by Leah Holt
“Trust . . . Just trust me.” His eyes held mine, stealing me away. I had fallen so far in I was swimming in nothing but him.
Dante's fingertips fluttered over my sex, drawing more delicate circles. My legs rattled under the soft touch, shivering in pure desire.
His face was still, eyes burning in carnal need. Dragging his tongue over his lip, Dante bit down hard. “How does it make you feel when I call you mine?”
“I don't know.” My eyes hovered under hooded lids, lashes flirting with the danger beside me.
“Yes, you do.” Crawling up closer, his lips brushed my shoulder as he squeezed my inner thigh. “Tell me.”
“Dante, I—”
“Ivy.” His voice was harsh and demanding, flooding my nerves in excitement. “Tell me or I'll punish you, tell me or I'll make your body so fucking delirious with need that you won't be able to take it.”
There was something about him when he took control that turned my head upside down and made it hard to think. I loved him dominating me, I loved him taking me how he wanted.
His grip would grow firmer, his fingers more intense and rough. But he never really hurt me. Not like my body knew hurt. There was no pain, there was no heavy hand.
With Dante it was passion.
“It makes me feel good, it makes me feel wanted. I like feeling wanted.”
A deep growl rolled from his throat, his hand dropped to his waist to stroke his hard erection. “You are mine.” Plucking at his button, Dante tugged his pants down. “And if you'll let me, I'll be yours.”
His hands flew up and scooped behind my neck. Grabbing my nape, he tugged me down, kissing my lips feverishly. His tongue slid over my mouth, teeth nipping and biting my lip.
My breathing picked up. Exhaling a hard rush of air, I whispered, “You already are.”
The strength of his arms lifted me onto my knees. Kneeling in front of me, Dante slipped free of his boxers, his thick cock pouncing out and ready to dive inside me. Palming the tip, he squeezed around the crown and down his shaft.
Pressing my lips to his chest, I kissed my way down his steel stepping stones. Dragging his fingers through my hair, he gripped the back of my head and guided me to his cock. Flicking the engorged head with my tongue, his fingers drove deeper, tearing at the roots.
“Fuck, Ivy,” he moaned, using my hair to pump my head up and down his cock.
My pussy was hot, tingling, and aching to feel him.
Dante's hips thrust harder and faster, slamming his cock into my mouth and down my throat. He was so big that it was hard to breathe, making me test how long I could go without air.
His grunts were animalistic, growing louder and louder. In one quick slurp, Dante had freed himself, releasing my lips with a wet pop. “Fuck, Princess, I need you.” Grabbing my hips, he flipped me around.
The ease at which he turned me, the way his strength had just whipped me into position, was incredible. It did something to me, igniting a fire in my belly that made my sex seep arousal.
His hand glided up over my ass, massaging the curve. Moaning, Dante leaned over and spoke softly into my ear. “If I hurt you, tell me. If you like it, show me.”
I wasn't sure what he meant, but I wasn't scared. He had given me a choice, a voice to use if I didn't approve.
That . . . That meant everything to me.
A voice.
I felt his hand lift off my skin, another deep moan hit my ears. And as I waited for his cock, I felt an intense singe of sparks.
A loud smack rang out, my ass igniting in a wave of pins and needles.
Dante had just spanked me.
Arching my back, I braced myself on the bed. My fingers curled into the blanket, nails digging into the mattress.
His chest came down on my back, lips hovering over my ear. “Did you enjoy that, Princess? Did you enjoy me punishing you?” His palm rubbed the area, followed by a second slap.
My belly was clenching with a rush of emotions. It felt great, it felt euphoric . . .
It made me feel alive.
I couldn't speak, all I could do was rock my hips back into his cock. His swelling member slipped through the juice dripping down my thighs. I needed him inside me.
“Good girl, you didn't scream.” Dragging his cock over my tender button, I moaned. “But I'm not done yet.” Tapping my clit with the head of his dick, he chuckled. “I want to hear you beg.”
Another slap came down harder as his free hand clung to my hip, holding me in place. “Beg for me, Ivy, beg me to fuck you.”
Rolling my head over my shoulders, I stared at him through slit lids. I wasn't angry that he had spanked me, I wasn't pissed off that he wanted me to beg for him. The seed had been planted, he had taken me in a way that I never thought I would want.
And now I never wanted to imagine myself without him.
“Fuck me,” I said through air filled words.
“You've got to do better than that. Beg me, Ivy.” Thumbing my clit, Dante teased the entrance. A devilish grin painted his face as he watched me shudder under his touch. “Beg me.”
“Please fuck me, please. I can't take it, Dante, I need you.” My hips swayed, trying to force him inside. “Please fuck me.”
“Good girl.” In one thrust his cock was deep inside me, hands curling over my hips and holding me up. My shoulders fell forward, ass rising higher in the air.
Dante started off slow, his shaft working me open wider for his girth. I could feel all of him. From his swollen head as the crown pressed inside, to the thick veins running down the sides of his cock as he pulsed inside me.
Quickening his pace, I heard his breathing deepen, the moans becoming louder and more drawn out.
My body was in overload. Electricity surged over my skin, penetrating my brain. Dipping my head into the mattress, my eyes closed tight. Fireworks shot off in the darkness of my gaze, the bright colors exploding into beautiful sensations.
Thrust after thrust, Dante took me. Harder and harder he fucked me till my legs were turning into jello and I could barely remember my own name.
“Say it, tell me who I am.” Slamming into me, his balls smacked my clit. Stopping briefly, he spoke low and deep. “Say it.”
“Dante—Dante Pisani, fuck me, don't stop.” Clawing at the blanket, I buried my face into my arm. “Please don't stop.”
Dante grunted, his fingernails digging into the skin around my hips. I felt his body shake, cock pulsing its life into my heat.
Prickles jumped across my skin, the orgasm flooding my body like static. Every hair, every pore, every piece of me was completely awake.
The rush had started in my lower belly, stampeding through my muscles and making my toes curl. Moaning, my head rolled to the side as I fell forward onto my chest. “Oh my god, Dante.”
With a heavy hand, Dante gave my ass one last smack. “I told you.”
Flopping to my back, I threw my hands up over my head. “You told me what?”
“It's only wrong if you don't want it, but we both want it.” Dropping to his haunches, he dragged a hand through his hair. “Now all I need to do is keep it.”
Nineteen
Dante
A sharp pain cracked through my head, forcing me awake. The room around me was still blurry and hazy, I couldn't see a fucking thing.
A loud ringing pierced the inside of my head, blocking out the sounds around me, and putting the world on mute.
A voice was grumbling off in the background, the words all jumbled together as I tried to shake my head clear.
“I thought I told you!” Another thud of something hard as cement hit the side of my head. “Get the fuck up, you stupid fucking idiot!”
Shooting up in the bed, I felt Ivy jerk, gasping in fear. Instinctively I positioned myself in front of her, making sure whoever was raising hell on my skull right then couldn't get to her.
No one was going to hurt her. I meant that when I said it.
I didn't give a shit who was here for me, but
they wouldn't lay a finger on her.
“Fuck!” I yelled, holding my arms out to block the intruder from her. “What the hell!?”
“I warned you, I fucking warned you.” My father's voice shattered my eardrums, his tone enraged with more anger than I had seen since Sesto screwed us over. “Get up.” Grabbing my arm, he yanked me from the bed and let me drop to the floor.
“Dad, what are you doing here?”
“How dare you question me.” His eyes swelled, lids disappearing into the sockets as the white of his eyes took over. “What the hell are you doing? I knew I shouldn't have listened to you! I knew I should have just killed her!”
“No, you can't kill her! Dad, Remo is going to pay, he's going to.” Waving my arms side to side, I shook my head no.
“Yeah, you're right, he is. He did already, last night. I tried calling you, but obviously you were too deep in her cunt to see that.” Scraping his hand over his head, he rubbed his forehead. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Climbing off the floor, I stood inches from my father’s face. “Does it matter? So I got laid, so what? Is that such a bad thing? It doesn't change anything. You didn't care if Tony wanted her, so what the hell is the difference?”
I needed to calm him down, I wanted him to think it was just sex. But even as the words came out, I felt how wrong I was.
It wasn't just sex, I didn't just fuck her. She had claimed a piece of me just as much as I claimed her. I hated that she even had to hear me say it that way. I didn't mean it all, but this was the game. All I could hope was that she knew I was playing a role, feeding him lines to help settle his anger.
I had to keep him from killing her. If my father thought that for one second I was weak, that she had wiggled her fingers around me and was using me to her advantage . . .
Ivy would be done.
And I didn't fight this hard to make her mine for him to end it right here like this.
“Is that right?” An ominous chuckle rolled through the room as he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Do you think I'm stupid?”
“No, I—”
Cutting me off, he growled. “Shut up. I didn't give you permission to speak.” Thumbing the side of his gun, my father eyed me through thin lids. “Do you think I don't know what you did? Did you really think that your little stunt wouldn't find its way to me?”
Looking at Ivy, she tilted her head in confusion. Her lips drew in, growing razor sharp, brows furrowing deep into the bridge of her nose. “What did you do, Dante?”
Raising a finger in her direction, my father spoke low and firm. “I don't want to hear you say another word.” His face stayed on mine, voice bubbling with delirious rage. “You really thought you could change the rules in this? That you could throw your weight where it didn't belong?”
“No.” Balling my fists, I couldn't hide how fucking pissed I was. My father wasn't right this time, he was playing with an open flame that he kept dousing with gasoline.
I've always done what he said and never asked more questions than I deserved. I've moved the freight through barred doors and pulled the trigger so many times I couldn't count.
But this time I couldn't do it.
I won't do it.
“You asked Remo if you could buy her. You want to purchase his slut, Dante?”
Snapping my head over my shoulder, I looked at Ivy. Her face was filled with sadness, eyes large in shock and disappointment. I never meant for her to find out about the offer I gave Remo.
I just wanted to find a way to keep her. It wouldn't have mattered how much Remo wanted, I would've paid it.
But I fucked up.
Ivy knew now, she knew I had tried to buy her just like he had. I knew she wasn't some ornate object that you could trade and barter for. But I did it . . . I tried.
And I failed.
Remo gave in, he wanted her. The idea of her being back in his hands made me sick to my stomach. He couldn't have her, there was no way in hell I would do that to her again.
“Dad—”
His hand flew up, palm almost smashing into my nose. “Shut up, Dante. I don't care what excuse you want to give me, this girl is going back. I hope you got your dick wet enough to forget she ever existed.” Circling in front of me, he kept glancing at Ivy.
Pacing, he took a lunge toward the bed. Ivy's body was trembling as she held the covers up to her chin. She was watching him with desertion, reading him, and trying to read me. Her eyes were begging me to help her, but they also turned sour, hating me for what I had tried to do.
Her skin had turned milky, muscles convulsing under the blanket. Her jaw was askew, chattering her teeth together as if she was outside in the cold.
And the worst part of it all was I could feel her pain. It cut me deep, making me hate myself for what I wanted so badly.
I had never truly felt sorrow or disgrace before in my life for anything I had done in my past. But right then all those feelings ate me from the inside out. My heart was being stabbed repeatedly over and over, my stomach was curdling and leaking its hate into the back of my throat.
What have I become?
My father tapped the bed frame with the end of his gun, humming under his breath with an evil laughter. “And as for you . . .” Bouncing the gun in the air in her direction, he shot a glare at me over his shoulder. “I know what you're trying to do, don't think I don't. He can't help you, you're going back to Remo, you're going back to your owner.”
“Wait!” I exclaimed in confusion. “You knew? You knew he owned her?”
“Dante, I know a lot of things. And there's a lot of things I don't tell you.”
“How could you know that and not do something about it? You know he's a fucking bastard and you bend over backwards to keep his dirty secrets. Why, why would you let him do this? I thought you were human in some form, what would Mom think if she saw you today?”
The words barely left my lips before my father whipped the gun across my face. “Don't you dare do that! Don't you ever use your mother in our business!”
I knew he expected me to cower, to bend my head and lower to a knee to show repentance for what I said. Fuck that, not this time. “Look at her! Look at her scars, look at her bruises!” Yelling, I stepped into him and not away. His gun was pointed at my chest, finger tucked snugly around the trigger. With the barrel flush against my skin, I pushed back, causing it to dig into my flesh. “Do it. If you can stand here and tell me you're alright with what that man has done to her . . .” Holding my breath for a second, my face softened. “Then kill me now.”
I knew my dad was hard, I knew he held very little sympathy for human life. I'd seen it enough times. But he was always fair. He never harmed someone who wasn't involved directly with fucking him over.
Ivy was innocent in all this. She had no part in anything that Remo owed us, and she never deserved what he put her through.
My father's brows dipped in, wrinkles forming across his forehead. “It's not my business, Dante, and it's not yours. I only get involved when it concerns me, she doesn't concern me. But now that you obviously took what he wanted her for, I hope you know what his punishment could be.” Lowering the cold metal, it flashed and twinkled as the sun beat against the steel.
He can't do it.
“He's not going to fucking touch me, I'll kill him.”
An evil smile filled his face as he laughed softly. “Not to you . . . To her.”
I felt the air leave my lungs as my father just stared at me. The room seemed to fade in and out, his face turned fuzzy and gray. The idea of Remo killing her . . . That hit a nerve.
No. I won't let that happen.
He can't have her and he can't kill her.
Tears streaked Ivy's cheeks, her chest rising and falling fighting for air. Her quiet breaths turned into loud sobs. The silence she kept slipped away into tiny droplets and desperation.
Everything I wanted was right there, right there in that woman.
And n
ow it was about to be snuffed out.
“Why do you let him control you?” Holding my arms out, I wasn't backing down from him giving me my answers. I was tired of that prick Remo getting away with murder and my father just letting him.
“Don't, Dante, it's non—”
“Right, it's none of my business.” Shaking my head, I drew my hand over my jaw. “Well now I'm making it my business. Tell me.” Bridging the gap between us, I put myself right between him and Ivy. If he wasn't going to care for her and her life, then I didn't want him even looking at her.
Cocking his jaw, my father sat silent for a moment. His eyes danced over mine, serious and stone cold. “Dante, I don't think now is the time to get into this.”
Forcing my back to grow taller, I stood my ground. I wasn't taking no for an answer, I had to know why he bent over backwards for that man. “Tell. Me.” Lowering my jaw into my chest, I glared at him through slit lids.
Dropping his head, he fiddled with the cuff links on his suit. “The night your mother died we were all at the grand opening for Remo's father's shipyard. It was a great night, it was fun actually.” I watched his eyes fade away, leaving us in that room as he remembered that night, remembered my mother, remembered the love he lost.
He never spoke about my mother's death in detail. The only thing he would say is that she was killed, and that it was Remo's family's fault. But as he continued, as he gave me the short version of what went down, I saw the hatred he carried with it.
His eyes softened, and I was almost waiting for him to cry. Bane Pisani doesn't cry.
But the tears he held back weren't just because he lost his wife, they held more. Shame. “Remo's father had offered us a hand in it all, but he had another family that wanted the deal. Well, they came in, stormed the place with guns blazing. Your mom didn't make it, that you know. Remo, the man you can't stand— he shot the guy who killed your mom, he did what I couldn't do. But it goes further than that. What I haven't told you was how Remo's father had hired the guys to do it. I wanted to kill him, Dante, I did that man for what he did. But