Old Flame: Dante’s Story by Sam Mariano
23
Colette
When Dante comes home,I can tell something is wrong almost immediately. At first glance I assume he just had a long day, but when I look again, I can tell by the look in his eye he’s been pushed well past his breaking point. He’s done with this day, and something must have happened to make it so.
Knowing there’s a mob war apparently going on that he’s a part of, I’m a little afraid to find out what it is that happened. I don’t even know how to ask without him shutting me down, telling me it’s business—and therefore none of mine.
We don’t talk right away, not with words anyway. Even though I know he’s unlikely to open up without at least some prying, I follow him to the bedroom. I have to. I’m like a magnet, helpless to resist the possibility that he’s exhibiting some sort of vulnerability. I’ve always been a sucker for it. Dante is a fortress, hard and cold and impermeable as hell. Before I left, I didn’t even think it was possible to hurt that man. He seemed invincible to me, above mere humanity. I worshipped him when we were together, celebrated his strength; I was in awe of him.
It’s really something knowing that while nothing else may be able to hurt this man, I did. I’m not proud of it, I didn’t want to hurt him, but I truly didn’t know I was capable.
Now I get the feeling something else has, and since I know he’s unbreachable, I know it must be something bad.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and watch wordlessly as he rips his clothes from his body like they’ve pissed him off. I have no idea what to expect on the heels of whatever is radiating off him so I don’t know what to brace for. He seems angry, so he’ll run hot, but how? Will he rage, or will he fuck me? I’ll let him if he needs it. I may not necessarily like him right now, we may even be at war, but I don’t have it in me to turn him away if he really needs me.
He’s not hard when he strips off the last of his clothing, but I can’t keep my eyes off him. Dante has the sexiest back, so strong and broad, and covered with tattoos on top of it. I haven’t paid much attention since I’ve been back, but now that I have an unobstructed view of his back and he’s not trying to fuck me, I see that he did get a new tattoo. My lips curve up faintly at how fitting it is—a bird cage with the door open and his treasured pet escaping.
Me. He put me on his back.
With a sigh, I stand and move up behind him. I touch his shoulder and feel him stiffen beneath my fingers, then I press my open palm to the newly inked skin.
I could say something inane like, “this is new,” but I don’t say a word. He knows and I know, and words are irrelevant. He looks back at me over his shoulder and my heart skips a beat when his dark gaze meets mine. I swallow, slowly drawing my hand away from his back. Even though I’m the one who approached him, I’m overcome with the sensation of being cornered and I need to put space between us.
I can’t break his gaze but I drop both hands and take a step back. It’s the wrong move, or the right move, I’m not sure anymore. He turns on his heel and advances on me, causing my heart to speed up.
He advances faster than I back up and before I know it he’s grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking me against him. I gasp at the impact. Heat from his body scorches mine and crawls up my neck, causing my face to flush. I still feel like I should turn and run, but before I can even consider entertaining common sense, Dante strikes, crushing his lips against mine and pulling me so tightly against his hot skin, I feel like I’m on fire.
I let him ravage my mouth, knowing if I didn’t he would anyway. I let him rip my clothes off with an unmatched aggression. I grimace when I hear threads tear, remembering how I used to buy two of my favorite items because he’s such a brute, I could never trust he wouldn’t destroy one of them in his haste to get me naked.
I guess that’s Dante. He’s too brutish, too impatient, too rough. He destroys delicate things before he realizes he’s done it, and if I had any sense, I would’ve left him the first time I realized that.
Dante hauls me into the bathroom and turns on the shower. Where he wasn’t hard before, he certainly is now. He catches me eyeing his dick when he turns back to me. I flush, but his face doesn’t betray even a trace of amusement or pleasure at having caught me.
That’s odd.
“Are you okay?” I finally ask, troubled by his lack of response.
“Yep,” he says, rather coldly. “I did what he couldn’t, you know?”
I tense up, thinking he must be referring to Declan even though I’ve asked him not to. “What are you talking about?” I ask guardedly.
“I brought you back. When Belle ran away from my dad, he couldn’t get her back.”
Rearing back a little, I frown. “Your dad?”
I now have absolutely no idea where his head is at. I’ve met Dante’s dad, but not the version of him he once was. I’ve heard the horror stories about Matt Morelli and his obsession with his first wife. I know she hated him and ran away with a man she actually loved. I know he found her and massacred her and the family she dared create without him. I know he’s a psycho, so my crazy, murderous apple didn’t fall too far from the family tree.
I don’t know why we’re talking about him, particularly in this capacity. I realized long ago that Dante and I don’t see things the same way, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he’s less horrified by his father’s atrocities and more competitive about having done better. While I tend to agree with Mateo that their father is a vile, despicable monster, Dante… doesn’t see things that way. It hasn’t mattered, though. Since their evil father fell sick and Mateo cloistered him away from the rest of the family, the vengeful old man is more or less harmless.
“You don’t hate me as much as she hated him.”
I think he’s insisting on that more for himself than for me, but I don’t say anything. I wait to see where this is going.
Turns out, it’s not going anywhere. Dante has said his piece, I guess, given me the only glimpse I’ll get right now of whatever war is brewing inside him. He grabs my arm and drags me into the shower with him. The hot spray hits me as I move around to the other side. Dante pushes me against the tile and leans into me, covering my body with his. His hand drops between my thighs, his fingers covering the sensitive flesh.
“This is mine,” he states.
I swallow, but don’t agree or disagree.
He doesn’t need me to. Without breaking my gaze, he moves his hand to my heart. Almost defiantly, he informs me, “This, too.”
My heart aches and it’s harder to hold his gaze. It’s starting to hurt, and not the good kind of hurt. I swallow, torn between continuing to let him get away with murder just because he might be sad, and holding him accountable. My head conquers my heart and I reach up to remove his hand, telling him simply, “It was.”
Dante doesn’t accept my rebuff. “It still is. Always has been, even when you were gone. You ran from me out of fear, not because you didn’t love me anymore.”
“You say that like it’s normal,” I remark, looking way from him.
Bringing his hand to my jaw and guiding my gaze back to his, he says, “In my family, it is.”
“I’m not part of your family,” I tell him, even though the words feel wrong in my mouth. We may never have married, but at the time I felt as much a part of Dante’s family as I would have as his wife.
“Yeah, you made that clear when you left.”
Given this could easily stray to unfriendly waters and it seems like he has had a hard enough day, I ask, “Do you really want to talk about this right now, Dante?”
“You’re the one who doesn’t want to talk about it,” he states, still with that mean look in his eyes. Unease moves through me. I want to be there for him for some ungodly reason, but I don’t think he’s seeking comfort now, I think he’s spoiling for a fight.
I don’t want to fight with him, so rather than let him misdirect whatever anger someone else has triggered in him, I reach my hand out and lightly drag my fingertips across his toned abdomen. I meet his gaze and hold it, then let my hand drop a little lower until it’s wrapped around his cock.
My distraction is adequate.
There’s nothing tender or loving about the way he fucks me, but I didn’t expect there to be. Not this time. This is more a catharsis than lovemaking, a fucked up form of therapy for a man who doesn’t like using his words to express himself when he can use his body instead.
I’d like to think of it as generosity on my part, but the pair of orgasms he gives me tell a different story. When we emerge from the steamy shower, he lets me grab a towel and start to dry off, but then he reconsiders, yanking it out of my hand, dragging me into the bedroom, and tossing me on the plushy king mattress where he proceeds to draw a third orgasm out of me.
We lie on the bed in the aftermath, my pillow growing damper by the moment, the luxurious sheets wet from the sheen of sweat that developed while he fucked me or the clean spray from the shower, I’m not sure. I try to brush off the lingering sense of guilt that I went along with all that, that I comforted the monster who murdered Declan when I should have let him suffer. I grasp for several defensive arguments to feed my conscience, but it’s fed up and sickened, disinterested in my lies.
I saw him hurting, and I wanted to make it stop. The end.
I hope selfishly that there is no afterlife, that Declan’s ghost isn’t standing at the foot of the bed, absolutely disgusted that he lost his life over me.
Before I can sink any deeper into self-loathing, I turn my head to look at Dante and focus on his pain. “Wanna tell me what happened?”
He looks more in control than he was a few minutes ago. Shaking his head, he counters, “Want to tell me why you’re feeling guilty?”
My eyes widen in surprise. I haven’t said a word to him about my conflicted feelings and I thought I was doing a decent job at masking my own distress while trying to help him with his. “What?”
“What?” he mocks, before rolling his eyes. “Don’t waste both our time with that bullshit. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I didn’t expect him to call me on it. I have to fight the urge to roll away from him and shut him out. I’d prefer to turn the focus onto his thing. “Nothing new. Tell me what’s up with you.”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. He stares up at the high ceiling, pensive but quiet. “My dad’s dead.”
My eyes widen. “What? When?”
His lips curve down as he shrugs his shoulder. “Mateo didn’t specify. Just told me he’s dead and we have to plan a funeral.”
“Was it his illness?” I ask gingerly, realizing I’m not even sure exactly what illness he had. Something terminal, maybe cancer?
“I don’t know. I was caught off guard, I didn’t even ask. He seemed good last time I saw him. Better than he has been, even. He seemed like things were looking up, you know?”
I nod my head sympathetically.
Dante shakes his head. “But now he’s just… gone.”
Wrapping my arms around him and snuggling up against his side, I tell him, “I’m so sorry, Dante. I don’t even know what to say.”
“My brother’s dead, too. Family members are dropping like flies, apparently.”
I blink in mild surprise, since none of Dante’s brothers are old. Clearly he’s not referring to Mateo since it was Mateo who delivered the news of his father’s death. “Alec or Joey?”
“Joey. Apparently he was behind the shot taken at Mateo. That’s what Mateo says, anyway.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Dante states. “Joey didn’t hate Mateo and he wasn’t ambitious, so what did he have to gain by taking Mateo out? I take over the family, nothing changes for Joey.”
“Who does it change for?”
“Well, me.”
That’s obvious, but somehow I didn’t think of it until Dante spelled it out. Fear lances me at the thought of Mateo considering Dante a legitimate threat. “Mateo doesn’t think you had anything to do with that, does he?”
“I don’t fucking know,” he says, tiredly. “I don’t think so, but who knows what Mateo thinks. He was definitely holding something back, I could feel it. He’s not a fucking moron, so he knows as well as I do that it doesn’t make sense for Joey to try to get him killed. As paranoid as he is, I don’t understand why he’s so sure it was Joey and not Vince.”
“Why would it be Vince? Why would he want Mateo dead?”
“Mateo fucked Mia a while back. Kid’s resentful about it. He’s always been a hot-head and he just so happens to be Joey’s best friend, so you tell me how it makes sense that Joey—the biggest fucking slacker in the family—took it upon himself to get rid of Mateo, and Vince—the only one of us Mateo has been fucking with lately—wasn’t even involved.”
It doesn’t. And Mateo is among the most intelligent men I’ve ever encountered, not to mention the most paranoid of threats around him, so it doesn’t add up that he wouldn’t notice. “Is something distracting him?” I ask Dante.
“That fucking girl,” Dante says, shaking his head.
“Meg?”
“Mia. Meg’s a smoke screen. I don’t know what he’s doing with her, but it’s Mia he’s interested in. I don’t know if he’s literally blinded by her and can’t see what’s right in front of his face, or…” His voice trails off with a hint of dread, like he doesn’t want to consider it might be whatever else he’s thinking.
“Or what?” I ask, curious as an ill-fated cat.
His voice hardens. “Or he does know, and he’s letting it go for her.”
“You hate that idea,” I surmise.
“It’s not good. Doesn’t bode well. When Mateo’s in control of himself he’s fine, but when he falls in love, he can do some stupid shit. Look at Beth. That bitch could have knocked our whole family down like a line of dominos, and all because he fucking trusted her and didn’t see what she was doing. I’m getting the impression he trusts Mia, and he knows better now. He knows you can’t fucking trust anyone but family in this life.”
Those words surprisingly hurt, and it takes me a minute to understand why. Dante always trusted me, and to hear him say that now, to hear the cynicism in his voice, his disapproval at the idea of his brother falling in love again… I put it there.
Despite how wrong his response was, despite the chaos he has wrought and pain he has caused, I have to acknowledge that I caused some, too.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I tell him, softly. “It’s not always a mistake to trust someone, and it’s hard to give your heart to someone you don’t fully trust. If I damaged your ability to trust, I guess I can see why you didn’t fall in love again after I left.”
“I didn’t fall in love again because I never fell out of love with you, and you can’t be in love with two people at once. Well, I can’t. I guess you managed it.”
He doesn’t bother hiding his disdain, but I can see right through to the hurt underneath. I’m sure I’ll regret saying this as soon as it’s out there, but whatever lapse in judgment I’m currently experiencing, I can’t help telling the truth. “I wasn’t… in love. I mean, I loved Declan, but it was nothing like what I felt for you. He was safe and comfortable and couldn’t hurt me if he tried; it was nice to feel that way after the intensity of us. I didn’t really want to find that again with anyone else. When I left, I was looking for something completely different. I never tried to replace you, Dante. I knew that would be impossible.”
His eyes lock with mine and we just lie there for a moment, looking at one another. After a minute, he rolls onto his side so he can lean closer to me, then his massive hand cradles my face and he pulls me in for a kiss. This one isn’t brutal or aggressive, it’s not an act of jealousy or a stamp of possession. It’s tender and soft, his lips caressing mine gently, lovingly. I get the impression if I pushed him away right now he’d let me, but I don’t want to. Kisses like this one are rare from Dante, they were even back when we were together and things between us were magnificent.
Normally it’s the hard, possessive kisses that get my heart pumping, the ones that convey without words that he owns me, body and soul. But this soft, sweet kiss gets my heart racing for another reason entirely; it feels like asking instead of demanding. It feels like he’s coaxing my heart back into his hands. I don’t have a choice in the matter, but it’s not because he isn’t giving me one this time. It’s because I can’t say no. It’s because no matter how awful the things he has done are, some part of me doesn’t want to. The temptation to sink back into him and let him obliterate every legitimate objection I have is strong, and although he’s the one who started the kiss, I’m the one who rolls closer into his embrace. I’m the one who won’t let go.
With his free hand, he reaches down and spreads my legs. I open them willingly, then lock them around him as he moves on top of me. He reaches down to guide himself inside me and I sigh with relief, closing my eyes and pulling him closer.
His sensual lips brush my cheeks, the tip of my nose, my eyelid, then he presses them against my forehead. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” he says quietly.
Neither do I. The words get stuck in my throat, though. I don’t know if I’m not there yet or I just don’t want to be. I don’t want to desert Declan’s memory or accept the horrible things Dante has done. I desperately want him, but I can’t let myself have him. I just can’t.
“Just forgive me,” he says, causing my stomach to plummet and my eyes to open.
Looking directly into his dark eyes as he moves inside me, I ask, “Is that an apology?”
“No,” he tells me, not breaking my gaze. “I’m not sorry for what I did. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’d kill him with my bare hands. I would never let you marry another man, Colette. You know that. I am sorry it hurt you, though. I’m sorry I let you leave in the first place.”
Tilting my neck as he moves to start kissing it, I murmur, “That was a terrible apology.”
“I can apologize for the things I’m actually sorry for, Colette, nothing more.” He leaves a trail of aroused senses as he drags his lips up the sensitive column of my neck. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’ll always be sorry for that. But I’m not sorry I killed the asshole who took what was mine. I’ll never be sorry for that, and if you need me to be, you’re always gonna be disappointed.”
I sigh, torn between loyalties. It’s shameful, but I’m sorely tempted to give up my ground and come back to the dark side. What Dante did to Declan was terrible, particularly if I’m looking at it like an outsider, but if I look at things from his perspective, it looks much different. It’s clear now that regardless of how crazily inaccurate it is, Dante views my relationship with Declan as a betrayal. To him, I may as well have cheated, because once I promised myself to Dante, it was a binding contract, whether I physically left the relationship or not. I know he never would have, but if Dante had ever cheated on me, I would have wanted blood, too, and I’m not even a violent person. If I looked at some strange woman and saw her as the obstacle between myself and Dante when we were together, I would have been able to stop looking at her like a person long enough to do something horrible to her. Not that I ever had a real reason to be, but Dante and I have always been intensely territorial over one another, and how dare anyone else touch what belonged to me.
I would have felt that way, and I grew up like a normal human being. Dante grew up in a crime family where they take what they want without apology. It’s in his nature to do what he did, and if I had realized how deeply he loved me, how attached he really was even after I had left, I would have known that.
Maybe he’s bad, but he’s not entirely to blame in this. I should have known better.
“Can you at least promise you would never do anything like this again?”
Dante’s lips drift away from my skin long enough for him to make eye contact. “Only if you never give me another reason to.”
I swallow uneasily, holding his gaze. “That sounds an awful lot like you want a commitment.”
Dante’s lips curve up in faint amusement. “You’re committed to me whether you want to be or not, beautiful. All you gotta do is accept it and no one else has to get hurt.”
I shake my head as I snake a hand up to caress the strong curve of his jaw. “You’re a bad man.”
Dante shrugs, unconcerned.
“When I was younger, I didn’t really think about what that meant, but now…”
He gives me a moment to finish my thought, and when I don’t he prods, “Now, what?”
Meeting his gaze, I ask, “Does loving you make me a bad person, too?”
Dante catches my wrist, his long fingers curling around it like a shackle. “Better question. Who cares? Who do you have to answer to but me?”
A reluctant smile pulls at my lips. “I like how you added that in there.”
“You’re worrying about shit that’s irrelevant to us, Colette. Who gives a fuck what anyone else thinks about it? This is our life, no one else’s.”
“I know, but…”
“But nothing.” He drops tender kisses to my restrained hand, telling me, “I’m yours and you’re mine. Nothing else matters.”
Declan mattered. I’m tempted to utter the verboten words, but I don’t want to rile Dante up again. Rather than stoke that fire, I keep my mouth shut and let myself enjoy this rare pocket of tenderness.
