“It was her favorite place in the world — Frank’s ranch house in Wyoming. So, being the competitive dick Luca was, he decided that if she ever came back to Chicago, came back to this life, he’d have a replica waiting for her.” I couldn’t find words, didn’t know what to say, these people, they were strangers to me, people who gave me life but never walked me through it. People who loved as hard as they warred.
“Dante, your father’s will — he deeded the house to you, for you to give your wife should you ever come back into the fold — one final gift, someplace safe for your family — something he never had.”
“It’s ours?” El choked out then covered her mouth with her hand. “We have a house?”
Phoenix chuckled. “Not just any house, El, you’re completely off grid, nobody knows it exists, just make sure to turn your GPS off your cell phones. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Phoenix,” I rasped, finding my voice. “Thank you.”
Silence and then heartless Phoenix’s voice cracked. “Love her well, Dante. We don’t know our future. Twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours,” I repeated, then ended the call.
“We have a house,” El said for the third time. “An actual house!”
I’d never seen her so animated, so excited, it rubbed off on me because hell yeah we didn’t just have a house.
No, because houses could be built.
My father had left me something I’d never had.
He’d left me a home.
CHAPTER FIFTY
El
DANTE STARED UP at the house, his eyes filled with longing, his body language stiff.
“Hey,” I reached for his hand.
He jerked in his seat when my fingers grazed his.
The velvet texture of his thumb ran across mine, his eyes closed like he was in pain, his thumb continued to caress me, barely touching me and my body was crackling with his awareness, my heart thumping with each breath he took.
With a shudder, he pulled back. “We should get inside.”
“Yeah.” I unbuckled my seat belt while he calmly stepped out of the car and grabbed our bags, gravel crunching under his boots.
I’d never seen such a beautiful porch in my entire life. Two white chairs were placed next to a large swing, I don’t know why but it felt romantic — and at the same time.
Devastating.
Maybe because this was the type of home you filled with children, the type of place you past down generation after generation.
And it was empty.
Maybe because now I knew, it was built for a mom Dante never met, by a man who was completely owned by the mafia, it had wrapped its tentacles around him just like Dante.
And part of me cried out in despair — would we face that exact same fate.
Twenty-four hours.
And then complete unknown.
Dante set the bags gently by my feet as we both faced the screen door.
He let out a breath. “Do you wish you would have gone with safe now?”
I reached for his hand and quietly said. “Safe is boring.”
“Boring also means living.”
“No.” I turned to him, dropped his hand and gripped his face between my hands. “This, right here, this is living.”
His breath hitched as I pressed a feather light kiss to his mouth, his lips were hot, his tongue heavy as he deepened the kiss, his muscled body pinned mine against the door. It was a full-on assault of the senses, the addicting power behind his kiss, behind his body, behind the very hands that had spilled blood — that had promised to love and protect me.
To kill for me.
To die for me.
He pulled back as I sagged against his chest trying to catch my breath. Kissing Dante made me never want to breathe again, breathing meant prying my lips free from his and that always sounded like the worst possible choice I could make in life whenever he was near.
“You’re driving me insane.” He rasped, kissing my head before pulling the door open and turning to give me one of the sexiest smirks I’d ever seen that had my thighs clenching together in memory of what it felt like to have his head between them. “And I don’t think twenty-four hours is enough time to do all the things I want to—” he stopped himself his eyes slowly raking over me before he cursed and held the door open for me.
I stepped in.
Eyes wide.
Mouth gaping.
“This is,” I did a small circle of the entry way, every piece of wood looked like it had been specifically picked by hand. “Incredible!”
Dante’s face fell as he clenched his jaw. “Yeah.”
The tension in the room could have made even Phoenix sweat, the way Dante switched moods, one second ready to rip my clothes off the next like he wanted to ram his face through a wall and stay there for the next twenty-four hours.
It was another reminder how well we didn’t know each other, how much time we still needed to get past the phases where one of us or both say or do the wrong thing.
All I knew about him other than my feelings for him.
Was that the only thing that tended to calm him down was fighting.
Blood.
Not really how I planned on the next twenty-four hours going, but I went with it anyway.
Maybe I was a woman desperate.
Maybe I was in over my head.
But I wanted my monster.
And I wanted to break through whatever was going on in that head of his.
So without any warning, I punched him in the shoulder, and when he turned to me with a mixture of shock and irritation.
I did it again.
This time he blocked me. Murder in his eyes.
Yeah I was going to end up in a body bag.
What was I thinking?
Dante could take down four guys at once.
Dante shot a complete stranger because another complete stranger told him to!
He gripped me by the shirt and slammed me into the wall closest to me. I sucked in a breath at the impact.
And then his mouth nipped mine, he bit down on my lower lip sucked me dry, tangled my shirt in his hands and then jerked it free from my body.
I closed my eyes as the sound of one giant rip filled the quiet house.
And then his mouth was on me again.
His hands everywhere.
“Never,” He gritted his teeth as he tugged my bra free and skimmed one of my nipples with his tongue before sucking it completely into his mouth, his tongue flicking, harder, harder, I whimpered. “Never do that again.”
“Talk to me—” I gripped him by the hair, forcing his face to meet mine.
“After.” His blue eyes flashed with pain. “I’ll talk to you after.”
“After what?”
His answer was another smug grin before he fell to his knees in front of me and ducked under my skirt. He bit inside my thigh.
My knees buckled as little bites up my other thigh followed, and then panties discarded somewhere near my feet as cold air hit me in the ass.
Then heat.
So much heat that I had trouble standing straight as I lamely tried to grip the flat wall with my fingers, digging them into the plaster in the vain hope that I wouldn’t end up passing out from pleasure.
Dante stretched me with his tongue, then as he gripped my ass with his hands dove into me face first, the man sucked with the same precision, the same intensity as he killed.
With every cell in his body focused on one solitary thing.
My pleasure.
Me.
I squeezed my thighs, trying to slow down the waves of pleasure, only to earn a hard smack on the ass followed by a bite that had me both embarrassed and turned on.
“Not done yet,” he said against my thigh. “Damn you taste good.”
Feather light touches from his tongue were my undoing.
The lightest of touch did it.