Page 30 of Ruthless

I whimper as shame intertwines with desire. Between the darkness and all the bodies on the dance floor, I doubt anyone can tell what we’re up to, but even if they could, I wouldn’t care.

“Beg for it, Sara.” He stops moving, and I dig my nails into the material of his shirt in helpless frustration. Damn him. Damn him and the power he wields over me. The spell he casts is absolute, compelling me to obey his every command.

“Please.” My head blanks. In this moment, only he exists. “Please, Dante. I need you.”

With a growl, he hauls me into an empty booth. Everything’s spinning, and I can’t catch my breath as he drops onto the seat, dragging me backward into his lap, my legs spread open on either side of his.

I shiver, my heart in my throat as a wicked excitement eats through the last of my resolve. The anger should still be present,and so should the fear, but self-preservation and common sense go out the window as soon as he touches me.

A female patient once told me that she kept going back to her toxic ex because she was “dickmitized.” Back then, I told her I didn’t have any treatment to offer her and sent her on her way, but now, understanding floods me in more ways than one.

Dante yanks my dress up to expose me from the waist down, the action rough and impatient. His fingers tease my slit, and I jerk, mewling pathetically, before his free hand covers my mouth. My head falls back against his shoulder as his fingers plow in and out of me with enough force to drive the air from my lungs.

The music fades, shifting from our song to a track with a deep, rhythmic bass similar to the house music that played when we first arrived. My hips roll in time with the beat, and I do my best to contain the noises spilling from my mouth with little success.

I continue to tilt my head back until I meet the inky depths of his eyes, my hips writhing for more of his caress. He growls beneath his breath in Italian, and for a second, I’m sure he’ll kiss me. I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Then he cups my chin, dips the pad of his thumb into my mouth, and fucks a third finger inside me.

He knows I can take it. More than that, he knows Ineedit.

He’s wild, insatiable, demanding as much as I’m giving. My excitement slicks my inner thighs, and he murmurs his approvals and praises against the shell of my ear just like he used to. How I’ve missed this. Him. The way he knows my body better than I do. The way his every muscle tenses with his own desire. As I grind my ass down against the bulge in his lap and provoke a throaty groan in the process, I grin in triumph.

Using that momentum, I try to reach back for him, to urge his mouth to mine, but he angles his head away, denying me. Hepunctuates the moment by pressing his thumb against my clit, and on the next foray of his fingers, my body convulses, on the brink of a blinding climax.

Just as I hover on the edge, Dante removes his fingers with a sharp curse, leaving me hollow and clenching on nothing. My looming orgasm fades away, unfulfilled.

Sobbing, I sink my teeth into the flesh of his thumb as my frustration mounts, but he just waits me out. When I finally release him, he pushes me off his lap. I adjust my dress as humiliation sets in.Again.

Will I ever be free of this? Will I ever stop giving him the tools to hurt me? To carve the gaping hollow he left inside of me even deeper? I’m not sure how much longer I can stomach this personal hell. Gasping, I curl in on myself, every part of me still clamoring for release as Dante scoots out of the booth and adjusts the front of his steel gray dress pants.

Disgust twists his features, as if he can see my overwhelming need. When he wipes his hand on the leg of his pants, a fragile part of me that’s struggled to survive ever since he re-entered my life shatters like glass.

He’s alive, and he’s here with me.

But he also hates me.

He might as well have cut open my chest and scooped out my heart. I’d thought…

Stupidly, I’d hoped that…

“Don’t you dare get it into your head that this meant anything. You’re nothing more than a pretty hole.” Hooking a finger onto the metal piece at the front of my collar, he jerks me to my feet, his eyes dark and his mouth tight. When he speaks, he breathes his hatred into my mouth. “And I’ll be damned if I risk breaking the Code over someone like youeveragain.”

Breaking the code?What code? Is this related to the mafia business he mentioned earlier? Whatever the case, I can’t wrapmy head around it right now. Not when my thwarted desire wars with all the uncertainty and the ever-growing ache in my heart.

He snaps his fingers, and I spread my legs without hesitation? I’m supposed to be getting under his skin, and instead, he’s worming his way under mine and molding me into someone I don’t even recognize. A plaything that only exists to fulfill his wishes.

With silent expectation, he tosses me the silk blindfold. I fumble to secure the material behind my head, and only once he’s satisfied that my vision’s blocked does he start the car. Not being able to see him looking at me in the rearview mirror is a blessing in disguise. I’d rather he not know that I enjoyed what he did to me, and I have no doubt he’d be able to read the truth in my eyes with ease.

My passion disgusts him now, so it disgusts me too. I’m supposed to help him rediscover the man he used to be, but whatever existed between us in the past is gone, and this new connection is toxic and rotten. A consequence of old wounds allowed to fester. I don’t understand why Dante blames me for his trauma, and since the topic always enrages him, I may never learn why.

Once I accept reality, though, I can finally stop confusing his lust for anything other than what it is.

If I can do that, then the next humiliation won’t hurt as much.

Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.

Chapter 11

Dante