His jaw works as he grits his teeth, but he doesn’t look at me when he speaks. “AmIokay?” he asks indignantly. “What the fuck does that even mean right now, Essence? Look at your face.”
Before I have a chance to do it, he roughly opens the visor and slides the cover over. I gasp when I see that the bruise I already had is once again purple and blue and covering my whole cheek, and a trickle of blood from my nose is drying. I turn my face and see that another bruise has formed on my jaw.When I look lower, I see a long line of drying blood along the length of my neck from where Dante bit me earlier.
I slam the visor closed and let out a frustrated sigh.Roughdoesn’t even begin to describe how I look right now.
“What are we going to do now?”
“What do you mean?” Dante asks grumpily.
“My boyfriend is lying in a bloody pulp on our living room floor—that’swhat I mean,” I snap.
“Stop calling him your boyfriend,” he says in a warning tone, which makes me bristle.
“Well, heismy?—”
“He won’t be for long,” he interrupts.
My heart races at the dangerous undertone to his words.
“Please don’t hurt him any more than you already have,” I plead. “Please, Dante.”
I watch his face for any sign of emotion, but he’s stoic as we continue to drive down the busy highway.
Dante brings Lunchbox and I back to his house. Since I wasn’t able to change my clothes at home, I wear one of his t-shirts—which is so big that it falls just past my knees—and a pair of his socks. He’d given me some pajama pants to try on, but all of his pants and shorts are way too big even with the drawstring pulled as far as it will go.
Now I’m sitting on his couch in his shirt with nothing on underneath because my clothes are in the washing machine. I wrap myself in a queen-sized sherpa throw blanket and lay back onto the plush couch cushion. Lunchbox lays comfortably in Dante’s lap, eyes closed and breathing contentedly as he scratches a spot behind my puppy’s ear.
The TV is on, but neither one of us is watching it. There’s so much tension in the air that I can practically feel Dante’s emotions radiating off of him.
I run a hand through my hair tiredly. “I know you said not to thank you, but…”
Dante holds up a hand to stop me. “So, don’t.”
I frown. “Can you just let me talk?”
He sighs and motions for me to continue.
“Thank you for protecting me,” I say softly. I’m not used to being able to share my feelings freely with Evan, so sharing something personal with Dante is a huge hurdle.
“I honestly don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come in when you did,” I admit. “Just one minute later and I probably wouldn’t be here anymore. That’s what I go through almost every day that I’m with him, and Iwantto leave him, but it’s not as simple as you think.”
Dante grits his teeth again and looks out the window opposite us. “I do understand that, Essence. But I just—fuck, baby I just want you.”
My stomach flutters at his words, and a faint blush washes over my face when he looks at me. There are so many emotions on his face: lust, heartbreak, rage. All because of me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. I start nervously fiddling with a random thread from the stitching of the blanket. “I didn’t mean to put you in that position.”
“You think I’m mad because I had to beat the shit out of that asshole?” he asks. “Essence, I’d kill anyone who I deemed even the slightest threat to you, but the only reason I went easy on that bastard is because I didn’t want to walk away from there knowing you wouldn’t be able to forgive me.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, I chuckle. “You think what you did to him was ‘going easy’?”
He grins devilishly, that dimple in his chin just barely noticeable beneath the dark brown of his five o’clock shadow. “Oh, baby, you have no idea what I’m capable of.”
My stomach does crazy dips and somersaults, and I have to squeeze my legs together when I start to feel myself getting wet. The image of the two of us in his truck replays in my mind, and suddenly, my skin is on fire.
Dante gently sets Lunchbox down and scoots closer to me. Slowly, he slides a hand underneath the blanket and grazes his fingernails over my leg.
I shiver and squirm beneath his heated touch. His hooded, lust-filled eyes are like pools of liquid honey as he grabs me beneath my knees, spreading my legs.
