My fingers twitch and my skin itches as I pull the covers up over my shoulders and focus on the TV. It’s a little after ten, but I am not going downstairs to the kitchen. I am not playing into Dante’s hands. So what if he told me he wants to fuck me. It would probably be incredible given how skilled those fingers of his are, but unlike him, I’m not driven by my baser desires. I’ve gone over two years without sex. I don’t need it. I certainly don’t need it with a man I can barely stand. My kidnapper at that.
So why am I still thinking about whether he is downstairs wondering if I’m going to show? I groan out loud and pick up the TV remote before flicking through the channels until I find a romantic comedy. I settle back against the pillows and smile. This is the only kind of romance I need in my life, right?
The movie is almost over when there is a loud knocking at my bedroom door. My heart rate kicks up a few gears, and I instinctively pull the covers up to my neck. But it’s not Dante.
“Kat?” Maximo shouts. “Are you awake? We need your help. Someone has been shot.”
Throwing the covers back, I jump out of bed. “I’ll be right there,” I say as I rummage through my dresser drawer and pull out a pair of sweatpants. Tugging them on as fast as I can, I run to the door and open it to see Maximo waiting for me.
“Is it Dante? Is he okay?” I ask.
“Dante’s fine. He’s on his way back now,” he says as he starts to head down the hallway with me on his heels. “But Mitch took a bullet to the shoulder. Doesn’t look like it hit anything important, but the bullet didn’t pass right through. I’d dig it out myself, but you’d do a better job.”
“You’ve done that before?” I ask with a grimace, imagining Maximo literally digging around in someone’s bullet hole cavity with his giant hands.
“Plenty,” he says with a shrug. “The doc’s not always available and we have to act quickly. And now that he’s dead, we have you instead.”
“The doctor whose things are in the room downstairs? He’s dead?” I gasp.
“Relax, it was a heart attack. And it’s not really his stuff. Dante bought it for him, so that we wouldn’t have to take our guys to the hospital, but yeah, it was supposed to be his room. I guess it’s yours now,” he says, turning his head and smiling at me.
“I guess it is.”
In the room, Mitch is sitting up on the hospital bed, clutching his shoulder. Blood oozes through his fingers and trickles down his bare chest. I notice his shirt hanging from his arm because someone has already cut it from him. He’s grimacing at the pain, but he is stoic and he doesn’t make a sound when Maximo and I enter the room.
“Hey, Mitch, how are you doing?” I ask as I pull on a pair of latex gloves and remove his fingers from his wound so I can examine him.
“Like I got run over by a truck, doc,” he grits out the words.
“I’m a nurse, not a doctor,” I tell him. “But I can take care of this for you, I promise.”
“I gave him some whiskey for the pain, doc,” a voice says from behind me. I notice there’s another man with a bloodstained shirt in the corner of the room. “Sorry, nurse,” he quickly corrects himself.
“Here you go, doc,” Maximo says with a grin as he hands me a pair of metal forceps.
I open my mouth to remind him that I’m not a doctor, but he says, “Nurse just doesn’t have the same ring to it. It’s like a term of affection rather than a title.”
“Or we could call you Nurse Ratched.” Mitch laughs and then groans with the pain of his effort, his face turning purple.
“How about you just stay still and let me find this bullet, huh?” I say to him.
“Whatever you say, doc.”
“Can you get me some morphine for the pain, Maximo?” I ask my new assistant.
“No. Don’t want none,” Mitch insists. “Just get it out and stitch me up.”
“But it would be easier for you if I just give you a quick shot.”
“I fucking hate needles.”
I roll my eyes. “Let me know if you change your mind, okay?”
“Okay,” he grunts.
“Are you hurt?” I look at the guy in the corner with the crimson stains all over his shirt.
“No, doc. It’s all Mitch’s blood.”
“And I want it all back too, Bud. Every last drop,” Mitch hisses as I slide the forceps into the hole in his shoulder.
“You’re a mean old bastard.” Bud laughs loudly, and even Maximo chuckles beside me. Then both of them go on teasing Mitch good-naturedly while I remove the bullet from his shoulder. Working keeps me focused, so that I’m almost too busy to worry about where Dante is and why one of his men was shot tonight.
I’m just finishing patching Mitch up while he’s drinking a glass of whiskey by the time Dante returns. He walks into the room wearing just his suit pants and one of his crisp white shirts, except that it’s no longer white but a deep crimson color. He also has a small cut above his eye.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, my voice a little higher than normal as my heart starts to race a little faster.
“I’m fine, kitten,” he says with a smug smile. “None of it belongs to me. I do need something for this though,” he says, pointing to his eye as he blinks away a trickle of blood.
“There’s some alcohol in the cabinet and some plaster strips. I can take a look at it if you give me a few minutes.”
“I can take care of it,” he says dismissively as he goes to the cabinet.
He dabs his eye with some alcohol-soaked cotton wool without as much as a flicker of discomfort. Then he disappears out of the room again without another word. By the time he returns, Maximo and Bud are helping a fully sewn up and pretty wasted Mitch out of the room.
“I’ll take these guys home,” Maximo says to Dante, who nods his appreciation.
And then there is just the two of us in the room. Dante has stripped off his blood soaked clothes and stands a few feet away from me in just his tight black boxer shorts. My eyes are drawn like a magnet to the outline of his cock.
“You enjoying yourself, kitten?” he asks with a dark chuckle, making my cheeks flame with heat.
I avert my gaze a little too quickly, making it even more obvious that I was just staring at him.
“You don’t need to be embarrassed. If you were standing here in only your underwear, I’d be staring at you too.”
“I wasn’t… I’m sorry,” I say with a shake of my head. I need out of here.
He crosses the room and stands right in front of me. A solid wall of muscle, ink, and sex. It’s as though he has some kind of magnetic field around him. His presence is inescapable. Once I’m in his orbit, I can’t seem to think straight. I act like somebody I don’t even recognize. My pussy develops a mind of her own. He is so full of potent, raw sexuality and masculinity. Everything about him screams run away, but my body is drawn to him anyway.
“Who am I kidding,” he says, his voice low and deep, as he bends his head and brings his mouth closer to my ear. “I stare at you no matter what you’re wearing.”
Oh, dear God! “Stop,” I whisper.
We can’t do this. I cannot let this man get a hold on me, because I know he was right last night. We would be so good together. For whatever reason, we have insane chemistry, and I can’t let him take this any further. I can’t allow myself to have any feelings for him. The moment he tires of me, he’ll toss me away like trash. I am dispensable. And the sooner I let him fuck me, the sooner I’ll become useless to him.
“I can’t stop, Kat,” he says, his voice dropping another octave. He places a hand on my hip, and my skin blooms with heat. “Believe me, I’ve tried. I need to fuck you more than I have ever needed anything in my life.”
“We can’t,” I protest, but my voice is so quiet it’s barely audible.
“We can.” His other hand is on my other hip now, and he pulls me closer to him until our bodies are almost touching.
“Look at me,” he commands.
And I do it. Just like that, because he told me to. Because my body obeys him and I don’t even know when that started to happen.
I blink as I stare up at him. His pupils are so wide, they make his brown eyes appear black. They are full of longing and fire and need. “It wouldn’t work. It would be a huge mistake,” I offer feebly.
He shakes his head. “No, it wouldn’t, and you know it. Let me take you to my bed and I’ll show you exactly how much of a mistake it wouldn’t be.”
I open my mouth but no words come out. All I can focus on are his strong fingers flexing on my hips. How good they felt two nights ago when he touched me. How much I wanted him to carry on before he stopped.
My core contracts, flooding my pussy with heat and making me suck in a stuttered breath.
Dante narrows his eyes at me. “Okay, kitten. I’ll make you a deal.”
“What deal?” I breathe out the words.
“Look at the clock on the wall behind me, and if I can’t make you come in two minutes, then you can go to your own bed and I’ll go to mine. But if I do make you come, then you spend the night with me. What do you say?”
I lick my lips, staring at him. I’m already wet. But under two minutes? There’s no way he could pull that off. I’ve never had anyone make me come that easily. Not even guys I was really into. And I don’t even like Dante, so I can hold out, right?
Besides, every cell in my body is vibrating with sexual energy. I want his hands on me. I want his fingers inside me. Just this once. Just to relieve this constant aching need in my pussy. Just once.
“Okay, but when you don’t get the job done in two minutes, you don’t get to leave me hanging,” I say with a tilt of my head.
He smirks, full of confidence and arrogance. “I’ll make you come no matter how long it takes. I promise.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
What the hell are you doing, Kat?
“Eyes on the clock, kitten,” he orders. “I trust you’ll be honest about the time.”
“Of course,” I insist, my eyes now trained on the clock behind him, watching the second hand tick around.
“Then start timing me,” he growls.
It takes him exactly two seconds to get his hand inside my panties. I place my hands on the counter on either side of me to keep myself steady as he slides his fingers through my folds.
“So wet already,” he says with a wicked grin.
“You have one minute and fifty seconds,” I tell him as the clock goes on ticking.
“Plenty of time,” he growls as he starts to rub the pads of his middle and pointer fingers over and around my swollen clit with the perfect amount of pressure.
Pleasure skitters around my body.
He presses his lips against my ear. “Oh, you like that, don’t you, kitten?”
“Yes,” I breathe, my knuckles turning white as my grip on the counter gets firmer. He’s still not going to do this in under two minutes though.
But then he starts kissing my neck. Trailing his lips and teeth over my sensitive skin as he dips his hand further into my panties, pulling them down as he works his entire hand between my thighs and forces me to spread my legs wider apart.
One minute, thirty-two seconds left.
“You like this more though, right?” he whispers as he slides a finger inside me.
Fuck yes, I do!
He eases it in and out of me, and I bite my lip to stop from screaming his name and begging him for more. I’m not giving him any pointers.
One minute, nine seconds.
Clearly though, he doesn’t need any help. A few seconds later, he adds a second finger and my pussy coats him with slick heat as she practically purrs his name.
“Fuck, Kat, you’re so tight,” he growls. “How long has it been?”
“A long time,” I whimper.
“Yeah?” he growls as he drives deeper until he hits my G-spot and starts to massage it with his skilled fingers.
Holy mother of fucking God. Fifty-two seconds.
“Yes,” I moan as I wrap my arms around his neck and cling to him while he finger fucks me like he has the cheat codes to my pussy. Like he just unlocked expert level and completely bypassed all the others.
His lips dust over the shell of my ear. “Your cunt loves my fingers. Wait until she feels my cock.”
“Dante,” I groan as the familiar wave of an impending orgasm start rolling through my core. My thighs are trembling.
“Keep your eyes on the clock,” he pants as I bury my face against him.
“Yeah, clock,” I gasp as my head goes on spinning and my body starts to vibrate with its impending release. I look over his shoulder.
Thirty-one seconds. He’s not going to do it.
He drives his fingers harder and deeper while he starts grinding the heel of his palm against my sensitive clit.
Twenty-two seconds.
“So wet. You hear that?” he growls.
And I do. I hear the sound of my arousal dripping over his fingers as he works them in and out of me.
Damn, he’s going to do it. Fifteen seconds.
“You’re going to come like my good little kitten so I can bury my cock inside you, too, aren’t you?”
“Dante,” I cry out his name as my orgasm crashes into my body. He wraps one strong arm around my waist, holding me tight while he continues gently massaging my pussy as my body bucks and shudders.
My eyes roll in my head as I struggle to focus on his face. He’s staring at me. His eyes blaze with fire. But then he lets me go and walks to the other side of the room. The loss of heat makes me shiver in the cool room as I come down from the most intense orgasm I think I’ve ever had in my life. He opens a cupboard and pulls out something before walking back to me. It’s only when he’s standing right in front of me again that I see what he’s holding.
A condom.
“Take off your pants,” he orders in his signature low growl before he tears into the packet with his teeth.
“I thought we were going upstairs?” I whisper, surprised by how much the thought of him taking me to bed and continuing what he’s just started makes my entire body buzz with an excitement that I haven’t experienced in years.
He’s looking down, rolling the condom onto his cock. I mean, I knew it was big because I’ve seen it beneath his clothes. I’ve felt it pressed against me. However, up close and quite literally in the flesh, I’m not sure how he’s going to fit inside me. He looks up at me again to answer my question, his dark eyes locking on mine. “Oh, we are, kitten, but I need to fuck you right now, so take off the goddamn pants.”
I swallow a thick knot of anxiety that feels lodged in my throat, but I start to slide my sweatpants and panties down my thighs. What if somebody comes in here?
“Nobody will come in without knocking,” he says, because he seems to be able to read my freaking mind.
Before I can take my clothes all the way off, he crouches and does it for me, tossing my sweats and panties onto the floor behind him.
“Turn around,” he orders as he stands again.
My blood turns to ice in my veins.
“Now,” he commands, but I can’t move.
“Why?” I whisper.
He frowns at me. “Because it will be a better angle to fuck you at down here. Now turn around.”
“I don’t l-like it from b-behind,” I stammer, and damn, now the whole moment is ruined.
He’s going to ask why, or he’s just going to assume that I’m a prude or some kind of inhibited freak. But instead, he wraps me in his giant, tattooed arms and lifts me onto the counter.
“Then this will work just fine,” he groans as he positions himself between my thighs.
He mumbles something in Italian as he presses his huge cock against my opening. My thighs are trembling. My pussy is quivering. Because of our height difference, we are eye to eye for a change. He seems different like this. Looking straight at him rather than up.
“How long has it been, Kat? Really?”
“T-two years,” I mumble, feeling like an idiot. Why does he even need to know that? Does that make me less attractive to him somehow? Or more?
“I’ll take this first one easy, okay?” he whispers, and the softness in his voice makes me almost burst into tears.
He doesn’t wait for an answer before he edges the tip of his length inside me, stretching me wide. It burns, but it feels so damn good too.
I wrap my arms and legs around him, burying my face against his neck as he eases in deeper.
“You’re so fucking tight,” he hisses through clenched teeth. Then he takes hold of my legs and unwraps them from around his waist. “I need you to let me in, kitten,” he groans, full of frustration and impatience. He hooks his forearms under my knees, pulling my hips toward him and spreading my thighs wide open. I suppose all that Pilates paid off after all.
My heart starts beating wildly as he looks at me. So exposed and open and vulnerable. “Your cunt looks so good being stretched by my cock,” he groans, and I reward him with a moan as my pussy squeezes around him.
“Just keep holding on to me,” he growls as he slides a little deeper, and wet heat floods my pussy.
I cling to his neck, dragging my lips over his skin as his muscles vibrate with the effort of holding himself back. I can feel the raw power in every muscle of his body, and the fact that he’s trying to be gentle makes my heart ache. This is torture. The slow burning stretch of being filled by him is turning my brain to liquid, not to mention every other organ in my body.
It hurts, but it’s not enough. I need all of him. Suddenly, I’m overcome by a desperate need to be filled by him. A burning desire to have him deep inside me, until there is no space left between us. My pussy throbs with a deep, carnal longing for his cock.
Dusting my lips over the skin of his neck, I smile as it elicits a deep growl in his throat. “I want more,” I whisper.
“More?”
“For the love of God, Dante. Just fuck me,” I plead, surprised at my own words because I have never, ever, begged to be fucked before. And certainly not by a man as dangerous and hateful as this one.
He curses in Italian as he drives all the way inside me. I press my mouth against his skin, muffling my cries of pleasure tinged with pain as he fills me. I try to squeeze my thighs, but he holds me open as he slides out before driving back inside. Warmth floods my hot channel. Each time he pulls out and thrusts back in, my pussy rewards him with more slick heat.
“Oh fuck,” I whimper in his ear as he groans in mine.
“You feel so fucking good. This cunt… I knew it would…” He thrusts harder, and I almost pass out as the crown of his cock rubs against something inside me that makes me scream in pleasure whilst also wanting to declare my undying devotion to him. How can a devil like him fuck like a God?
As the last tremors of my second orgasm pulse through me, Dante whispers in Italian as he grinds out his own release. When he pulls out of me a few seconds later, the wet sound that echoes around the small room makes my cheeks burn with heat. He was wearing a condom, so that was all me.
He pulls the condom off and tosses it into the trashcan. I lean against the counter with my legs wobbling like Jell-O and wondering what happens now. This is an unfamiliar territory for me.
But then he grabs hold of my hand and pulls me with him as he starts walking out of the door.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
“Bed, kitten,” he says with a wink. “I am nowhere near done with you.”
Despite what we just did downstairs, I feel nervous and kind of awkward as I stand in Dante’s bedroom, next to his king-sized bed with pristine white cotton sheets.
He stalks toward me, and it makes a shiver run the length of my spine. I am so out of my depth here I just might drown.
He runs his fingertips over my cheek. “Why are you so nervous, Kat?” he asks in a deep, commanding tone that makes goosebumps prickle out all over my body.
“This isn’t… I don’t usually do this kind of thing,” I say, my voice little more than a whisper.
“Have sex?” he asks with a flicker of amusement.
“With strangers who I don’t even like, yes,” I snap. If he’s trying to intimidate me, then he can go to hell.
“There’s my feisty little kitten.” He slides his hands over my hips and onto my ass, pulling me close to him so that I can feel his hard cock pressing against my stomach. “But you have nothing to be nervous about. You already know how hard you make me and how much I want to fuck you.”
He reaches for the edge of my t-shirt and starts to peel it off me, and I lift my arms to help him. And now I’m standing in front of him completely naked. His hands coast over my back, running over every inch of skin, including the hideous scar just above my ass. I shudder when his fingers brush it, and he doesn’t touch it again.
“You’re beautiful, Kat,” he murmurs as he trails soft kisses over my neck. “I want to see every part of you. I want to taste you.”
He pushes me back against the bed until I’m lying on it. His strong hands slide up my thighs as he spreads them wide open until I’m completely exposed to him. The look in his eyes makes my thighs tremble, and before I can stop him, his head is between my thighs and his mouth is on my clit.
“You don’t have to do that,” I whisper, tugging at his hair.
He looks up at me with a look of bewilderment on his face.
“I’m ready, is all I meant,” I say with a swallow. God, I’m such an idiot.
“Yeah, I can see that, but I’m not eating your cunt to make you ready, kitten.”
“Then why?”
His brow furrows into a frown. “Hasn’t a guy ever eaten your pussy just for the sheer fucking enjoyment?”
“Well, yeah, I suppose. And I have enjoyed it.”
“I meant his own, Kat. Although yours is important, obviously, but fuck.”
“I’m sorry. I feel like I keep ruining these moments. Maybe I should just go back to my own room?”
He pushes himself up to his forearms. “My face is inches from your pussy. You smell fucking delicious, and I swear if I don’t eat you right now, I might implode. So unless you have any legitimate objections, I’m just going to go back to doing what I was doing.”
I smile at him in spite of the weirdness of this situation. “I have no objections.”
“Thank fuck,” he growls before he dips his head, pressing the flat of his tongue against me. He licks the length of my wet slit and damn near makes my eyes roll back in my head.
“Fucking heaven,” he murmurs before he sucks my clit into his hot mouth and swirls his tongue over the sensitive bud of flesh.
“Holy fuck,” I hiss as my toes curl and my thighs tremble.
He is so good at that. How much practice has he had?
Suddenly, I don’t care. Heat and pleasure builds in my core and rolls through my thighs while he feasts on my pussy with more skill than any man should have all to himself.
When he slips two fingers into me and starts to fuck me while he eats, I enter a whole new realm of pleasure. In fact, I think I might just have drifted onto another plane of existence. And when I look at his face, he catches my eye and winks, and I almost pass out. He didn’t lie about enjoying this, he’s getting as much out of it as I am.
I press my head back against the pillow, silencing my constant internal chatter and focusing on his magical fingers and tongue and the pleasure they are currently wringing from my body. And when I come with a breathy cry of his name, he doesn’t stop. Not even when I pull his hair and tell him I’ve had enough.
“I haven’t,” he growls, wrapping his arms around the backs of my thighs to hold me close to his face as I squirm. “Give me one more and then I can fuck you as hard as I want to.”
A wave of pleasure rolls over me, knocking the breath from my lungs and rendering me speechless. And only when he has wrung another mind-altering orgasm from my body does he stop. Pushing himself up and rolling on a condom, he plows into me, burying his face in my neck as he nails me to his mattress. And all I can do is cling on, with my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck as he fucks me better than I had ever even dreamed was possible.
Dante and I lie in bed, facing each other, which feels strangely personal even after what we’ve just done.
“Why don’t you like it from behind? Does it hurt?” he asks.
Yes, but not in the way you think. “It’s not that.” I try to swallow but my throat is dry. “It’s… I have some bad memories.”
I wonder if he’s going to say something cruel or unkind.
“Is it anything do with the scar on your back?”
Oh God. He saw my ugly, ugly scar. “Yes.”
“It’s a strange scar.”
“I know. It was a word,” I say, forcing down the emotion that lodges in my throat.
His eyes narrow, and I feel under way too much scrutiny. “Somebody carved a word into your skin?”
“Yes, and then I tried to carve the word out so nobody could ever read it.”
“Is that also to do with the reason you have nightmares?”
I blink at him as my cheeks turn pink with shame. “You know about my nightmares?”
“It’s kind of hard not to hear you screaming in your sleep almost every night, Kat.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I whisper.
“Don’t be.”
I take a deep breath. This might be the strangest conversation I’ve ever had in my life. Maybe that’s what makes it easier? Neither of us have any investment in making the other feel better about anything.
“Yes, it’s why I have nightmares too,” I whisper.
“But before that. Were you okay with being taken from behind?”
“Yes. It was my favorite,” I admit. “But now. I mean, I haven’t been with anyone since, but the idea of someone behind me, holding me down…” I shudder again.
“So you have two lives, right? One before and one after whatever it was that happened to you,” he says, and I’m taken aback by his insightfulness.
“Yes, exactly like that. There’s before the attack, and after.”
“Hmm,” he mumbles absentmindedly as his fingers trace over the skin of my back. He avoids my scar, and I wonder if he’s doing that on purpose, and if so, is it because he’s being kind or because he’s repulsed by it. Not that he seems repulsed by my body at all. In fact his impressive erection suggests the exact opposite.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask him, a little scared of the answer.
“I’m not going to lie, Kat. Your ass is a thing of beauty and I want to see it bouncing when I’m nailing you. I spend way too much time thinking about bending you over every piece of furniture I own and fucking you until you scream. So, are you open to working on the issue with me?”
He wants to work on this? Like we’re a couple or something? Is he for real? The man who kidnapped me wants to help me work through my issues. But despite those thoughts, the words that come out of my mouth are, “I’ll think about it, sure.”
His response is a half groan, half growl, that makes goosebumps prickle over my forearms. Who am I kidding? A few more orgasms like the ones he’s given me tonight and I’m going to let Dante Moretti bend me over whatever the hell he likes.
