I try to pull back, but Moretti is cupping my face between his strong hands, and he’s caressing my cheekbone with a callused thumb.“Not if I can help it.”
He chuckles, and there’s no humor in it.Just pure Mafia power and male certainty.
The last twelve hours have been horrible.
Moretti left me alone while he went out.
Of course, I’d been kept prisoner.
Once he was gone, I paced the confines of his room, aware of the horrible red eye in the corner tracking my every move.
Since there was no security feed in the bathroom, I took the time to soak in a long, hot bath.Not that I could relax, not even for a minute.
I was constantly on guard, expecting him to walk through the door at any moment.
But he didn’t.
For hours after, I was on guard, wrapped in his robe, looking out the window, watching the doorknob with my lapels clutched together.
Then, hoping he’d leave me alone like he had the previous night, I tried to sleep.
But no matter how long I lay there, I couldn’t get thoughts of him out of my mind.
I remembered the taste of him and my own, shameless reaction when he devoured me with a hot kiss at the bridal shop.
Then his hurtful, awful words that drove distance between us.
I should be grateful for that, maybe.Hating him is better than caring.
Then an image of his ring on my hand flashed into my memory, and the sight of the possessive gleam in his dark eyes.
With determination, I erected an emotional barrier between us.
But when he took me to eat at Le Jardin, he chipped at the edges.
Telling him about my mother softened me.
Though I didn’t want to hear anything about him, learning his father had loved to be out on the water had gotten to me.
In that instant, I saw Raffaele Moretti as more than just the head of a hated, rival family.And in my mind, Dante was an innocent kid, hair tossed by the wind, smiling without a care in the world.
The man made a mess of my emotions.
Sometime, I’m not exactly sure when, exhaustion overtook my frantic mind, and I drifted off to sleep.
I awakened with a start when he entered the room.Pretending to be asleep, I lay there, body rigid.
Though it was pitch black, he didn’t turn on a light.Instead, he stripped and crawled into bed next to me.
Without a word, he pulled me against him.
I refused to acknowledge him in any way, but that didn’t stop him from kissing the top of my head.
The tang of citrus still clung to him, softened a little by whiskey, and his cock pressed into me, as if he’d already taken me.
It wasn’t until I heard his breathing even out that I was able to settle down again.
And then, I’d fallen into a deep, nightmare-fueled sleep.
