"You're not fine. I wasn't gentle." He carries me back down the stairs, through the house, to his bedroom. Our bedroom, technically, though I've been avoiding calling it that.
He sets me on the bed and disappears into the bathroom. I hear water running, and then he's back with a warm cloth, cleaning me with surprising gentleness.
"I can do that myself," I squeak, but my voice lacks conviction.
"I know." He finishes, tosses the cloth aside, then climbs into bed beside me. "But I'm doing it anyway."
He pulls me against his chest, one arm wrapped around my waist. His lips brush my temple in something that feels almost like a kiss.
It's so unexpected—this tenderness after the roughness—that I don't know what to do with it.
"Sleep," he murmurs. "We'll deal with everything else tomorrow."
I want to argue. Want to ask what this means. Want to know if he's going to regret this in the morning.
But I'm exhausted, and his heartbeat is steady under my ear, and for the first time in days I feel almost safe.
So I close my eyes and let myself drift.
Telling myself this doesn't mean anything.
That it's just attraction. Just lust. Just two people giving in to something inevitable.
Nothing more.
Even if part of me wishes it could be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Dante
The marble hallway leading to my father's office stretches ahead like a goddamn gauntlet.
My mind won't stay put. Won't focus on the meeting ahead or what he wants or any of the strategic planning I should be doing right now.
Instead, it keeps circling back to last night.
To Bianca in that pool, water streaming down her body. The way she looked at me—half furious, half wanting. The sounds she made when I touched her. The way she tasted. The way she felt wrapped around me, taking everything I gave her and demanding more.
Heat spreads through my chest, lower. My pants get tight.
Not now. Not fucking here.
I stop walking, press my palm against the cool wall. Try to breathe through it. Think about quarterly reports. Territory disputes. Anything except the memory of her nails digging into my shoulders while she?—
Nope. That's worse.
My body doesn't care that I'm about to face my father. Doesn't care that getting hard in the hallway outside his office is the last thing I need right now. It just remembers the way she clenched around me. The broken sound she made when she came. How many times I made her fall apart before we finally collapsed, spent and tangled together.
I adjust myself through my pants. It doesn't help.
Five more minutes. Just need five minutes for this to settle before I walk in there.
I close my eyes, try to force the images away. But they won't leave.
My phone buzzes. A text from my father:Don't be late.
Right. Business. Work. Things that actually matter.
