Cerberus barks loudly.
I stop and listen. And that urgency I’d felt moments ago burns inside my gut. I hurry toward the door, but something catches my eye as I pass the desk.
A note.
Three words.
Three. Fucking. Words.
I am sorry.
I fly through the house and into the kitchen where I find Cerberus barking at the door. I don’t bother pulling on a jacket but open the door. The instant I do, Cerberus bounds out, and I hurry after him, taking in the cool breeze as I scan the beach for her. She’s not here though. And as Cerberus picks up her scent and runs toward the cliffs, I realize where she’s gone. The one place I tried hard to avoid all day. Tried so hard to shield her from.
The wind picks up as I climb the rocky cliffs, the ascent growing steeper and steeper. Cerberus disappears over the peak and the ground levels out a little as I reach it. I can see the marble wall of the Mausoleum as rocks slip under my boots.
I should have seen her by now. Cerberus had only just started barking. Or had I missed the sound before? Did she write that note hours ago and slip out to come to these cliffs? To the one place she was always afraid of when she was little.
“Mara,” I call out once I’m standing in the face of what is fierce wind up here.
Something creaks, the sound eerie as wind propels clouds from the moon, letting that silvery, ghostly light shine on the marble walls.
That creak comes again. I walk to the building, enter through the open door. The Tabernacle lamp burning inside.
But if she was here, she’s gone now.
Cerberus barks a single, sharp bark. I rush out of that dank mausoleum and follow the sound. The sea roars below us as I near the cliff’s edge, slowing my steps as rocks slide out and over the edge.
“Mara!”
Nothing.
But it’s when I get around the bend that I see her and simultaneously, I feel relief and utter terror at the sight.
She looks like an apparition. A blur in the dark. Clothes and hair blowing in a wild halo around her. A ghost already.
“Mara,” I say, walking toward her.
Cerberus is lying on the ground, head on his paws, whining. I’m not sure she realizes we’re here. She’s so intent on the sea. Her face to the wind. Hair whipping it while she stands still as stone.
I navigate the steep decline toward her. I don’t want to spook her. I’m so close. But it would take one step for her to slip away. For her to be gone for good this time.
And when I’m almost within reach of her, I hear her. She’s singing a tune. Something in Spanish. Something sad.
“Mara.”
She startles, turns, eyes vacant for a moment before surprise registers on her face, her mouth freezing in an O.
“What are you doing, sweetheart?” I ask.
But she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t get a chance to when she shifts her position and loses her footing, letting out a scream as rocks slip out from under her bare feet and the ground gives way beneath her.
27
Mara
I feel my feet go out from under me and it’s in that instant that I realize something.
I don’t want this.
I don’t want to die.
My scream rips through the night, louder than the wind. Sharp rocks cut into the bottoms of my feet. When I look down, I see the sea, black now in the darkness, black without the light of the moon as clouds obscure it and rain begins to fall. Black but for the churning white as it crashes against the cliff wall.
That sensation of falling sends my belly into my throat. This is it. I will die on this island after all like I was meant to all those years ago.
But then I’m jolted to a stop, the vise like grip on my wrist threatening to pull my arm from its socket.
I look at my feet dangling naked and pale above the water, look up into Dante’s terror-stricken face.
I want to tell him that I’m sorry. That I didn’t mean it. But there’s no time for that as he moves and more rocks spill over the edge. I’d scream if I could find my voice. Scream as I watch those stones bounce off my feet and into the white cloud of water disappearing into the vast, raging sea.
And when I feel a tug on my arm, I lift my gaze up to his again. To his face as he shifts his position, anchoring himself.
“Give me your other hand!” he calls over the wind.
I reach my other arm up to him. It takes two tries, but he catches it and tugs hard. Knife-like rocks tear my clothes, cutting my chest, my stomach, and thighs. But he has me. He’s pulling me to safety.
Another tug and I’m wrapped in his arms, my feet still not touching the ground as he carries me away from the cliff’s edge and back toward the mausoleum, holding me so tight it’s hard to breathe. At the mausoleum where just a little while ago I’d paid my respects to the dead, he stops, puts me down. His hands come to either side of my face, thumbs brushing back wet hair and raindrops, grip a little too tight, gaze a little too dark.
He opens his mouth to say something, closes it again, teeth tight, jaw tense. And I see that he’s raging too. Angrier than both sea and wind as he mutters a curse then bends to pick me up. He hauls me over his shoulder and begins a hurried descent back across the beach to the house, Cerberus barking, running alongside us.
The knowledge of what I’ve done hits me when we’re in the house. I shudder.
“Good boy,” Dante tells Cerberus, petting him before pointing to his cot.
The dog obeys after a glance at me. I feel guilty even looking in his eyes.
I expect Dante to put me down. I expect him to rail against me. To let loose his rage on me. I deserve it.
But he doesn’t. Not yet. Not as he stalks up the stairs and into his room. Not as he locks the door and carries me dangling over his shoulder into the bathroom where he sets me down in the shower stall and pushes my back to the wall.
He’s furious.
Too furious to speak.
I open my mouth, but he puts up a finger. “Shut up. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
He switches on the water, and I yelp at the sudden momentary cold before it warms up. He shifts his attention back to me, hands on me, angrily ripping the clothes from me before pushing me fully beneath the flow. Only when I’m trapped in the glass enclosure does he release me, his body blocking the exit. He strips off his shirt, pushes off his boots then his jeans and briefs and steps into the shower with me.
28
Dante
I am furious.
I take hold of her face, one hand on each side, and make her look up at me. She blinks against the spray of water, but I don’t care. I pull her to me, hug her tight. Because if I don’t, I’m going to shake her. Because all I can think is how close I came to losing her again. To losing her finally this time.
I push her away.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I ask.
She winces at my tone.
“What were you fucking thinking?” I demand.
“You shouldn’t have brought me here!” she cries out.
“Where should I have taken you then? Where?” Christ. The urge to shake her is back. I want to fucking rattle her bones. Jolt some sense into her.
“Just leave me alone!” She tries to force my hands from her, but I shift my grip to her arms, hold her tight, look down at her. Water runs over the planes of her body, soft, full breasts, hard nipples. Her too-flat belly. She’s scratched up from the rocks.
She looks at me, too, and I let her. I hold her there and I let her. And when she meets my gaze again, I realize I don’t care about anything but this moment. Her. I can’t not kiss her. Can’t not have her.
I cup the back of her head, pull her to me and close my mouth over hers. I kiss her hard, water pelting the back of my head as I devour her. I want her. I have never wanted anyone like I want her. As wrong as it is, I fucking want her.
Her hands come to my chest, my biceps. I draw back, lift her up, press her back to the glass
wall. She wraps her legs around me and I’m at her entrance. And all I can do is look at her as I decide.
Because this is the moment to decide. The line is clear. I’m toeing it, have been since day one.
Now, my cock at her warm entrance, I have to decide.
And I do.
I already have. Hell, maybe I had since day one.
I thrust in hard and watch her gasp. Her hands wrap around my shoulders, and she opens her eyes, looks at me.
I draw out and thrust again. And fuck. Fuck, she feels good. So good. So tight. So fucking perfect. Perfect for me. As if she was made just for me. I don’t bother switching off the water when I carry her out, her legs still wrapped around my waist. I lay her dripping wet on my bed, tug her to the edge and grip her ankles to push her legs wide, opening her, looking at her. And then I’m inside her again, fucking her, fucking the past out of her.
And I know this is right. I know this is the only thing right in this fucked up situation. This fucked up world.
Her. Here. In my bed.
Mine.
Fucking mine.
I lean closer, needing to kiss her again, to taste her mouth, suck on her tongue. And when I do, she wraps her hands around the back of my head and gives me everything. Her breath, her body, her fucking soul. Because I will have everything. Every part of her.
And when that breath catches, I draw away to look at her, watch her come undone, face tensing, mouth open, eyes dark, black pupils ringed with a fine line of the most beautiful blue.
“Dante,” she gasps, biting her lip, fingers pulling my hair as she closes those eyes and turns her head a little. The walls of her pussy pulsate around my cock, taking me to the edge of oblivion. I call out her name and make her look at me again. I need to see her eyes again as I empty inside her, laying claim to her, taking her for myself.
Because she belongs to me. She has always belonged to me.
29
Dante
It’s only when I pull out that the reality of what we’ve done, what I’ve done, sinks in. I look down at her, see her soft, relaxed face. I slowly release her legs.
She lies still, spent, but I see her pulse beating at her throat.
“Did I hurt you?” I finally ask, my voice sounding strange, grainy like sand, not my own.
She shakes her head, reaches up a hand to brush hair back from my face. I’m not sure if it’s wet from the shower or sweat.
Relieved, I nod, walk into the bathroom because I need to be away from her for a minute. Away from those eyes. I switch off the still running shower, clean myself off, then hold a washcloth under warm water and carry that and a bath towel back into the bedroom.
She’s lying exactly where I left her, legs dangling off the bed, her expression soft, sleepy. Her body boneless. She blinks as if her eyelids are too heavy, her eyes tracking me as I cross the room. Looking at her like this, lying naked on my bed, makes my cock stir again. I push one leg open, and she doesn’t resist when I clean her. I notice a little smear of pink on her thigh and shift my gaze back up to hers as guilt settles in my gut.
“I did hurt you. You should have said—”
“You didn’t.”
It’s not her words that silence me. More her tone. Different than usual. More sure.
I finish cleaning her then dry off what’s left of the water from the shower. I look at the cuts on her chest, stomach and thighs, then pick up one of her feet to see the cuts on the bottom. I shift my gaze up to hers.
“Why?”
A shadow darkens her eyes, and she looks away momentarily. “I’m sorry,” she finally says.
I raise my eyebrows. “You’re sorry? You’re fucking sorry?”
She swallows, sits up at this change.
I shake my head, walk across the room to my dresser and drag on a pair of sweats before going into the closet to pull out one of my button-down shirts. I hand it to her.
“Put it on.”
She does and I return to the bathroom to get the first aid kit, then backtrack to her. She’s leaning against the headboard buttoning up the shirt.
“Leave it. I need to clean those cuts.”
She looks down, drops her arms. The shirt barely covers her nipples. I think how much I like how she looks in my clothes again. And I think about how she’s a woman now. No longer a girl.
But then I imagine her out on that cliff, steps away from plunging to her death and something inside my chest twists. I take a breath in.
“Why?” I ask again, sitting on the bed and taking her feet on my lap to clean the cuts with alcohol.
“I don’t know. Being back here, in this house, my grandmother, Noah. Lizzie’s room so close. It’s all just…it’s too much. I told you on the boat. I can’t do this. It’s too hard.”
I bandage the worst of the cuts as I process her words and only when I’m finished with both feet do I look at her again. “After all this time, I didn’t find you only to lose you again.”
“If it makes a difference, when I saw you up there, I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to die.”
I study her and I don’t think she’s lying. I’m not sure she’s capable of lying. She’s somehow managed to hold on to her innocence. After everything, all those years, she’s still innocent.
That knowledge makes my chest ache. She lived with monsters for so long. Alone and no match for them for too fucking long.
But the thought of almost having lost her returns. It hardens me. “Good. Because if you try anything like that again and I will never forgive you. Do you understand me?”
Her neck and cheeks flush red, eyes growing wide and a little frightened.
Good. I want her scared of this at least. I raise my eyebrows and she finally nods.
“Lie down. Let me look at those.”
She obeys wordlessly and I open the shirt. My dick is hard again as I lay her out, taking in her perfectly round breasts, puckered nipples. I want to take one in my mouth. Suck it. Bite it. Make her come again. Take my time and hear her call out my name when she does.
It takes all I have to shift my gaze away, to clean the cuts on her stomach, chest and thighs. They’re not as bad as her feet, so when I’m finished, I set the first-aid kit aside and look at her.
Her eyes move from my face to my bare chest, lower. I wonder what she thinks when she sees the scars. The patch covering the place my eye used to be.
“I came,” she says when she meets my gaze again.
“I know.”
“No, I mean, I’ve never come. Before you.”
“What?”
Her cheeks go red again. “I’ve never had an orgasm.”
I guess I hadn’t thought of this. I remember what Petrov said but I’m sure he was lying, trying to get under my skin. But never before?
“Not even when you touch yourself?”
“I don’t.”
I am speechless.
“I didn’t want to. Not after—” she stops abruptly and her expression darkens, some of that anxiety creeping back into her face.
“Open your legs,” I tell her, wanting that softness back. Never wanting to see her anxious or afraid again. “Open them for me. I want to see you.”
Without shifting her gaze, she spreads them open.
I move between them, look at her. I lean toward her to kiss her, taking my time, tasting her. Her pupils are dilated when I draw back, so I bend to take a nipple into my mouth. It hardens instantly and I tease it, suck and nibble it before repeating on the other side. I’m hard as I straighten, spread her legs wider and look at the pretty pink lips of her sex.
Leaning down I smell her arousal. I close my mouth over her sex, licking the length of her, clit to ass and back. I do it two more times and when she lets out a moan, I close my mouth over her clit and suck hard. It’s moments before she’s bucking beneath me again, coming on my tongue. Her fingers are woven into my hair as she grinds herself against my face. I cup her ass cheeks, pull her open, lick her from clit to as
s again, then start all over. Devouring her, my dick so fucking hard it hurts.
I want to take her again, but I can’t. I’d hurt her. She’s tight and I’m not small. The one thing I do not want to do is hurt her. So, I tug her to the very edge of the bed and push my sweats down just enough to fist my cock. She watches in fascination as I rub it between her folds, moaning a deep, throaty moan as I smear her come over myself. Her eyes lock on my dick as I pump hard and come all over her tits, her stomach, her pussy, wanting to cover her with my scent like some animal. As if marking her as mine will ward off the evil in her life.
But that’s not what I’m thinking about as I shudder with orgasm. It’s not that when I tuck myself away and lean down to kiss her again. To take her offered tongue in my mouth. I’m thinking about something else. The one thing that is the only thing. The only way forward. And it’s so clear. So fucking obvious. Like it was always meant to be. Like we were always meant to be.
30
Dante
She sleeps the rest of the night. When I slip my arm from beneath her the next morning, her eyes flutter open for an instant, a smile just barely playing on her lips before she’s out again.
I tuck her back into the bed, have a quick shower and head downstairs where my brother and Charlie are already in his study when I arrive.
Cristiano checks his watch. “Since when do you sleep much less sleep in?”
“Jet lag,” I lie as I pour myself a cup of coffee from the silver carafe Lenore left for us. Knowing when they find out, when Cristiano hears that I took Mara to my bed, he will lose his shit.
“What happened last night? I heard Cerberus bark but when I got downstairs, you’d taken him out.”
“Not exactly. I went to check on Mara around two in the morning. Just had a weird feeling.”
“Mara?”
“She’d gone up to the cliffs.”
Stolen: Dante’s Vow Page 16
