Chapter 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ALYSSA

Three weeks later

T he baby has dark hair like his daddy and beautiful eyes like his mommy, and his aunt Alyssa is beside herself with joy. I look through the nursery window at baby Nico, seven pounds and six ounces, wiping the tears from my eyes.

“He’s beautiful, no?” Dante says, coming from nowhere.

I groan inwardly. He’s the only man I’ve not been effective in shaking after fucking. Then I fuck him some more, and he still keeps coming back. It was an idiotic idea to fuck him in the first place, knowing we’d be working closely together, but I could help it.

His dark features and wicked sense of humor had buckled my resolve.

“He is,” I say, sniffling and wiping my face.

“We have to stop meeting like this, minaccia,” he says. — Menace.

I groan, turning toward him. “Stop fucking calling me that!”

“Stop driving me fucking crazy!” he counters.

“How have I done that? I haven’t spoken to you in weeks!” I shove my finger into his chest.

He leans over me, face far too close. “And that’s the problem, minaccia.”

I roll my eyes and move around him, returning to the exit. Nico had gone for his bath and time at the nursery so Slate could help Brynne shower. The way he dotes on her and takes care of her like she’s his queen has made me lonelier in their presence.

Dante is the one man I can’t shake, yet sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to be his.

I’d leaped at the chance to be in this life with Brynne. To be by her side. Not because I had to, but because she’s my best friend. Also, because of the rush of this life, I could sate that side of myself that needs it.

That was until I met Dante and accidentally fucked him in the bathroom of the Florida mansion the first day I met him.

Every time I get rid of him and think he’s out of my system, here he comes again.

“Alyssa, please, just talk to me,” he begs from where I’m mashing the elevator button repetitively.

“No. Dante. There’s nothing to talk about. Just stop.”

There isn’t. After I went to his place three weeks ago, purged my emotions, and answered his messages, I felt like it closed this chapter. I thought he understood how tangled up shit with us would be; how I’m too fucked-up to be with him. Too broken.

I felt like I could go forward.

I’m not the right girl for him.

His hands find my hips, and he rests his chin atop my head. “Stop ignoring this between us. Stop turning the other cheek. And then there would be.”

“Dante,” I breathe.

The elevator opens, and I shove away from him and hurry inside. But he’s too fucking quick for his own good. He jumps in before the doors close and slams on the e-stop button.

“Dante, security is going to come…”

“I’m security,” he grumbles, backing me toward the wall of mirrors. I reach back and rest my hand atop the railing, running through the elevator.

“Since when do you work at the hospital?” I breathe, my eyes skimming over his beautiful lips. He’s been growing his beard thicker, and I’d love to know what it would feel like as he skimmed it over my pussy, but I can’t shake the feeling he’s more than I can handle.

I could give in, be his. Lord knows I’ve thought about it, but I can’t overcome myself and the fear.

He’s the complete package, and I’m a total spaz with emotions and feelings. I’ll fuck it up and then be broken for the rest of my life. Just like my mom.

“I can see the spiral in your head,” he says. He taps my temple. “Tell me.”

“I don’t want to ruin things, Dante. I’m not what you need. I’m a broken girl from a broken home who loves to play with broken things. You’re not that. I’ll ruin it, and then I’d be even more broken. I’d be shattered without you. The intensity between us…”

“You’d pine for me if I left?” he asks, changing the subject and waggling his eyebrows.

A laugh barrels out of me as I slap the side of his arm. That’s what I’m talking about. The way he brings me right out of a dangerous place. He’s meant for me. But things like love and the future scare me.

Petrify me.

I know all about his wife. About her death. While I’m not afraid of the end, as all things must come to one, I’m so scared of hurting him further. His vivacious spirit, his deep laugh, his beautiful smile.

“You’re grinning. You’re thinking about me, aren’t you?” He smirks, and I can’t help it. I laugh again.

“Stop! I’m being serious.”

“This is security. Is everything alright up there?” a man asks through the red intercom on the wall.

Dante rolls his eyes. “This is Dante Ricci, we’re fine.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

Now I’m the one rolling my eyes. “You love throwing all that power around, don’t you?”

He shrugs. “My favorite thing in the world is handing it to you. It was scary at first, I’ll admit. It’s why I was so angry after you ran from me the first time. I know now I’m a goner. There’s no fixing it.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration. “I just don’t want…”

“I don’t care what you don’t want, Alyssa. Please tell me what you want! For the love of fucking Christ!”

“You!” I shout. “I want you! I love you, you idiot. And I fucking hate you for it!”

He smirks his goofy smile, and I hang my head in defeat.

He takes over all my good sense.

“Awe, I love you, too, minaccia, but you don’t have to shout.”

I lift my eyes back to him to yell strings of curses at him again, but he descends on me with his mouth. The kiss is all-encompassing. I hook my leg around his back, sinking my hands into his hair.

He loves me, too.

It keeps rolling through my brain.

He peels off my mouth, breathless. “But if you want to still fuck in closets and bathrooms, I’m so fucking down. I love to see how greedy you are for me. Even when you’re fighting it, minaccia.”

I swat his arm again. “What now?”

He shrugs. “Forever, I guess.”

“Oh, is that all?”

He moves over toward the panel and pulls the e-stop back up. We begin the downward trek to the garage, and I move closer to him, dropping my hand into his and letting our fingers intertwine.

“Yes, that’s all.” He smiles, and I try to capture the moment mentally. Like Nico is the start of something new for Brynne and Slate, this elevator ride starts something new for Dante and me.

And I can’t fucking wait!

We burst inside the apartment, knocking shit this way and that. Dante lifts me and drops me onto the counter in the kitchen as I rip my shirt over my head.

He reaches behind me, unhooking my bra and tugging it off. His rough hand palms one and then the other, and I lean back, my hands pressing on the cold granite counters as I moan and let him feel his fill.

Things between him and me have been muddied over the last seven months. I was an idiot after the accident and an even bigger idiot once I realized I loved him.

That night, I went to his apartment three weeks ago. I was answering his texts to get closure, but I almost told him then that I loved him.

I snuck out the following day and ran home to cry myself into what would become the most extended depressive episode I’ve ever had—the only one, to be honest.

The last three weeks have been miserable. But I had Brynne to keep me busy, as she was put on bed rest until the induction after a scare of bleeding.

She was overdue when they induced her last night, and I was right beside her while she pushed baby Nico into the world like the goddess that she is.

It was such a beautiful moment that opened my eyes to so much. Like how pig-headed I’ve been being. Brynne loves Slate with everything she has—loves him like tomorrow might not come. As much as that used to scare me, after watching them together today, watching them fawn over the legacy they’ll leave behind, it opened my eyes to how much I’d be missing to continue on the path I was on.

“Where are you, tesoro?” Dante asks, tapping my temple as I get lost in my head.

I shake my head. “Just thinking.”

“About me?”

I laugh. “You’re so self-centered.”

“I resent that; I am not.”

“Oh, yeah? Then what are you?”

He leans down, his lips finding mine and causing another wave of energy to crash over me. “I’m obsessed with you. Too obsessed with you to be self-centered.”

He tugs me off the counter before he crouches before me. His eyes look up at me as he tugs my leggings over my hips and down my legs.

I toe them off and kick them to the side of us.

He nuzzles his face into my aching center.

“God,” I breathe.

“Needy for me?” he asks, lifting a finger to run it the length of my slit.

I hiss. “Dante, please don’t toy with me.”

“Mm,” he says as his finger easily slides through my wetness. “Fuck, tesoro, when was the last time you made yourself come?”

“I haven’t,” I admit, looking down as a grin lifts his lips.

“Liar.”

“I haven’t,” I reiterate, trying to convey with the look on my face how serious I am.

Now, he stands. He towers over me as he searches my face for something while he grasps for words.

“I couldn’t,” I add breathlessly.

His massive tattooed arms cage me, his hands gripping the counter’s edge. “Why?”

I swallow. “Dante, don’t make me…”

“You owe me as much,” he snaps.

As much as I hate it, he’s right. “I couldn’t because I only wanted you. I didn’t want some cold toy inside me if you weren’t the one putting it there. I didn’t want my fingers, I wanted your cock. I didn’t want some image of you behind my closed eyes; I wanted you. I wanted your mouth on me, your tongue dominating mine, your hands on my body,” I breathe.

His forehead rests against mine as one of his hands finds my pussy again, two fingers rubbing my clit.

I moan, opening to him the best I can. “Dante!”

“I missed you. Fuck, I missed you so much.”

He gives up on teasing me and slides two fingers inside me. I nearly fall to the ground as my knees try to buckle, but I regain my composure and straighten, one hand finding his shoulder for leverage.

“I missed you,” I whimper when he grinds the heel of his palm into my clit.

“You’re so fucking stubborn. I could’ve been making you come all this time. Even when I couldn’t fucking walk, I’d have found a way to make you scream my fucking name, tesoro.”

His words have guilt wavering in my stomach.

“I was scared,” I whisper.

“I know, baby. You don’t have to be, though. I’ve got you.”

I come as he captures my lips, swallowing my scream like it’s his sustenance.

When he pulls back and pulls his fingers out of me, I grapple with his pants, dropping to my knees as his cock springs free.

My mouth savors the flavor of him and the feel of his piercings as he grabs my hair with both hands and thrusts forward.

My gag sounds, and he growls like it gives him power.

“That’s it, baby. Give me more of that. Gag on me,” he groans, shoving me down again.

Spit and tears are running down my face like a rainstorm, the sounds of me gagging mixing with his moans that are bleeding together like a symphony.

He comes down my throat, and I fight to swallow it before he pulls out and tries to lead me to the bedroom after kicking out of his pants.

I tug him down to me. To the floor.

“What are you doing?” he pants as I straddle him and reach between us to line his cock up with my pussy.

I don’t answer him. I’m too needy.

I’m too fucking ready for him.

I slide down his cock, his piercings feeling divine and my pussy feeling full at this angle, and his hands find my hips, squeezing tight.

“God, you feel good. Fuck me, tesoro.”

His wish is my command because I need more.

I’ll never lose the shame that I wasn’t there with him when he needed me most, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it somehow.

By loving him the best I can and fucking him equally so.

I wrap my arms around his neck, using the back of his hair for leverage as I spread my knees wider on the floor and ride him, climax already building from the way his piercings are hitting just the right spot, not to mention the way he feels at this angle.

“Tesoro,” he groans, and I nearly don’t answer.

“Mm?”

He fists my hair in one hand, my throat in the other, his eyes growing feral.

“I’m coming in this pussy tonight. You’re mine now. Do you hear me?”

A trickle of fear runs the length of my body at his words.

I planned to pull off him as I always do when I got close to coming.

He tightens his grasp on my throat. “Am I yours or not? It’s your fucking choice, but make it now because your pussy feels too good, menace.”

I bite my lip.

My own orgasm is right around the corner, and the tighter he holds me, the faster it races toward the surface.

“Dante,” I warn his name barely a whisper.

He grins. “Go ahead, tesoro. Come all over my cock. But make your choice quickly.”

His words heat my body, and I scream through my orgasm as I let go of everything from my past.

I use this moment to wipe the slate clean and move forward with the man of my dreams and the love of my life.

“Tesoro,” he grits out in warning.

He’s still my Dante, after all. He won’t come inside me if I tell him not to, even if it kills him.

I double down, riding him faster.

“Alyssa!” he shouts, his hand in my hair pulling tight as he comes inside me, the warmth of him filling me as I moan and ride him until he’s shuddering.

When I slow my movements and capture his lips, his tongue drives me wild all over again when he presses it inside my mouth.

His arms wrap around me, and I sigh as I nuzzle my face into his neck.

“I love you, Dante.”

He hugs me tighter. “Say it again.”

I lift my head, my lips hovering over his ear. “I love you.”

“Mm, it’s nice, you know?” he asks.

“What’s nice?”

“It’s nice that you finally have your head out of your ass,” he jokes, and I sit up and smack his shoulder.

He laughs, and it’s like music to my ears.

His cock shifts inside me, however, and I’m moaning again, forgetting all about the orgasms he already gave me as I roll my hips over him.

“Fuckkkk, tesoro, don’t stop,” he begs, his head falling back to the cabinets behind him.

Now, in this moment, I wonder how I’d been so fucking stupid. How I’d let fear have such a hold over me to the point I was missing this .

But looking backward isn’t going to do me any good. I have to look forward.

All I see in my future is this man and a lot of love.

For the first time, no fear fills my chest at the thought of committing to him, either.

Only anticipation and happiness.