop fucking lying.” He went to his knees in front of her and fisted the pathetic excise for panties in either hand. One good jerk and the fabric ripped down the center. Rose barely had time to gasp before he descended and kissed her pussy.
The same, but different. Everything was the same but so fucking different.
He gripped her thighs and pressed her legs up and out, spreading her obscenely. He backed enough to stare down at her pussy and ass, right there for the taking.
“Dante.” She dug her fingers into his hair and tugged. “Please.”
As much as part of him wanted to torment her as long as he could, his woman was in need, and he wouldn’t leave her hanging like this. Not when the scent of her desire nearly had him coming in his shorts. He let her guide him back to the apex of her thighs and licked her from front to back before reversing course. Even as she started shaking, her legs fighting his grip, he took his time reacquainting himself with her until he worked his way up to her clit. He exhaled against the sensitive bud, making her whimper in response.
Dante gave up all teasing at that whimper. He sealed his mouth to her pussy, working her clit in the vertical strokes she liked so much. She cried out, bucking against his hold, but he held her down and didn’t relent. Breathless Russian spilled from her lips in an increasing crescendo, and then she was coming, crying out loud enough to nearly be labeled a scream.
He didn’t stop.
He kept at her clit, bringing her over that crest again and again until her body went limp. It wasn’t enough. A few measly orgasms weren’t anywhere near enough to erase three months of absence, to blot out the fact he’d almost lost her for good to Romeo’s bed. No, not that. Never that. Even if she’d married the fucker, Dante would have killed him and taken her anyway. She was his. Once she got over her pride, she’d admit as much.
Dante moved away from her pussy, dragging his mouth along one of her thighs and then the other. She blinked down at him, clearly dazed. “Someone has something to prove.”
“That’s not what this is, Rosa.” He kissed his way up her body, maneuvering her onto her back on the couch so he could settle between her legs. “This is a new beginning.”
She reached up with a trembling hand and touched his temple, smoothing down the hair there, but she didn’t respond with words. That was okay. He had nothing but time, and she’d already paved the way for them taking their first steps into the future he wanted. Right now, with her limp and sated beneath him, all the bullshit and theatrics felt justified. This was what he wanted more than anything. Forever.
“Dante.” She reached around him to run her hands down his back and dip them beneath the band of his shorts. “Kiss me.”
“No.”
She blinked. “What do you mean, no?”
“I’ll kiss you.” He met her gaze. “When you admit that you want this and we’re endgame.”
“I already admitted I wanted this.” She smiled a little. “You have evidence of how much I wanted it all over your face.”
Maybe another man would consider that enough. She was willing, and he wanted to taste her lips again. Dante was stronger than those weak fucks. He wanted it all, and if he had to deny himself even as he denied her, so be it. “You’re so damn sly with your words, Rosa.” He returned her smile slowly. “You never cease to be a challenge.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a challenge.”
“There you go again, lying to me.” He let his weight rest more fully against her, enjoying the way she shivered in response. Dante dug one hand into her hair and tugged her head to the side so he could kiss her neck, working his way down to the spot that always made her go weak for him. It happened again. The moment he set his teeth against her skin, she gave another of those delicious whimpers and wrapped her legs around his waist.
“Dante,” Rose gasped. “Dante, please.” She turned her face to press kisses along his temple, his cheek, his jaw.
He had to move away now, to flip her onto her stomach to keep control, to do something, but when her lips brushed the corner of his mouth and she arched up to rub herself along the length of his cock, his brain shorted out. That was the only explanation that made any sense, because one moment he was firmly planning Rose’s continued seduction, and the next, his mouth was on hers.
She tasted like…victory and home and everything he’d ever wanted.
Dante’s leash snapped.
Chapter 12
Rose didn’t know what she was doing. If Dante didn’t want to kiss her, she should leave it alone. The more distance between them, the better. Except she couldn’t stop. This was nothing like she expected, this man becoming a wave that swept her away entirely. Her body still sang from what he’d done with his mouth, and now his strong body pressed her back into the couch even as he plundered her mouth.
It felt the same but different. Her body knew his, knew the dips and planes, knew that he loved it when she whimpered and rubbed herself against him, too desperate to worry about her pride. But this was so much more intense than it had ever been between them.
Her desire was a bonfire flaring hotter with each touch, each word. It didn’t matter that she’d just come harder than she
could have dreamed. She wanted more. She needed more.
Slow down.
Fuck that. She didn’t want to. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, that little voice continued to call out warnings, but she was too far gone. Rose gripped Dante’s ass and arched up, rubbing herself along his length even as she encouraged him to thrust against her. More, more, more. She shoved down his shorts, working the slick fabric down his hips with her legs and hands.
And then there was nothing between them at all.
Dante hitched one of her legs higher and changed his movement, dragging his length over her slowly. His kiss changed, too. The burst of frenetic energy shifted to him dominating her mouth in a way he’d never done before. He claimed her with that kiss.
And she? She didn’t have to stay partially in her head in that moment. She didn’t have to worry about toning down her responses or being too rough.
She could lie with her words, but she couldn’t lie in this moment.
He pressed her into the couch, thrusting harder in response to her digging her nails into his ass. Rose moaned against his tongue and kissed him back just as fiercely. He tasted of her desire and just pure Dante, and the mix went straight to her head.
She arched against him, rubbing her breasts against his bare chest. God, there was too much stimulation. It felt too good. She couldn’t think. All her planning and manipulating and bullshit, and it went right out the window the second she got naked with this man. This was supposed to be for a purpose, but she couldn’t focus on anything but getting him inside her.
Rose rolled her hips, and he moved back just enough that his cock notched at her entrance. They both froze. Dante nipped her bottom lip and kissed along her jaw to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. “Tell me to stop.”
She had to. She had to right now. This was more than playing with fire. She was in the middle of the inferno. That should terrify her. It did terrify her but…
A part of her wanted to do it anyways.
Rose closed her eyes and inhaled, trying to think, but all she could see, smell, feel was Dante. “We can’t.”
“I know.”
He wasn’t even arguing with her. Why did she hesitate? She could not risk pregnancy, not with this man. “We really can’t.”
Dante cursed softly in Italian against her throat. “Un giorno matterò un bambino nella tua pancia, amata.” He lifted himself up enough to meet her gaze. “But not yet.”
“Dante—”
He moved back to kneel between her thighs and grabbed a condom off the table. “Have you changed your mind?”
About what? About risking too much? About having sex?
She shook her head slowly. “No.” It was the only answer. It had to be the only answer.
He rolled on the condom and gave himself a stroke, almost as if testing it. “Hold yourself open for me, amata.”
It never occurred for her to do anything but obey. She reached down and parted her pussy, holding her breath as he braced a hand by her head and guided his cock back to her entrance. This time, there was no reason to hesitate, no reason to stop. She half expected Dante to go slow. He had in the past; he was big enough that they had to be careful, and when they’d dated, he’d always been so careful to ease her into that first stroke, no matter how much foreplay they’d indulged in.
He didn’t go slow this time. Of course, he didn’t. This was Dante, not Jackson. He pushed into her as if he knew her body could take it, as if he expected it. Except…the devastating concentration on his face was the same. The cock currently splitting her in two was the same. Even after three months, her body knew his, knew the moves of this dance between them.
Is he telling the truth? Was some of it true?
His dark gaze tracked up her body with a possessiveness she should argue against, but she couldn’t find the breath or the words. Italian poured from his mouth, but she didn’t have the capacity to wonder what the fuck he was saying to her with that look on his face because he slammed the last few inches and stole everything but her need for more.
Dante kissed her again as he moved inside her. Not strokes, exactly, but pulses that had her writhing against him. It felt good, really good, but it was nowhere near enough. She tried to get leverage to move against him, but he had her pinned with his body weight and cock.
She broke the kiss enough to demand, “More.”
“All you have to do is ask, Rosa. I’ll give you anything. Everything.” He moved back again, depriving her of the delicious contact of his chest to hers, but instantly made up for it when he jerked her hips up with him.
“You want more? I’ll give you more.” Dante guided her legs over his arms, still maintaining the incline, and then he started fucking her properly. Long, seeking strokes that had him rubbing against her G-spot. The moment he found exactly the right angle and rhythm to have her eyes damn near rolling back in her head, he kept it up, driving her closer and closer to orgasm.
“Touch yourself, amata.”
She didn’t hesitate. She hadn’t hesitated since this all began. She just snaked her hand down her stomach and stroked her clit. Pleasure coiled so tightly through her, so strongly, it was almost pain. “Dante.”
“Say it again.”
She shouldn’t. She’d already yielded so much. This particular command felt even more personal than the others. It didn’t matter. He hit that spot deep inside her even as she stroked her clit, and her orgasm took her under. She cried out his name as she came around his cock.
Dante barely waited for her wave to crest before he covered her with his body and fucked her like salvation lay on the other side of his orgasm. She was so sensitized, she came again with a gasp that he kissed away. He ground into her, his expression nearly furious as he orgasmed. “Mine, Rosa.” Then he collapsed on top of her.
Holy shit. She stared at the ceiling as her heart fought to slow back to a normal pace and her body went loose and pliant from the echoes of pleasure. It had always been good with him, but this was on another level entirely. She shivered at the thought of what else he had up his sleeve when it came to sex. This whole experience was like fucking a stranger who already had your body memorized. There was no need to fumble through a first encounter because they had so much history. And yet this wasn’t the same as fucking Jackson. Not even a little bit.
She smacked his shoulder lightly. “I can’t believe you held out on me.”
He caught her mouth in a brief kiss. “I’m not the only one who held out.”
He…wasn’t wrong. “Dante…”
“I love it when you say my name like that, all sated and lazy.” He kissed her again and reached between them to hold the condom in place as he eased out of her.
She watched him walk out of the living room. A few seconds later, the water ran in the bathroom. Rose should get up, should move, should do something. Her body wouldn’t obey her sluggish mental commands, though. The best she could do was turn on her side and grab a fallen pillow from the ground to prop under her head.
Dante didn’t stay away for long. He reappeared still completely naked and eyed her. “Are you about to have regrets and cry about how this was a mistake?”
Just like that, reality slapped her in the face. What the fuck was she doing? Waiting for cuddles? Comparing having sex with Dante against their history and trying to look for evidence that he wasn’t lying when he said it was real for him, too?
She sure as hell couldn’t think about the arts festival or what he’d said. They were engaged in emotional warfare, and she was losing.
That got her moving. “I don’t cry over bullshit like fucking someone I shouldn’t.” She’d chosen this every step of the way. She could tell herself she hadn’t had another option, but it wasn’t the truth and they both knew it. Rose might lie to Dante, and happily, but she wouldn’t lie to herself.
She’d loved fucking him.
She wanted to do it again.
She…missed him.
It didn’t matter. It couldn’t
matter. All the orgasms in the world didn’t change who Dante was or what he’d done. Or what happened next. He would die, and she would return to New York to marry Romeo Capparelli like some kind of fucked-up tragedy. In the past three months of planning and strategy meetings, Rose hadn’t paused long enough to mourn the loss her marriage represented. She wasn’t the type to worry overmuch about a love match, not when she had so many other priorities to focus on. Who cared that she needed to marry a stranger if it meant her family and their people remained safe?
She didn’t love Dante—she didn’t even know him, not really—but she couldn’t deny they shared a spark that was entirely absent between her and Romeo. She was destined for a cold marriage to someone that was truly a stranger. It was her duty, and she’d do it.
She just didn’t expect to mourn the loss of a future she’d barely let herself consider.
Dante gave her a surprisingly happy grin. “In that case, why don’t I make us something to eat, and you can put a movie on?”
The words were familiar. How many times after they’d had sex had he put forth the same offer? Dante was brilliant in the kitchen, even on what had appeared to be a low budget. He’d cook for her, slowly seducing her again with delicious smells and then amazing food. After they ate, they’d cuddle together while watching whatever random movie she’d picked from his various streaming channels. The movie never mattered, because they never made it through the whole thing before having sex again.
Her chest ached with a sudden longing that made her dizzy. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“You said I’m the liar, but what the fuck are you?” Rose pushed to her feet and ran her fingers through her hair. Her body still ached with the aftermath of pleasure, a bell chiming to a tune only Dante could match. “You don’t get to manipulate me using my history with Jackson.” She had to keep them separate. She had to. Because if she had the intimacy she shared with Jackson and the brutal truths and intense sex she had with Dante… That combination scared her right down her to her bruised heart.
Dante gave her a long look. “It wasn’t all a lie.”
