We endedup in the hotel for almost a week until Dante and I grew restless enough to piss them all off enough to take us back home. The wounds on my abdomen are still bandaged, needing cleaning and cream put on them at the end of each day. Oddly, when I look at them now, it makes all the times I used to do it to myself seem pretty stupid. I’ll work through that in therapy, I guess. When I go. Which I probably should.
Dante is another story. The man likes to act like he’s a godhimself, if he just walks off the bullet wounds, then he’ll be fine. I’ve had to resort to bribery to keep him from overdoing himself which usually results in lazy blow jobs and dirty talk. By the time we’re both healed enough to return to daily life, two weeks have passed by.
And I haven’t slept in my own bed in just that long.
I don’t know if I can sleep away from Dante anymore.
Don’t know if I can go back tonormallife.
But it also doesn’t help that I’m not allowed to go anywhere alone anymore.
I’m getting dressed for school in Dante’s walk-in closet when Dante swaggers in, sweatpants low on his hips, bandages still covering the almost healed wounds on his side and thigh. It’s kind of sexy in a devil-may-care sort of way. But I’m afraid that everything about Dante is sexy to me. Even when he snores after a long day.
“I got you something,” Dante says with a sly little smile.
“I told you, I’m not wearing a collar.”
Dante stares blankly back at me. “We never discussed that.”
Sigh. “What is it?”
I shove my feet into my boots, staring down at the floor as I do so, but glance up when Dante stays quiet. In the palm of his hand is a very obvious red velvet box. My heart thumps heavily in my chest, vision going a little blurry. But Dante’s grin is warm as usual, even just a little mean, no doubt enjoying my terrified reaction to the box.
“Calm down,” Dante teases. He opens the box to reveal a sleek black ring. Grabbing my hand, he slides the ring onto my middle finger, and that’s when I notice light-blue-looking gemstones blinking up at me. “It’s a tracker. In case you lose your phone.”
I squint my eyes at him. “What about you? If you get to track me, then?—”
“Already done,” Dante interrupts me, lifting up his hand to show a matching ring on his own middle finger. “Quid pro quo.”
“Oh, you feel fancy now that you know that saying but I was using it in the context of sex, which was a little more fun.”
“Being able to track my every movement isn’t fun?”
I flush a little because yes it is, but well… “The hunt was fun too.”
Dante’s grin warms me to the core, and my insides squirm when he leans down a little to be close to my face. “We can still play cat and mouse sometimes, pretend like we can’t track each other.”
“Okay,” I whisper excitedly.
Dante looks pleased just before dipping down to kiss me soft and slow. Tangling my fingers in his shirt, I tug him closer, careful of his still healing wounds. We haven’t fucked for ages and I miss it, but an hour before class isn’t the time. Dante’s hands drift down to my ass, squeeze hard, then go to lift in the telltale sign of him wanting to pick me up.
I slap his chest and pull away from his mouth. “Nope. You’re not going to open those stitches up because you want to fuck me against the wall. Save it.”
Dante groans in obvious annoyance, but doesn’t argue. He goes back to lie on the bed, leaned back on his elbows, eyes heavy as he watches me finish getting dressed. I stop by the bed, fitting myself between his splayed thighs, and lean down to kiss him with my eyes open. He lifts his hand to curl his fingers around my ear, quickly angling my head so that he can lick into my mouth at exactly the angle he wants.
When I pull away to straighten my clothes and jacket, Dante squints his eyes at me critically.
“Are you going to dye your hair soon?” Dante asks.
I smile down at him. “Maybe I’ll do something different.”
Dante thumps back down on the bed. “Sexy no matter what.”
“I know.”
When I walk into the kitchen, Hayden is at the table with his laptop while Jacob cooks breakfast. I slide into the chair across from Hayden with a soft clearing of my throat. A moment later, a plate of food appears before me like I’ve summoned it through magic. I blink my eyes coyly up at Jacob and he flicks my cheek with his finger, making me scowl at his back as he fixes Hayden a plate.
Hayden spins his computer around and shoves it toward me. “Help me with this line of code, please.”
