The second orgasm builds impossibly fast, stacking on top of the first. I'm sobbing now, tears streaming down my face from the intensity.
"That's my girl." His rhythm turns brutal. "Come for me. Now."
I break apart completely. The scream that tears from my throat doesn't sound human. My vision whites out, my body seizing around him as pleasure obliterates everything else.
Dante groans, his hips stuttering. He buries himself deep and follows me over the edge, my name falling from his lips like a prayer.
The vibrator finally stops. Dante must have turned it off. I can't feel my legs. Can't feel anything except the aftershocks still rippling through me.
He collapses beside me, pulling me against his chest. His heart pounds against my ear, matching the frantic rhythm of my own.
"Christ." His voice is hoarse. "You're going to kill me."
I laugh weakly. "Says the man who just?—"
"Made you scream loud enough for the entire building to hear?" He presses a kiss to my hair. "Worth it."
Dante
The car idles at the curb. Engine running. Heat blasting. Neither of us moves.
Marina's childhood home sits twenty feet away. White siding. Blue shutters. A porch swing that probably creaks in the summer breeze. Christmas lights still hang from the gutters even though it's February. The kind of house that belongs on a greeting card.
The kind of house where men like me don't belong.
"We should go in." Marina's voice cuts through my thoughts.
I don't move. My hands stay locked on the steering wheel, knuckles white.
"Dante."
"Give me a minute."
She laughs. Actually laughs. "Are you nervous?"
"No."
"Liar."
I turn to look at her. She's wearing a soft blue sweater that matches her eyes. Hair down. Lip gloss that I want to kiss off. She looks like she belongs here, in this quiet Ohio neighborhood with its manicured lawns and American flags.
I look like I belong in a police lineup.
"They won't like me."
Marina's eyebrows rise. "You don't know that."
"I do know that." I release the steering wheel and flex my fingers. "They didn't like me when I was at the hospital. Your father looked at me like I was something he scraped off his shoe."
"You were covered in blood and hadn't slept in three days."
"I was sitting at his daughter's bedside. Most fathers would appreciate that."
"Most fathers don't have strange men appearing out of nowhere to watch over their unconscious daughters." She reaches over and takes my hand. "You scared them. You scared me too, if we're being honest."
I remember those days. The beeping machines. Marina pale and still in that hospital bed while I sat in the corner like a gargoyle, refusing to leave. Her parents had arrived on the second day. Her mother cried. Her father demanded to know who I was.
I told them I was nobody.
