15. Chapter 15 Natalie

Chapter 15 Natalie

T he ancient floorboards creak beneath my bare feet as I creep down the shadowed hallway, my heart a caged bird throwing itself against my ribs. Every instinct screams at me to turn back, to flee the inky darkness swallowing me whole.

But I don't.

Can't. Some reckless impulse spurs me forward, a moth drawn to a flame that will surely devour me whole.

Dante's office looms before me, the mahogany door an imposing sentinel guarding the monster's den. No, not a monster. A man.

A cruel, twisted, beautiful man who's burrowed beneath my skin like a splinter I can't shed.

I shouldn't be here. Shouldn't cross this threshold into his shadowy inner sanctum. But even as the thought flits through my mind, my rebellious hand is already turning the brass knob, my lungs ceasing their strained rhythm as I ease the door open with agonizing slowness.

The hinges sigh their protest, the sound deafening in the tomb-like stillness. For a moment, I'm frozen, certain Dante will materialize from the gloom, all wicked smiles and knowing eyes, ready to mete out retribution for my trespass.

But the seconds tick by, and no avenging angel descends upon me. Slowly, I exhale, slipping into the room like a thief in the night.

Darkness blankets every surface, the only illumination the thin slash of silver moonlight knifing in through parted curtains. Ghostly shadows stretch across a massive desk, over towering oak shelves crammed with books on subjects too esoteric for me to parse.

This is Dante's lair, the epicenter of his sprawling criminal enterprise. I can feel his essence saturate every atom, dark and intoxicating and laced with the bitter tang of blood. It should repulse me, should send me fleeing back to the scant safety of my gilded cage. Instead, it pulls me deeper, an invisible cord tugging me to the great oak desk dominating the space.

My fingertips trail over the gleaming wood, skate across the buttery leather blotter. Unbidden, an image rises in my mind - Dante seated here, a dark emperor upon his throne, all cruel beauty and lethal grace. I imagine him working, making his obscure calculations, his brutal machinations, long fingers dancing over documents steeped in shadow and sin.

A queer shudder ripples through me, fear and revulsion and something far more dangerous swirling in my belly. Disgust - at him or myself, I no longer know - rising like bile. I should leave. Now, before this poisonous fascination drags me under, drowns me in inky blackness so absolute, there's no hope of resurfacing.

But even as I grasp for the fraying edges of reason, my gaze catches on the bottom drawer. It sits slightly ajar, an onyx slice against the surrounding wood, beckoning me with siren song. What secrets does it hold?

What remnants of Dante's twisted psyche, his darkest truths, lie tucked within?

Before I can think better of it, I'm tugging it open, the silver handles cold beneath my clammy palms. The drawer glides soundlessly, revealing its illicit treasures like some profane jack-in-the-box.

My breath stops, shock and disbelief rooting me in place. Because there, nestled against blood-red velvet, lies my vibrator. The one Dante stole that first fateful night, tearing it from me with a predator's snarl and a promise to hoard my pleasure, mold my desires to match his own.

And coiled beside it like a glistening viper - the power cord. The cord he taunted me with, a wicked gleam in his onyx eyes as he ground his hardness into the caged heat between my thighs.

Anger fills me, potent and purifying. How dare he lay claim to this - to me - with such audacity? Such arrogance, as if my body is a conquered land and he is the invading force?

I snatch up the vibrator before I can think better of it - a small rebellion, a pathetic attempt to reclaim some scrap of autonomy. It thrums to life in my palm, its wicked buzz a profane hymn in the darkness.

I should put it back. Shut the drawer, flee this unhallowed ground before I'm discovered, before Dante senses the intrusion and comes to investigate. But I don't. Can't. That sick, seductive impulse still drives me, the inexorable tug of a dark tide I'm powerless to resist.

Pulse pounding, I bunch up the hem of my nightgown, baring skin to the chill air. The vibrator's smooth tip grazes my inner thigh, sending sparks skittering through my treacherous nerves. A broken moan claws up my throat as I press it to the damp lace shielding my core, lost in a haze of sensation too intense to be pleasure, too agonizing to be pain.

"Well, well, little raven. Caught you in quite the compromising position, haven't I?"

The dark velvet voice shatters my fugue, icy dread dousing my veins. I whirl, knees like water, to face the figure looming in the doorway.

Dante.

He stands wreathed in shadow, a sliver of light from the hall throwing his cruel beauty into stark relief. A slow, wolfish smile curves his lips as he takes in my trembling form - nightgown rucked up, vibrator still buzzing feverishly against my sex.

"I-I wasn't... I didn't mean..." The words die on my tongue, shriveling to ash under his scorching onyx gaze.

"Didn't mean to what, Natalie?" He stalks closer, each precise step eating the distance between us. "Didn't mean to sneak into my private space like a wanton little thief? To defy me, yet again, by presuming to pleasure yourself without my express permission?"

Tears prick my eyes, equal parts terror and treacherous arousal. God, what is wrong with me? To be so weak, so depraved, that his mere presence sets me alight even in the midst of my fear?

"Please, Dante, I–"

"Hush." The command cracks like a whip, stealing the air from my lungs. "I don't want your mewling excuses. I want your surrender. Your compliance. Your complete and utter devotion to my will."

He's on me before I can blink, caging me against the desk with the coiled strength of his body. One elegant hand wraps around my throat, tipping my chin up, forcing me to meet the fathomless darkness of his eyes.

"Everything you are; belongs to me," he murmurs, madness and obsession swirling in those ebon depths. "Your pleasure, your pain, your every quivering breath...is mine to dispense as I see fit. No more of these feeble attempts at rebellion. No more denials of the sweet suffering only I can bestow upon you."

He leans in, lips a hair's breadth from mine, his grip compressing just shy of true airlessness. The threat - the promise - of annihilation hovers in the space between us, electric and undeniable.

"This was your last warning, solnyshko. Displease me again, and I won't be nearly so lenient."

The world hazes at the edges, narrowing to the branding heat of his touch, the intoxicating scent of whiskey and danger and man. I should scream, should fight, should claw his eyes out and flee this incubus' embrace.

But my limbs are molten lead, my will an ephemeral thing unable to withstand the magnetic pull he exerts on my psyche. Some secret part of me craves this dark defilement, yearns to lower myself before his altar and accept my twisted communion.

Dante must read my tormented submission in my blown pupils, my quick, shallow breaths warming his palm. His lips curve in dark satisfaction, a conqueror surveying his spoils.

"Good girl," he purrs, the praise slithering down my spine like a caress. "You're learning, slowly but surely. Learning to accept the inevitable, to crave the exquisite torments only I can inflict."

His free hand trails lower, skimming my hammering pulse, my collarbones, the swell of my breast. I bite my lip against a whimper as he palms the sensitive flesh, rolling the pebbled peak between cruel fingers.

"Please," I gasp, no longer sure if I'm begging for mercy or release. "Dante, I can't..."

"Can't what, little mouse?" He plucks at my nipple, a sharp sting that arrowing straight to my core. "Can't resist my touch? Can't deny the sick thrill that grips you, even now, at being at my mercy? At knowing I hold the key to your unraveling, that I can shatter you with pleasure more thoroughly than any pain?"

As if to punctuate his point, he plucks the vibrator from my nerveless fingers, running the buzzing head over the curve of my breast. I choke on a moan, my nails scrabbling uselessly at his shirt, all coherent thoughts fleeing in the face of this maddening torment.

"Look at you," he marvels, something like awe warring with possession in his gaze. "So responsive, so hungry for my attention. You were made for this, solnyshko. Made for me, to be filled and used and reshaped into my perfect, poison plaything."

Shame burns through me, hot and caustic, warring with the tumult of need streaming molten in my veins. How can I want this, want him, after everything he's done? After all the ways he's violated and demeaned me, stripped me of agency until I'm little more than a doll dancing on the tangled strings of his obsession?

But even as my mind rebels, my treacherous body cants into his touch, craving more of the sweet agonies he metes out with such ruthless precision. His scent is in my head, his taste on my tongue, corrupting me from the inside out until I no longer know where I end and he begins.

Dante strokes down my body at an excruciating pace, his palm branding me through the thin cotton of my gown. Every nerve ending screams at his touch, my flesh trembling, straining for more even as my heart cringes away.

The vibrator finds the juncture of my thighs, parting my folds to nestle against the throbbing pearl of my clit. I jerk and spasm in his hold, a high keening sound that can't possibly be my own ripping from my throat.

"That's it, moy voron," he coaxes, circling that devil's toy in slow, devastating passes. "Give into it. Give in to me. Let me take you apart, flay the resistance from your bones until all that remains is the raw, weeping wound of your need."

I'm on fire, I'm drowning, I'm lost to the hellish ecstasy spiraling through me, scalding me from the inside out. His lips are on my neck, my jaw, painting my skin with biting, open-mouthed kisses that stake his claim more indelibly than any bruise.

The pressure builds, white-hot, agonizing, unstoppable. An inferno raging through my blood, consuming every secret part of me until I'm little more than cinder and ash. I'm so close, teetering on the knife's edge of ruination, waiting for Dante's permission to let go, to annihilate myself on the altar of his desire.

But that final crest never comes. With a suddenness that leaves me reeling, Dante rips the vibrator away, his grip around my throat tightening to the point of pain.

"Not yet," he growls, the words guttural, almost inhuman. "You don't get to come, don't get to shatter so sweetly. Not until you've been punished for your transgressions, until I've wrung proper penitence from your quivering flesh."

His eyes are black holes, twin voids promising oblivion. I've seen that look before, in our darkest, most depraved moments - that unholy cocktail of madness and devotion. It terrifies me. It thrills me.

In one graceful motion, he spins me to face the desk, bending me over the unforgiving wood. Cool air kisses my bared flesh as he rucks up my gown, exposing me utterly to his ravenous gaze.

"This ass is mine," he rasps, palming the tender globes, nails digging in hard enough to draw pained hisses from my lips. "This pretty pink cunt, weeping so wantonly for my cock? Mine. Every trembling inch of you belongs to me, mia regina. And it's high time I remind you of what that means."

The first stinging slap cracks across my tender flesh, jolting me against the desk. I yelp, tears springing to my eyes, but Dante is relentless. He rains down blow after punishing blow, igniting my nerve endings, scorching me inside and out until I'm little more than a writhing, pleading creature begging for reprieve.

And beneath the pain, beneath the degradation...dark pleasure unfurls. Each brutal strike winds the tension in my core tighter, stokes the embers of poisonous need into a roaring conflagration.

Dante can sense it, feel the way I'm coming apart at the seams, my agony transmuting into something infinitely more dangerous. His harsh breaths mingle with my choked sobs, a profane symphony in the hush of shadows.

"You need this, don't you?" His lips brush the shell of my ear, the dark silk of his voice more intoxicating than the finest bourbon.

"Need me to hurt you, dominate you, fuck you, until you forget where you end and I begin. Until your world narrows to the red-hot lick of my palm, the brutal thrust of my cock, the inescapable truth that you are more mine than you will ever be your own."

His words shatter me more thoroughly than any lash, stripping me bare and flayed to the marrow. Because he's right. God help me, he's right. I do need him, crave him with a desperation that defies reason. He's in my blood, my bones, a cancer I can't carve out without cutting into the tenderest parts of myself.

Tears course down my cheeks unchecked, soaking into the rich mahogany beneath my fevered cheek. Dimly, I realize Dante has stopped his assault, simply cupping my bruised and burning backside almost tenderly.

"Please," I whimper, so soft I can barely hear myself over the roar of blood in my ears. "Please, Dante..."

"Please what, solnyshko? Use your words like a good girl. Tell me what you need, and if you beg sweetly enough...I might just give it to you."

His hand glides over my inner thigh, skimming the soaked folds of my sex but never quite touching that throbbing, aching place I need him most. I want to scream, to thrash against him until he gives me what my body so desperately craves.

But I know it's futile. He holds all the power here, my pleasure, my torment, my utter ruination at his whim and fancy.

So I do the only thing I can. The only thing that might grant me some measure of release from this sweet, unbearable anguish.

I beg.

"Please fuck me," I plead, my voice cracked and raw with unfiltered need. "Please, I'll do anything, be anything you want. Just let me come, let me feel you inside me, filling me, taking me, oh god, please, I can't..."

My babbled entreaties dissolve into sobbing moans as he enters me in one brutal thrust, impaling me on the thick, pulsing heat of his cock.

"Fuck, yes," he snarls, hands like steel bands on my hips. "Take it, you greedy little cunt. Take every inch I'm giving you and thank me for the privilege."

He pounds into me, each ruthless stroke driving me higher, pushing me closer to the edge of something vast and shattering. I'm lost to it, to him, my entire existence narrowed to the place where we're joined, the slick drag of his flesh sheathed so deeply in my own.

His fingers find my clit, circling it in savage counterpoint to the battering ram of his cock. "Come for me," he commands, and it's that dark authority in his voice that finally sends me hurtling into ecstasy.

I shatter with a breathless scream, my body convulsing, clenching around him as wave after wave of agonized bliss crashes over me. Distantly, I feel Dante follow me over the edge, his harsh groan muffled against my shoulder as he spills himself deep inside my fluttering depths.

For a long moment, we simply rest there, sweat-slick and panting, still intimately joined. The world beyond this room, this moment, feels hazy and unreal, an afterthought to the dark communion we've just shared.

Slowly, Dante eases out of me, leaving me bereft and aching. I slump against the desk, my nerveless limbs no longer able to support my weight. Boneless, mind pleasantly fuzzy, I barely react as he gathers me into his arms, carrying me like a conquered bride over the threshold of depravity.

He lays me on the bed with surprising gentleness, the cool silk sheets a balm against my feverish skin. I should feel angry, violated, should rage against this fresh degradation. But I just feel...empty. Hollowed out and numb, a cracked vessel with nothing left to give.

As if reading my thoughts, Dante presses an almost tender kiss to my brow, brushing sweat-dampened strands of hair from my face. "It's alright, little mouse," he murmurs, the low rasp of his voice skittering down my overwrought nerves. "Fighting it will only make it hurt more in the end. Better to accept the inevitable. To embrace your place at my side...and in my bed."

A single tear runs down my cheek, a quiet witness to the chaos beneath my post-orgasmic haze.

He's winning. Inch by inch, thrust by brutal thrust, he's breaking me down, molding me into the perfect dark consort he desires. And the worst part? Some traitorous part of me is starting to crave it. To need his cruel brand of love, the sweet suffering only he can inflict.

"Sleep," he coaxes, drawing me into the shelter of his powerful body. The warmth of him engulfs me, stifling and inescapable as the inferno raging in my core. "Rest your wings, little raven. Let me take flight for a while."

Against my will, my heavy lids drift closed, exhaustion tugging me down into shadowed oblivion. The last thing I feel before I succumb is the ghost of Dante's lips against my hair, and the dark promise in his softly murmured words.

"Dream of me, my wicked girl. My poisoned cup. For when you wake, the true training begins. And you will bloom, più scuro di ogni ombra, under my unyielding touch."

As I spiral into the waiting darkness, one final, desperate thought flickers through my mind - a defiant ember stubbornly clinging to light:

He's wrong. I'm not his, not completely. Not yet. There is still some part of me, buried deep, that rebels against his possession. A fragile flame of selfhood that, should I nurture it, might one day grow into the wildfire of my salvation.

I just pray I can keep it alive, keep it sheltered from the monsoon of his obsession. For without that faint hope, that trembling core of resistance... I truly will be lost.

Just another broken doll in Dante Corleone's twisted collection, damned to dance crazy by unraveling me to the tune of his darkest desires for all eternity.