Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

DANTE

I told myself I was going to leave her alone. I lectured myself on what not to do the entire way over here. As I look down at her bare ass, reddening by the second as I spank her again, I realize this is definitely not on the list of approved guard duties.

She’s stopped wiggling by the third time I spank her.

“You’re infuriating, you know that? I can’t stand who I become with you, and yet I’m becoming addicted to being near you,” I admit, realizing that she’s arched her ass off the bed in preparation for the next time I let my hand crack across her ass.

I don’t know what to do with the knowledge.

“No,” she breathes, and the cadence in her breathing has my heart thumping wildly, “you’re infuriating, Dante. I tell you that I can’t be more, yet here you are. You say you want to be friends, but why is your cock hard? Why are you spanking me?”

She’s breathless and it only makes me harder.

I backhand her ass, watching the globes wave and hearing the little gasp she tries to hold back and fails.

I replace her pants over her chaffed ass, bending over her body and tickling my lips over her ear. “I can’t control myself around you. I told myself I’d stay away from you, yet here I am.”

She turns her face, throwing me off, but I don’t move.

Her lips part, her sweet breath brushing over my lips.

“You need to go, Dante,” she breathes, and a dangerous vibe spikes between us. I lean into her, connecting our foreheads as both our breathing shallows.

“I know.”

“So go.”

Rejection ambles in my chest, but I try to ignore the sting. I move off her, stopping at the door to look back as she lets her face fall into the mattress.

Half of me wonders if tears are sinking into the fabric beneath her face, but she doesn’t want me near her. I know she doesn’t want me here to see her cry.

“I’m sorry,” I say on my way out, knowing it’s not enough to make up for how I acted.

I can’t control myself and hate admitting it, even to myself.

When I step back into the hall, slamming the door behind me, I’m inwardly kicking myself for how I acted.

She makes me fucking crazy, and I don’t know how to control myself around her.

I’ve got to get myself in check before I ruin us both.

It had only been an hour since my run-in with Alyssa when Ardesia called on my cell.

I don’t know if he knows what’s going on between us or what’s happened. I know Alyssa tells Brynne everything, however, so this conversation might be awkward as fuck.

However, it’s entirely my own fault.

“Hello,” I answer, and Ardesia immediately discusses their flight and how they’ll be going straight into the meeting tomorrow, so he needs me to go with Alyssa.

I tell him I’m on guard duty, and he tosses back that I’m to remain with Alyssa, use the second guest room to get some sleep, and get another guard to stand watch at the door.

When I try to argue, he shuts me down.

“Got it, Boss. See you tomorrow,” I tell him through gritted teeth.

When the next guard arrives, our cousin, Marco, I let myself back into the apartment. I’m met with Ms. Roebach’s angry stare, ramen hanging out of her mouth, and her furious eyebrows furrowed.

The way I’d left things nearly three hours ago wasn’t ideal. Now, I have some backtracking to do.

I put my hands up in defense. “Listen, I’m only following orders.”

“So get back outside,” she growls in reply.

“Ardesia and Brynne are landing and going right into the meeting, and they want both of us there tomorrow. He told me to sleep in the other guest room, and Marco will guard the door.”

“And we all know you’re the perfect little puppy for Mr. Ricci, so you’re going to listen to his orders to the T.”

Her words might as well have been a shank.

“You’re right. I value my fucking throat, so I think I’ll listen,” I toss back, anger building in my chest.

She points to the spare room she’s not occupying. “Well, go on, then.”

I huff as I trudge toward the room, only stopping and hanging my head when I realize I owe her an apology.

“Listen,” I start.

She cuts me up, her tone clipped, “Save it, Dante.”

The way she says my name, even when her tone is gnarled, fills my veins with heat.

“You know what?” I march back over to where she’s on the couch.

She sets her food down and stands, readying to go toe-to-toe with me. It’s what drives me wild about her: her tenacity.

“I’m not sorry. You were being a little fucking brat, and you deserved that spanking.”

Her mouth drops open, her cheeks filling with the perfect shade of red: crimson.

“I was not!” She stomps her foot, and I grin at how childish she looks.

She realizes it, too, because her face grows even more angry.

“Listen here, you pig-headed beast of a man, we can’t be any more than we were on that fucking plane.”

“And in the bathroom in Florida. Both times were bathrooms. Got a thing for bathrooms, Ms. Roebach?” I eye her ruefully.

Her cheeks’ color deepens. “Maybe I like to fuck you near toilets, for when I eventually throw up afterward.”

I laugh, and it sounds just as mocking as I’d meant. “Now,” I step into her, “you know that’s a lie. I watched the concern filling your pretty eyes when you came for me, minaccia.”

Another step. “You were worried that you wouldn’t be able to quit me.”

I don’t know why I’m toying with her. There’s just this underlying current between us that’s addictive as hell. Even while I’m accusing her of not being able to quit me, I can’t quit her .

I take one final step into her that topples her over onto the couch. She lands on her back, shock wavering in her aqua-blue eyes.

I lean over her, both hands caging her body in, my nose brushing the tip of hers, my knee pressing into the couch between her thighs. “You were worried no one would ever top what I did to you, minaccia. It was as plain as day on your beautiful face when you came for me."

She exhales, and the sound grips me by the dick and leads me to the door to purgatory, where I’m destined to land after she kills me because she will be the death of me.

I’m waiting for her reply when she leans up and crashes her lips to mine, and I am stutter-stepping to understand her play.

My world goes bright and silent as her tongue pries my lips apart, her moans painting my soul the color red, where it was a dim gray before. I haven’t kissed anyone since Anna. Now isn’t the time to tell her or make a big deal about it—not that I could if I wanted to. I’m eager for each caress of her tongue and each movement her lips make against mine.

If I fuck her on this couch, it’s a whole new encounter, on a whole new day, and she said that wasn’t what she wanted. She said it wasn’t something she could do with me. But who am I to point that out when my tongue is deep inside her mouth, when I told her I don’t kiss?

We’re shattering rules that we both made to protect us from hurt—ones we felt were necessary to survive.

The kiss grows frantic, our mouths brawling as our teeth clash and our bodies collide. I press into her from above, grinding my dick against her thin pajama pants with fucking kittens on them.

She pulls back. “We can’t.”

I’m panting, barely able to see straight. “You started it.”

“What are you five?” she counters.

I grin, and she shoves at me to get off of her.

“You sure you don’t want to continue?” I waggle my cock over her heated center.

“I’m... You...”

I revel in her struggle to find words. “We,” I add, giving her yet another pronoun to stutter out.

“I’ve never done multiple nights. I don’t want to sound awful or for you to judge me, Dante. It’s just who I am and how I operate.”

“Minaccia, I don’t care who came before me or what you chose to do with your body. It’s yours, after all. Until it’s mine,” I snarl, dropping my face into her neck.

She gasps, unable to keep a lid on her reaction to me. “See, that’s what I’m talking about, Dante. You say you’re alright with how I am that we can be friends and then you keep showing up, or you say things like that...”

“No strings,” I tell her, and she turns her face into mine, trying to look at me head-on.

“What?”

“People do that, right? No strings attached? Either of us can walk away at any time. When we’re together, it’s one night. In between those nights, we’re nothing,” I tell her, grasping at straws to have her any way that I can.

“That never works in the end. Not in any movie I’ve ever watched.”

I smirk. “They’re not us. We’ll make it work.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’ll end up falling in love with me.”

I laugh, and she instantly takes offense to the sound. “As if.” I do my best Valley Girl voice. “You’re totally going to fall in love with me .”

Despite her attempt not to, she smiles, her eyes softening.

“No strings,” she agrees, inching her lips closer to mine.

It’s all I can do not to devour her whole as I nod in agreement.

“We’re in Vegas when we’re together,” I tell her.

She lifts her hand between us, positioning it for me to shake.

I do so, impressed with how professional she’s being while my cock is pressed to her center.

“Well then, can we go back to kissing now?” I ask her, grinning like a fiend.

“You are infuriating, you know that?”

I shrug nonchalantly. “I’ve been told a time or two, yes.”

She laughs, and I go in for her lips, swallowing the sound she makes.

We go no further than kissing on the couch before she finishes her dinner. I microwave a ramen cup and scarf it down, and then we both head to our respective bedrooms for our early morning meeting. I think what killed the mood was the weight of the deal between us.

Even if it sounds good in theory, Alyssa is right. I’ve never heard of no strings attached working out in the end for anyone.

She’s steadfast in her idea of not being more than we are, a random hook-up in the bathroom in a moment of weakness. Internally, though, I know deep down that we are. Or at least, I find myself hoping we will become more.

To have to walk away from Alyssa after not feeling anything close to this kind of connection since Anna would break me. It would completely level me.

It’ll be worse knowing that Alyssa is the one controlling the fucking wrecking ball that ends such a phenomenal thing.

“Good night,” I hear from across the living room, where Alyssa is in the other guest bed.

“Good night,” I call back, not closing my eyes and letting my mind spin around as I watch the ceiling fan do the same thing.

“Kindred spirits, you and me,” I tell it, realizing I’m losing it if I’m talking to the goddamned fan.

When I hear my door creak open further from where I’d left it slightly ajar hours later, I lift my head off my pillow. I’d almost fallen asleep when the sound startled me.

A very nude Alyssa gets on the end of the bed and crawls over my legs. I peel the covers back, baring my naked body to her as she straddles me, leaning down to kiss me deep and fervently.

What had she been dreaming about?

We’re both breathless when she breaks the kiss and says, “No strings.”

As if I’d need the reminder.

I dive back into her mouth, cupping her ass in my hands and lifting her as she works my cock inside her heat and sinks down.

“Fucking hell,” I groan into her kiss as she gasps and starts to ride me.

“Fuck, yes,” she languidly moans, throwing her head back in pure bliss.

Yeah, this isn’t going to work.