He digs his fingers into the curve of my hips and buries his face between my legs. I tense when he grazes my clit with his teeth. The sharp nip he delivers has me crying out again, and then my back arches from the pleasure as he licks and sucks until my whole body bows under his will and I come with a violent moan.
Gripping my ass cheeks, he holds me in place while he ravishes me with his tongue and teeth. He parts my folds between his fingers and licks around them before shoving his tongue deep. Aftershocks rack my body. I’m barely aware of reality. Everything else burns away. All that’s left is the heat and pleasure.
He straightens slowly, kissing my belly and curves through my clothes. Then he pushes up my top and bites into the swell of my stomach before delivering sharp nips to my breasts. I never thought something so animalistic could feel so good. The carnal way in which he devours me already has me desperate for release again. He leaves marks as far as he goes, turning my skin purple with lingering, sucking kisses.
A part of me loves his marks on me. I revel in his possession and the knowledge of belonging, but a voice in the back of my head warns me that vows can be broken. A ring and a promise can mean so little in the end.
“Dante.”
He takes my hands and puts them on his belt. “Do it.”
I can’t stop myself. I’m too far gone. Too lost. I unfasten the buckle and pop the button on his waistband. But then the lustful fog lifts, and my commonsense returns.
I pause as shame heats my cheeks. Where is my self-preservation? I’m not going to have sex with him if he slept with someone else.
He unzips and takes out his cock. “Ask me.”
When I only stare at him with defiance, he locks his fingers around mine and wraps them around his thick length. Using my hand, he strokes himself.
“Ask me.” He rests our foreheads together, jerking off faster in the fist he’s got curled around mine. “Ask me, and the truth is yours.”
I’m too scared. I’m terrified of the truth. The truth may shatter me, and I don’t want him to witness my humiliation. So I just let him use me, my own need already climbing again.
Almost angrily, he pushes my hand away. His grip isn’t gentle when he seizes the root of his cock.
“Dante,” I say in protest.
He positions the crest at my entrance. “I won’t let you run away from the truth, darling, not this time.”
Driving his hips up, he impales me with a single thrust. The force of it lifts me on tiptoes. My knees buckle under the intensity. Holding me up with an arm around my waist, he bends his knees and slams into me again.
There’s no pain. Only pleasure. But I wish for pain if only to ground me and bring me back to my senses because I’m already spiraling again, losing myself to a dangerous man and a game I can never win.
His voice sounds broken. “Damn you, Tatiana.” He pulls out and lifts me onto the vanity with his hands around my waist. “Damn you and your stubborn pride. You’d rather hurt than risk humiliation.” He takes a foil packet from the drawer and rips it open. He’s rough when he rolls on the condom. “I waited.” He stares into my eyes with a savage expression burning in his. “Every day you took away from me, I waited for you.” Grabbing my thighs, he yanks me to the edge of the vanity and spreads them wide. He doesn’t look away from my face as he shoves deep into me, fusing our bodies with brutal pleasure and honesty. “There’s never been anyone else. Only you.” He pounds into me as if he’s trying to punish himself. “From the day I first set eyes on you, I’ve never touched another woman.”
A heavy weight lifts off my shoulders. For the first time I can remember, my heart feels light. The tension in my chest gives, and I can breathe again. And for some reason, the truth he lays at my feet is more devastating than the pleasure that tightens my core.
“Oh, Dante.”
He slides two fingers over my clit. I rub against him while he slows his pace and lets me catch up. I’m there in just a few seconds, my orgasm shattering me from the inside out, my inner muscles clenching hard around him.
He continues to hold my gaze, to rip the truth from what he sees on my face, the feelings I can’t hide, and to give his own back as he comes with a violent shudder.
The truth he dropped lives in the air between us—a beautiful, pure, painful thing. Because it hurt him. The days he said I took away from him got under his armor and his skin. Ulysses was wrong. My husband isn’t untouchable. I do have the power to hurt him, and knowing that I did is like walking on glowing coals.
As soon as he’s empty, he rests his forehead against mine to catch his breath. I don’t look away from those tormented, golden eyes. I have no idea what I’ve put him through, but I know he’s not lying when he says he waited. That’s the one thing Dante will never lie about.
I wrap my arms around his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” he bites out. “The apology isn’t yours to give. It’s mine.”
The revelation is enormous. As before, when I stood on the sidewalk outside the condo where I used to live, the moment feels significant. But he neither apologizes nor explains. Instead, he pulls out and gets rid of the condom.
He’s just opened up to me, but he’s already floating away again and shutting me out. Because there’s more. There’s more he’s not telling me, that he doesn’t want to tell me.
He strips naked and lifts my arms to pull my top over my head. I take in his strong chest and biceps, the stitched-up cut on his arm, his big hands, how his muscles bunch beneath the ink as he pulls me to the shower. He presses me against the wall and shelters me with his body from the spray of the water until it runs warm. Then he kisses every mark he’s put on my body, the color of my skin already red and purple around the shape of his teeth, before washing my hair and body.
When we’re lying in bed later, he presses up behind me and pulls my back to his chest with an arm around my waist.
