Page 23 of Ruthless

I dress in record time, pulling the sweats over my bare skin and rolling the waistband to shorten the length. Once I finish, he grasps my arm roughly and hustles me back to my cell, still without a word.

With a gentle shove, he pushes me inside. The door slamming shut behind me and the click of the automatic lock hit me like a physical blow.

Defeated, I turn toward my cot and freeze. A thin, neatly folded blanket sits on the foot of the bed.

The cell smells of Lysol, not bleach, and the blanket’s vivid yellow hue attempts to brighten my personal hell. My heart pounds painfully in my chest as I lie down on the cot.

The fabric’s soft. Warm. And smells like him. The clothes do too.

Tears over disinfectant and a freaking blanket sting my eyes. This is how he wears me down, until even the bare minimum of thoughtfulness feels like a gift.

With gritted teeth, I bury my face in the blanket. It’s probably a cruel trick. Gregor will be back tonight after dinner to rechain me to the wall, and the blanket will be just out of my reach. Torturing me. I’d best brace myself for it.

Gregor does eventually arrive with dinner—a fresh-from-the-oven baked potato with all the fixings—and while he stands in the corner waiting for me to eat, I don’t hear his lungs wheezing anymore. After I finish, no one shackles my neck, and for the first time in a week, I can stretch out at night. My stomach feels full, and though the cot amounts to little more than a pallet, it’s a luxury compared to before.

I dig my palms into my eyes. I’m not sure if this considerate version of Dante makes everything harder or easier, but judging by the ache in my chest, I’m guessing the former.

I don’t trust this tiny display of kindness. Not from him.

Dante slants his lips over mine and swallows my needy noises as his touch trails the length of my body. His hands are rough and calloused, even when he handles me with care.

I shudder when he drags his mouth across my jaw and down my neck and digs his teeth into my skin. My hips roll on their own accord, and when I whimper, he laughs. A deep rumble travels up from his chest to tease my ears.

“I know what you want,coniglietta.” He slips his hand between my thighs and inside me with ease, screwing me withhis fingers the way he used to. His ring finger curls against my G-spot with exquisite precision as if he’s trying to write his name, and I twist, desperate for more. The motion is enough to wake me up, and when I open my eyes, it’s my own hand between my legs.

I want to stop, I really do, but I can’t seem to find the will.

Shouldn’t I hate him? Yes, but hate doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. It’s just…shit…it’s the way he looks at me. The way his muscles bunch when he hoists me up against his body…it breaks me. I want him back. I can’t stand the idea of losing him all over again, but what other choice do I have?

Desire and shame, guilt and resentment. Contradicting emotions rock through me in equal measure, but underneath it all, my fingers are a constant, traveling between my legs to sate that hot ache growing in my core. Though I should put an end to this, I don’t. Instead, I close my eyes and imagine him here. Envision him watching me on the security camera, because my fantasy is safer than my guilt, my desire for release stronger than my shame.

Would he unzip his pants as I push my fingers deep inside my pussy? Stroke his long, thick shaft as he pictures himself back between my legs? I can see it so clearly, smell him so clearly, I lift the edge of the sweatshirt and bite, exposing my bare stomach and drowning myself in his scent of spice and aged sandalwood.

I can almost taste his skin through the lingering musk on his shirt. I visualize him standing in front of me again, looking over my naked body while I shiver, helpless and trapped in front of him.

I’m desperate to feel an emotion that isn’t fear or hurt, so I keep going. Dante’s sweats rode down while I slept, and my hand dips beneath the waistband. I buck my hips, rockingagainst my finger over and over again, so close to coming in his clothes that stars dance behind my closed eyelids.

“Bella regazza.” Dante’s husky baritone outside my cell, muffled by the heavy steel door, comes out of nowhere. It shatters the perceived privacy of the moment, and I start violently. Jerking my hand out of my pants, I scramble to fix my clothes, my heart pounding painfully as I lie back beneath the blanket and pretend to sleep. When he doesn’t burst into my cell and accuse me of masturbating, I roll off my cot and creep silently across the room.

The floor is sloped ever so slightly to help various fluids slink toward the drains set up all over the place. Because of that, a narrow gap exists between the bottom of the door and the floor.

I’ve been staring at the light spilling from beneath that sliver for days, and now, I plant my cheek against the dingy cement ground to listen.

“You were amazing today,mia amata.” Dante, his voice gentle and adoring. “I know we started off on the wrong foot, but you’re improving every day.”

Air rushes out of me as if I’ve been kicked in the stomach. Is he talking to awoman?

“Hey, watch it!” An amused lilt colors his tone like a ghost. A remnant of the old Dante.

Something clicks on the hard floor, and I edge closer to the crack, peering as far as I can to the left until I spy a set of canine toes bouncing excitedly around Dante’s boots. “For fuck’s sake, Pistol.” He mutters the words, but they’re clearly anything but irritated. “I pay you one compliment, and you completely lose your shit. Have some self-respect, woman.”

I close my eyes, absorbing his occasional throaty laugh as Pistol darts in between his feet. It’s beautiful compared to the past week and a half’s icy sarcasm, and I drink in the joy until the elevator dings to signal their departure.

Too focused on picking my scattered thoughts up off the floor to move, I lie on the concrete with the chill slowly seeping through my clothes. It’s impossible to make sense of what I just heard, and I’m half-convinced I’ll open my eyes only to realize that the whole thing was a dream. I was so convinced that I understood him and that I’d finally seen him for the man, no, the monster that he is. But his interaction with Pistol transports me to the past, to the lighter version of the man I fell in love with.

Thatwas Dante without the filter, without the cruel, sadistic mask. It’s the version he becomes when he doesn’t have to perform. More than that, it’s the man he used to show me when we were together. A trace of softness still clings to him, however small, however entrenched in the wreckage of whatever he’s become.

When I finally do slink back beneath the blanket, I’ve got one objective at the forefront of my mind.