by Katee Robert
There was no way the Mad Wolf was wandering around Northern California without orders, but it was always possible they’d try to play it that way. She’d asked Papa what would happen if they claimed innocence, and he got a pinched look on his face that worried her. Rose cleared her throat. “Until then, we act like normal.”
“Normal.” Anya raised her brows. “Normally, we go out for drinks on Friday nights.”
“Da.”
Sasha pressed her hand to her mouth. “You can’t honestly expect us to leave the house. What if something happens?”
“It’ll be fine.” Anya waved that away. “We’ll go to Red’s. It’s one of ours, and we own every single person in that place. If anyone so much as looks at us sideways, they’re dead.”
Rose wished she had her sister’s confidence, but her reality had been rocked and then rocked again in the past week. She couldn’t take anything for granted. Still, her father had requested this, and she agreed with his reasoning. “Anya’s right. It’s nearly as safe as being home.”
Sasha didn’t look convinced, but she finally nodded. “If you’re sure.”
“We don’t have a choice.” The conflict with Jovan’s people had already started, and the fucked-up thing was that perception played into the power structure. If the first thing Rose did upon being attacked was hide away, no one would believe she could be a strong leader. She had to keep up appearances, to move as if she were untouchable even though she still wore the marks from Casimir’s hands on her throat. They’d faded to a sickening green and yellow, and it made her ill to look at them in the mirror.
He’d almost killed her.
If Dante hadn’t shown up when he did…
But no, she couldn’t afford to think about Dante. Not now. Not ever. If he had a drop of sense, he’d stay in LA, where it was relatively safe. And she’d stay here in NYC, engaged in the beginnings of a battle that could mean the death of everyone she cared about. They might have the home court advantage, but Jovan had the people and the kind of experience that would give even an experienced combatant pause. If they went to war, Rose’s family might win, but it wouldn’t be without great loss.
Distractions could get the people she loved killed, and Dante was nothing but a giant distraction. She’d never see him again, and that was a good thing.
Maybe one day she’d even believe it.
Chapter 19
Rose looked good. Really fucking good. She wore a golden dress that hugged her curves, leaving little to the imagination for all that it covered her from neck to wrists and down to mid-thigh. The subtle textured pattern caught the light with every move, and Dante clenched his hands with the need to run his palms over it.
Not yet.
He finished his drink, paid for it, and moved down the back hall toward the bathrooms. The bar owners obviously knew their clientele, and so there were four of them, each single occupancy. An extravagant addition, and it suited his purposes perfectly.
Dante considered his options, eyed the camera perched above the back door, and ducked into the alcove tucked next to the bathrooms. It had a phone, and he picked it up, holding it to his ear as he leaned back a bit so he could see the hall.
He heard Rose’s laugh trail in his direction and ducked back into the alcove. A few seconds later, heels clipped in her familiar stride as she moved down the hall. He counted her steps, and when she turned into the bathroom, he replaced the phone in the cradle and followed her in, pushing her ahead of him and shutting and locking the door behind them in a smooth move.
“What the fuck?”
He pressed his hand over her mouth. “Shhh, amata. We need to have a conversation.”
Her hazel eye went wide, but she let him back her against the counter and pin her there with his body. Being pressed against her again went straight to his head. Mine. He knew better than to say it aloud, especially in this moment. “I have one question for you.”
She blinked slowly and finally nodded against his palm. He cautiously lowered his hand, ready to cover her mouth again if she started screaming. She didn’t. Dante exhaled slowly. “Did you get the Plan B?”
She froze. “What?”
“A simple question, Rosa. I didn’t get it to you last week. Did you acquire it?”
Her gaze flew to his face. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Answer the question.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I didn’t get it. I…forgot.”
He stared down at her, hope and something dark rising in him. “Liar.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Liar,” he repeated. “You knew the risk. You could have insisted your cousin stop along the way to the airport. A small stop once you were out of the immediate area. Simple. Easy. You chose not to.”
She parted her lips, painted fuck-me red, and then hesitated. “It would be incredibly reckless if I put myself at risk for being pregnant with your child because of some strange emotional blip. It would make me a fool.”
“No.” He leaned down and pressed his face to her neck, inhaling harshly. “No, not a fool. You feel it, too. You want this, too.”
“Dante, we can’t. The stakes are too high.”
He slid his hands over her hips and down to the hem of her dress. “Tell me no, amata. Tell me you never want to see me again, and I’ll be gone.” He didn’t know if he was lying or not. He couldn’t fucking tell. He wanted Rose so much, he couldn’t think properly, but part of wanting her was needing her to be right there with him. “Just say the word.”
“Dante… D’yavol.” She shivered. “This is a terrible idea.”
“That won’t work. Not this time. Use your words. Tell me yes or tell me no, Rosa.”
She pressed her lips together and shot a glance at the door. “We don’t have a future. We can’t.”
He didn’t repeat himself. He just waited, counting the beats of their racing hearts that seemed to sync up the longer they stood pressed together. He was so fucking hard, he could barely string two thoughts together, but he wanted her to choose this.
To choose him.
She ran her hands up his chest slowly. “It will never work.” She toyed with the buttons at the front of his shirt. “My family wants you dead. Your family wants me dead. We need every weapon we can come up with right now, and I can’t risk alienating our alliances because I want you.” She reversed her movement, reaching down to hook her fingers in the waistband of his pants. “I shouldn’t care about you at all. You’re my enemy.”
“Everything else is true enough.” He held perfectly still, refusing to let her incite him into closing the last little bit of distance between them. If she chose this, she chose this. There would be no pretending he pushed the issue. “But not that last. I’m not your enemy, amata.”
Her brows drew together. “If you’re not my enemy, Dante Verducci, then what are you?”
“Yours.”
She made a pained sound. “You can’t just say shit like that. It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, Rosa, it is. I’m yours and you’re mine. Tell me you don’t feel it.”
She shook her head helplessly. “We can’t.”
Dante made himself take a step back even though every part of him demanded he stay as close to her as possible. “So be it.”
He took another step back when she moved. Rose grabbed the band of his slacks and jerked him to her. Her expression went fierce. “I want you. It can’t work, but I don’t care. I…care about you.”
Not a full capitulation but enough. Or maybe Dante was simply looking for an excuse to take her mouth. To push her back and then lift her onto the counter and step between her bare thighs. “It will work.”
“We can’t be sure.” But she didn’t stop. And neither did he. He let her undo the front of his pants and reach in to wrap her hand around his cock. Rose gave him a rough stroke. “Now, d’yavol. I need you now.”
He should hold out, but it was never going to happen. Not when his woman needed him. Dante
shoved up her dress to press two fingers into her. Rose gasped and glanced at the door. He followed her gaze as he worked her, readying her. “Someone will come looking for you shortly.”
“I don’t care.”
“Bene.”
She stroked him roughly. “I started birth control again. You don’t need to use a condom.” She guided him to her entrance.
He hesitated, searching her face. “Be sure, amata. We do this, there’s no going back.” He lightly covered her mouth with his hand when she started to speak. “You already said it’s impossible. I don’t give a fuck about impossible.”
“Don’t stop,” she whispered against his palm.
“I won’t.” He held her gaze as he pushed into her. There was no slow easing into it, not with the overwhelming desire to mark her as his, to get as close to her as possible. It had been a little over a week since he was inside her last, but it felt like a lifetime. Dante’s hips met Rose’s, and he pressed his forehead to hers. “Mine.”
“Stop that. I belong to myself.” She tangled her fingers in his hair and tilted her face up for a kiss. “Make me come, d’yavol. Make me feel good.”
“Always.” He jerked her forward, until she was barely perched on the edge of the counter, and started fucking her in short, slow thrusts. The angle was perfect. She started shaking almost immediately. It was too good. He had to slow down farther, to focus on getting her there first, or he was going to blow. Dante buried his face in her throat, driving her pleasure higher even as he fought his own. The only sound in the bathroom was their ragged breathing and the soft sounds of fucking.
A knock on the door.
He froze, and Rose’s hands tightened in his hair. She dragged in a rough inhale. “Da?”
“Are you okay? You’ve been in there a long time.”
Her sister. He wasn’t sure which one. Dante started to lean back, but she ran her hands down his back and grabbed his ass, driving him deeper inside. “It’s like that?” he murmured in her ear. “So be it.”
“I’m fine.” She didn’t sound fine, though. She sounded like she was seconds from coming apart.
Apparently her sister wasn’t convinced. “Rose. What’s going on?”
“Get out of here, Sasha!” She snarled something in Russian that made his balls tighten. His woman never sounded sexier than when she gave commands. There was a beat of silence, and then her sister said something that sounded shocked, but her footsteps moved away from the door a moment later. Rose dug her nails into Dante’s ass through his pants. “Hurry. We don’t have time.”
He guided her to lean back on her hands on the sink and ran his hands up her legs, spreading them wide. “Look at us, amata.” His cock was soaked with her need, and watching her body spread to take him nearly had him losing control right then and there. He gritted his teeth and kept going. “Look how sweetly you take me.”
“Dante. God, you feel so good.” She gasped and clenched around him. “Right there. Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He fought himself to maintain the rhythm she needed even as she shook and whimpered. When she came, it was with a strangled cry that went straight to his cock. Only then did Dante drive deep, chasing his own pleasure. “One day. When you’re mine in truth.” He wrapped her hair around a fist and kissed her roughly. “I’m going to come inside you, Rosa. Fill you up with me.”
“Do it.” She moaned.
“No.” At the last moment he pulled out of her and jacked himself roughly. He came hard, the orgasm only strengthened by watching his speed spray her pussy and upper thighs. Dante kept fucking coming, until his knees actually buckled. He caught himself on the counter and wiped his cock on her thigh. “When you’re mine, Rosa. Only. Then.”
She looked down at the mess he’d made and shivered. “Are you going to tell me to leave it like this?”
That was exactly what he wanted to do, but he knew better. She wanted something to push back against. He wouldn’t give it to her. Not in this moment. “You’re a big girl. You can make your own decisions.”
Rose searched his face. “You really mean it, don’t you? You don’t care about the optics or what the consequences will be. You just want me.”
He pulled out his wallet to grab the spare hotel key he’d requested and pressed it into her hand. “Room 402.”
She stared. “You can’t be serious. All I’d have to do with that information is give it to my parents and you’d be dead before dawn.”
“Si.” Dante shrugged. “But you’re not going to, and we both know it.” He glanced at the door. It wouldn’t be long before her sister returned, likely with muscle this time. “Come to me tonight.”
She drew in a breath and glanced down at her bare pussy. “I could be pregnant, you know. It’s even likely. I missed those three days, and even if I restarted birth control, it might not make a difference.”
The thought made his chest ache, but as much as he wanted that with this woman eventually, now wasn’t the time for it. He could recognize that, even if part of him wanted to howl at the moon at the thought. “And if you are?”
She pressed her lips together. “I can’t keep it, Dante. Not like this. Not with everything going on and a war on the horizon. My family needs me.”
He framed her face with his hands and pressed a kiss to her lips. “It’s your body, amata. I want my ring on your finger and my child in your belly, but on our timeline. When it’s safe.”
“What if it’s never safe?” The words came out in a whisper. It was the first time he’d heard her sound afraid, and the ache in his chest ramped up several notches.
Dante grabbed some paper towels from the dispenser and carefully cleaned her up. He didn’t speak until he’d helped her off the counter and tugged her dress back into place. “It will be safe. Eventually. It will just take time.”
“I’m not so sure.” She looked up at him, her hazel eyes seeming overlarge in her face. “I don’t know how this ends. There are no guarantees. The last time my family had a conflict like this, my uncle died. And they didn’t even make it to an actual war that time. It was just a skirmish.”
There were no guarantees in their world. The benefits were extreme, but so was the potential price to be paid. “We’ll get through it. There will be peace.” It just would take time… and potentially eliminating an entire branch of the Romanov family.
“Dante…” She trailed off as someone knocked on the door. Except it was more like pounding. Rose sighed. “That’s Anya. I have to go.”
He wasn’t ready to let her go, but Dante knew better than to say as much. She’d shown him vulnerability, and the timing wasn’t right. Not yet. He nodded at the hotel key in her hand. “Come to me tonight.”
She curled her fingers around the card and pressed it to her chest. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Rosa.” She had to come to him. Because otherwise he’d be scaling the walls of the Romanov home, and Dante wasn’t too keen on being shot. Again.
She gave a small little smile. “Okay, d’yavol. I’ll come to you tonight.”
Chapter 20
Rose barely made it out of the restaurant without her sisters rioting, but only because she promised to tell them the truth once they got in the car. Anya drove, and Sasha hovered in the back seat, once again twisting her fingers fiercely enough to make Rose wince.
Anya stopped at a light and looked at her. “Talk fast. If I don’t like what I hear, I’m going straight to Mama.”
She flinched. “Really, Anya. Pulling out our mother as a threat?” It was something she hadn’t done since they were little kids.
“Papa would hunt down that man you were just having bathroom sex with and kill him, so yes, Mama.” The light turned green, and she pressed too hard on the gas, throwing Rose and Sasha back against their seats. “You know what’s at stake. You were just fucking kidnapped, for god’s sake. I realize the security at Red’s is good, but this is reckless, even for you. Especially for you.”
She wasn’t wro
ng, but Rose couldn’t bring herself to regret it. She didn’t know what it said about her that she’d just had sex with the man who’d kidnapped her literally last week, but there was no denying she’d chosen it.
No denying she would sneak out of her house later tonight and meet him at his hotel room.
She couldn’t tell her sisters the truth. Not yet. They’d tell Mama and Papa, and she’d be under lock and key, heir or no. “It was an ex.”
“Which one.”
“Rick.”
Anya shot her an incredulous look. “You’re shitting me.”
“Not at all,” Rose lied. “You know how I am. I needed to work out some tension, and I saw him, and the opportunity presented itself.” She reached back and covered her sister’s hands with hers “Stop, Sasha. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Stop?” Her sister gave a choked laugh that was almost a sob. “Rose, what are you doing? Sneaking off to the bathroom to have sex with your ex? Someone could have snatched you. The Mad Wolf is after you. He wouldn’t even bother to snatch you. He’d just shoot you dead.”
She fought down a shiver at the memory of his hands around her throat, his cold gray eyes staring down at her. “I’m well aware of the risks.”
“Are you? Because you’ve been acting weird ever since you got home.”
Rose twisted in her seat. “Are you serious right now? Two weeks ago, I was supposed to marry Romeo Capparelli, only to be abducted at my own wedding and held hostage for days on end.” Saying it felt weirdly like a betrayal. For all that Dante had kidnapped her, it wasn’t as if he’d hurt her. Or forced her. Or done anything except keep her in the cabin and give her entirely too many orgasms.
He wanted to marry her.
She hadn’t believed him before.
She believed him now.