When I woke up this morning, Dante was gone. He carried me back to his bed after he fucked me in the guestroom and then he made me come so many times I lost count. But despite everything that we did last night and the way he whispered softly in my ear, he’s gone again, and I feel his absence even more keenly than before. I couldn’t understand his Italian murmurings, but I felt the meaning behind them anyway. We were back to a good place.
Maybe I’m just fooling myself and clinging on to something that was never really there. Perhaps Dante Moretti is incapable of feeling anything for anyone but himself, because each time I get a little close to him, he seems to drift even further away. But I’m no longer going to stand by and be a spectator in my own life. I want answers from him, and I’m determined to get them.
I shower and change and head straight to Dante’s study. I can’t keep living in this house as a prisoner, waiting for whatever crumbs of affection he decides to throw me.
The armed guard is standing at the door as usual.
“He’s not to be disturbed,” he says before I even ask if he’s in there.
“Well, can you tell him this is an emergency and I need to speak with him urgently?”
“He’s not to be disturbed,” he repeats.
“Well, I’m not moving until you at least knock on that damn door and tell him I need to speak with him right now.” I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him.
He rolls his eyes in annoyance before knocking on the door and poking his head inside the room. “It’s Miss Evanson, boss,” he says.
“I’m busy.”
“She says it’s an emergency.”
There’s a few seconds pause before he speaks again. “Show her in,” Dante says, and the giant guard steps aside and allows me into the room before closing the door behind me and leaving us in privacy.
“What is it, Kat?” Dante asks with a sigh, running his hand through his hair.
I sit on the chair opposite his desk, clasping my hands in my lap to stop myself from fidgeting. “I need to talk to you.”
“Can’t it wait? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“No, it can’t, Dante. I’ve been waiting for two weeks to talk about this and you avoid me constantly.”
“I have a lot going on.”
“I know, but you’ve practically ignored me since we left the hospital.”
He narrows his eyes as they search my face. “So talk.”
I swallow as I try to think of what I need to say and the best way to say it. “What are we doing here, Dante?”
He frowns, but he doesn’t reply.
“Do you even really want me here with you? Do you want a baby?”
“You know I want you here, Kat,” he snaps.
“I know that you don’t want me to leave, but that’s not the same thing, is it?”
He shakes his head in frustration. “It kind of seems like it is.”
“But it’s not,” I insist. “You won’t let me leave, but you ignore me ninety percent of the time. When we started, this was just about the sex, but I’m having your baby. I know we didn’t plan it that way and I know you wouldn’t have chosen this, but it’s happening and you can’t go on pretending that I don’t exist.”
“When do I ever pretend that you don’t exist?” he snaps.
“When you sleep beside me every night but never speak to me. When you spend all of your time locked away in your study.”
“I was giving you some space.”
“I don’t want space. I want you,” I choke out the words. But hearing them aloud feels alien to me. How can I want this man who I so desperately want to hate. The man who turned my entire life upside down?
“You kiss away my nightmares and you fuck me like our bodies have known each other forever, but you refuse to give me any assurance about my future and what it might hold. You have never even once apologized for taking me from the only life I had and keeping me here like some pet for you to stroke and fuss over whenever the need strikes you. And despite all that, I still want you. I crave your affection, Dante, even though I know I’m a fool for doing it. So, if you don’t want me too, then please just tell me and let me go.”
He blinks at me, his eyes so dark I can barely see his pupils. Then his damn phone rings, snatching his attention. “I really need to take this,” he says.
“Of course you do,” I say with a heavy sigh before I stand up and walk out of the room. There are tears in my eyes, but I blink them away because I refuse to waste any more over that asshole.
Stepping out of the shower, I dry myself off with a soft towel before slipping into my new cotton pajamas. Joey helped me pick some out online and they were delivered this morning. I didn’t particularly feel comfortable spending Dante’s money, but what choice do I have if he insists on keeping me here and I have nothing to wear.
When I walk into the bedroom, I blink in surprise to see him standing beside the bed, shirtless and with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his suit pants.
“What are you doing up here so early?” I ask as I cross the room, averting my eyes from his toned body, because it makes me drop at least one hundred IQ points.
“You wanted to talk, right?”
“I think I said everything I had to say earlier,” I say coolly as I waft past him, but he grabs my wrist, stopping me in my tracks.
“So, maybe you can just listen?” he says in that low, growling tone that drips with both menace and sex appeal. I shiver at his touch as he yanks me close to him. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize for bringing you here that day, Kat, it is never going to happen.”
I should have known a man like him wouldn’t know the meaning of the word sorry.
“Because I don’t regret any of it. And I would do it again a million times over.”
“You would?” I whisper as heat blooms beneath my skin.
His brow furrows as his eyes burn into mine. “Yes. So I am never going to be sorry for taking you.”
“Well, at least I know that now,” I say, trying to sound calm and collected while my pulse is racing.
“But I am sorry for the way I’ve treated you, kitten,” he whispers as he brushes a damp strand of hair back from my face. “You deserve better. I will be better.”
I blink at him, floored by his admission and his honesty, but he’s not getting off that easily. “I do,” I agree. “So much better.”
“I want to do this with you, Kat. I want you here with me and not because my ego would be dented if you left, but because my life is better with you in it.”
“What about my future though, Dante? What does it look like for me? Forever your mistress, unable to leave this house?”
The fingers circling my wrist flex as he tightens his grip. “Not my mistress. You’ll be my wife.”
“Your wife?” I laugh out loud because this has to be some kind of practical joke.
“My wife,” he repeats, enunciating each word clearly.
“I’m not marrying you.”
“And I’m not having my child born anything but a Moretti in every sense of the word.”
“Jesus Christ.” I try to wrench my arm from his grip, but he refuses to let me. “You’re aware we’re no longer in living in the ’50’s, right?” I snap.
“This is non-negotiable, Kat. My family is built on tradition and legacy and I will not allow there to be any doubts about the first child born of the next generation. You will be my wife by the time our baby is born.”
I stare at him, open-mouthed. He’s serious. Dante Moretti intends to make me his wife — with or without my consent.
“You asked me for some answers about your future, so why do you still find a way to resist me?”
“Because this is being done to me, like I have no choice in the matter, Dante. I have no control at all.”
He sighs and releases my wrist, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. “You’re carrying my child, Kat. When you got pregnant, it changed our lives and there is no escaping that now.”
I know he has a point. Dante isn’t a guy you can have a kid with and expect to have a happy, separate co-parenting deal going on. Family is everything to him and there is no way he would allow his child to live anywhere but in the protection of his mansion. And I know that is the safest place for the son or daughter of the head of the Cosa Nostra, but it still stings that my fate is sealed.
“And what about everything else? As your wife, do I remain a prisoner here? Never able to leave?”
“No, as my wife, you will be the mistress of this house. You will be able to come and go as you please —”
“I will?” I interrupt him, suddenly elated at the prospect of some freedom.
“Within reason, Kat,” he says, his voice stern and commanding. “I will still need to know where you’re going and you will always have security with you.”
I frown at him and he narrows his eyes before he adds, “For your safety and not because I think you’ll run.”
“How can you be so sure I won’t run?” I whisper, unable to resist the challenge.
He takes a step forward until his body is pressed against mine. “Because you would never leave our child. And if you ever tried to leave with our kid, you know that I would scorch this earth to ash to bring you both back to me.”
Heat blooms beneath my skin. His possessiveness is a red flag for me, at least it should be, so why does it make me feel so powerful and protected? Why does the thought of belonging to this man make me feel safer than I ever have in my life? Not to mention the fire in his eyes when he says things like that makes me want to wrap my legs around his waist. “Is this your idea of a proposal?” I ask instead.
“Kind of,” he says with a wicked grin.
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth as I stare into his dark eyes.
He runs one hand down my side until he reaches the hem of my top. “What the hell are these, kitten?”
I look down at my new nightwear. “Pajamas?”
He arches an eyebrow. “Where did you get them from?”
“Um, that boutique you have a line of credit for. Joey helped me. I was going to ask you if I could buy them, but you were busy, and I needed —”
“I don’t care that you spent any money, Kat,” he growls, caressing my cheek. “You can spend whatever you need. I’ve been meaning to tell you to buy some new clothes, but I do care that you bought this monstrosity.”
I look at the inoffensive clothing. They are soft, brushed white cotton with a faint love heart pattern. Hardly a monstrosity.
“They cover far too much of your beautiful body and I never want to see them again.”
Oh. They do kind of cover everything except my hands, feet and head. “Well, they’re also for sitting in the den, watching TV, or going for breakfast in the mornings,” I say with a shrug. “And I kind of like them.”
He fingers the hem as his eyes trail over my body. “I suppose they may have some use then, but they’re not for my bed.” He starts to pull the top off over my head.
“I was going to watch some TV with Joey,” I offer a feeble protest even as I lift my arms in compliance.
“Max and Joey are watching a movie. She won’t mind.”
“I’m so easily replaceable,” I say with an exaggerated sigh.
He tugs my top off and throws it onto the bed before pressing his lips close to my ear. “Not to me, kitten.”
His warm hands skate down my back until they dip beneath the waistband of my pants. When his fingers brush my bare ass, he lifts his head and arches an eyebrow at me. “No panties?”
“I don’t need them with pajamas,” I murmur as heat flashes over my cheeks.
A low growl rumbles in his throat as he peppers kisses over my neck while he pushes my pants over my hips. “My naughty little kitten.”
When the soft cotton lies in a pool at my feet, Dante lifts me, wrapping my legs around his waist and carrying me to the dresser before sitting me on it.
He slips a hand between my thighs, dragging a finger through my folds and making me moan softly. “Always so wet for me,” he hisses through clenched teeth.
I run my palm over his hard cock as it strains against the zipper of his suit pants. “Always so hard for me.”
“Hmm. Always,” he growls, his lips gliding over my skin before he reaches my breasts and sucks a nipple into his hot mouth, flicking the stiff peak with his tongue as he pushes two fingers inside my pussy.
“Jesus, Dante,” I breathe as wet heat surges between my thighs. I fumble with his belt and zipper, opening them until I can reach inside and take hold of his stiff cock. Wrapping my fingers around his thick shaft, I squeeze, and he curses, curling his fingers inside me and making my thighs tremble. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I tilt my hips until his hard length is pressed against my pussy.
He grips my hair at the root, tugging my head back until my throat is completely exposed to him. My back bows as he drags his teeth over my sensitive skin, edging the tip of his thick cock inside me until I’m whimpering with shameless need.
With one arm around my waist, he holds me in place, tantalizingly close to him but still too far away.
“Dante, please,” I groan as I try to shift my hips and make him slip further inside me.
“Tell me you want to marry me, Kat. Say it and I’ll give you my cock.”
“Stop being an asshole.”
“Tell me.” He edges in a little further, and my walls squeeze him before he pulls out again.
I claw at his back. My pussy throbs and my core contracts with the need to be filled by him. “I thought I had no choice in the matter,” I remind him.
“You don’t, kitten, but I want to hear you say it anyway. Just a few words and I’ll fill your tight little pussy up.”
“No,” I bite out the word. “Just fuck me. Please.”
He skims his nose over my throat, inhaling deeply. “You have no idea how badly I want to sink inside you, Kat, but I won’t do it until you tell me what I want to hear.”
I wrap my legs around him, sinking my heels into the muscles of his ass, but he remains frustratingly steadfast. My fingernails scrape the hard muscles of his back. My skin is on fire and the ache between my thighs is so intense that I can barely think straight – and surely that is the only explanation for the words that tumble out of my mouth. “Yes, I want to marry you.”
“Good girl,” he growls as he rocks his hips and sinks all the way inside me, filling me to the hilt.
A rush of air fills my lungs as pleasure and relief sweep over my body.
“Oh, that feels so good,” I moan loudly.
“You have no idea how much I love the fact that I get to keep you in line using sex, Kat.” He laughs darkly.
“You do not,” I whimper.
“Yeah, I do. Because you’re so fucking hungry for my cock, kitten, you’ll do anything for the promise of me inside you.”
“You’re the devil, and I hate you,” I pant as I pull him closer.
“I know, vita mia.”
I want to ask him what he just said, but he seals his lips over mine and his tongue slides inside my mouth, silencing my question with a kiss so full of longing and fire it almost takes my breath away.
