The Bastard’s Betrayal by Katee Robert
Chapter 10
Rose planned to argue about the sleeping arrangements. She did. But after twenty-four hours of stress, her body just kind of…gave out. She let Dante guide her back into the bedroom, brushed her teeth, and then collapsed onto the ridiculously comfortable mattress wearing only a tank top and underwear. The last thing she registered was Dante pulling the covers up higher around her shoulders.
She woke up to sunlight streaming through the windows and the faint sound of eighties’ rock. Rose sat up and shoved her hair back from her face. She’d meant to use the night to make another escape attempt or at least try to turn the tables, but…
Exhaustion would get the best of anyone in this scenario. That’s all it was. Frankly, she should be proud she lasted as long as she had without collapsing. Better to focus on that rather than the missed opportunities. She hauled herself out of bed and into the bathroom. She used the toilet and spent entirely too long brushing her teeth. Stalling. That’s what she was doing. Fucking stalling.
She used mouthwash and then stared at her reflection in the mirror. Gone was the perfectly put-together woman she’d curated for most of her life. Her hair was wild, she didn’t have a speck of makeup on her face, and there were faint circles beneath her eyes.
Getting out of here was her top priority. It had to be her top priority. She didn’t know what time it was or what time zone they were even in, but shit had most definitely hit the fan back in New York. Lorelei could only stall for so long. She needed to be there, helping to put out fires. That was fact.
It was also fact that she had no way to get out of this house. The glass was reinforced, and the door had a security panel that she couldn’t pry off, and didn’t know the passcode to. It was eight fucking digits, too, which meant there were tens of thousands of code possibilities; it would take her years to find the right one.
And that was just the first step.
Once she got out of this cabin, she had to figure out a way back to civilization. She had no true gauge for telling how close they were, and even with a road to follow, there was no guarantee she’d even reach the nearest city or town safely. No, the odds were not in Rose’s favor. No matter from which angle she looked at the situation, the fact remained that she was well and truly at Dante’s mercy.
If he was to be believed, he wanted to marry her.
Rose snorted. Yeah, like she was going to fall for that. She’d believed his feelings for her once before, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Whatever Dante’s goals, he might want her, but marrying her couldn’t possibly be the end game.
If it was…
That meant he was telling the truth about their farce of a relationship being at least as real to him as it was to her.
She pressed her hand to her chest. No. She couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make any fucking sense. Better to play out the scenarios and get the hell out of here. She and Dante had no future. Even if her foolish heart won, and she came down with a spontaneous case of Stockholm syndrome—which she was pretty sure didn’t even exist—her family would put an end to that the moment she arrived back in the city with her new husband. She’d be a widow before the day was out.
Honestly, that was probably the easiest solution. Bend instead of fighting. Let him win her over however he intended to and fast-track this process to getting back to civilization. It would be a different kind of battle of wills, but surely she could prevail… Couldn’t she?
Unless she was just twisting herself into knots in an excuse to take what she wanted from this man. She wasn’t a bad daughter, a horrible heir, if she had to seduce Dante to get free.
She shook her head. “Honesty, Rose.” Honestly, she had no way out. From her little tour of the cabin yesterday after getting dressed, there were no exits or windows that she could climb out of. The odds were stacked against her, and with time of the essence, she’d have to use every tool available. That was the truth.
But not the full truth.
The uncomfortable fact remained that while she might have thought herself in love with Jackson Smith, she’d never desired him with the ferocity she desired Dante. Things had been comfortable with Jackson. Nice. Sweet. Safe. A counter to the rest of her life, a selfish little vacation for only her every time she went to his apartment.
There was no separating Dante from her world. He was in it up to his eyeballs. She didn’t have to pretend right now, and even if he was the enemy, that truth attracted her. He wasn’t expecting her to be above reproach or be thinking of anyone but herself. Not her family, not her people. She couldn’t help being drawn to that. She didn’t have to pretend with him. Not anymore. He didn’t want her because she was Rose Romanov, heir to the Romanov empire in New York.
He only wanted her.
She followed the sound of music to the other side of the kitchen and a door she hadn’t seen last night because it was cleverly tucked into a little nook in the wall. It had been left cracked open, and she used a single finger to press it open farther. Inside was a home gym, but like everything else in this “rustic” cabin, it was the height of luxury. There was a treadmill and rowing machine tucked in the far corner and a selection of free weights set up, complete with rack and bench.
Dante was on his back on the bench, shirtless and sweaty, pressing up a truly impressive amount of weight stacked on either side of the bar. He was relatively vulnerable like this, or at least she’d assume that if she didn’t know better. No matter what he said about their theoretical future, Dante wasn’t going to let her hurt him just to make her happy. He wanted her, but he wanted her in a specific way and at a specific time. No matter how he pretended to react when she threatened him, she knew men like him.
He might not lay a finger on her, but he would use every other tool in his arsenal against her. If somehow her family found this cabin, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt them if they tried to take her from him.
She couldn’t keep playing things so harshly. Doing so put the people she loved in danger, either from the Capparelli family or from Dante himself. Rose couldn’t live with either option. Better to play along and make him think he was winning her over in some twisted version of Beauty and the Beast. The sooner he dropped his guard, the sooner she could do what needed to be done in order to free herself. And if she got what she wanted out of it in the process, too?
Well, she was only human.
No reason to think too hard about it. She was better suited to action, after all. Rose took a slow breath, squared her shoulders, and walked into the gym. Dante didn’t notice her until she was nearly beside him, and his only reaction was to raise his brows. The steady ascent and descent of the weight never changed.
Not even when she straddled him.
He did tense, though. Even that small response was enough to boost her confidence. She could do this. Rose had planned and executed raids and a number of shady operations over the years. She might not have had to play the undercover role—not when everyone in the NYC underworld knew her on sight—but surely she could pull this off.
“Have you eaten?” He didn’t even sound out of breath.
She shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”
Finally, a response from him. He stopped with the weight halfway to his chest. “You don’t take care of yourself.” The way he said it. As if he actually had her health and well-being in mind at any point of the time they’d known each other.
She didn’t know what to think of that, so she didn’t think about it at all. Rose leaned forward to put her hands on the bar inside his. “I could crush you like this.”
“Careful, Rosa, or I might start mistaking your violent threats as flirting.”
She didn’t smile at him. She couldn’t. But she did lower herself a little closer to his chest. Dante’s dark gaze lingered where her breasts pressed against the thin fabric of her tank top. The room was cold. That was the only reason her nipples were pebbled and achy. It certainly wasn’t because of the dangerous man between her thighs.
He hefted the bar up, lifting it and the small pressure she put on it to easily drop it into the rack. Dante sat up, the move sliding her down his stomach to land in his lap. He set his hands on her hips, squeezing lightly. His hard cock pressed against her, and she couldn’t help but shiver. Even that little movement made Dante’s eyes narrow. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She rocked her hips ever so slightly against him. It didn’t matter that she’d had sex with this exact man a few months ago. He felt different. She ran her hands up his chest, ignoring the temptation to linger on his new scars. Definitely ignoring the strange possessive feeling that arose when she looked at them, knowing she put them on his body. “You know I wake up needy in the morning.”
“Need your orgasms before you need your breakfast,” he murmured. In that moment, he sounded so much like Jackson, her heart twisted painfully in her chest. Dante kept staring at her as if he could divine the thoughts right out of her head. “What changed between last night and this morning?”
Damn it, he really was too smart for this to work. And she was too foolish to think she could do this without her traitorous heart getting fucked up in the process. “You don’t want to play? Fine. I’ll go take care of myself with that pulse shower head. It’ll get me there faster, anyway.” She rolled her eyes and started to stand.
He tightened his grip on her hips and jerked her back down. “You’re not serious.”
“I am.” She tried to stand again, mostly because it thrilled a dark, reckless part of her to have him holding her in place. He wasn’t overly rough, but the thought of wearing his fingerprints on her hips… She didn’t know what it said about it that she shivered at the thought and then shivered again when the little motion had her rubbing against his hard cock. “I’m angry and I’m frustrated and, while I still kind of want to kill you, my normal outlets are closed to me. I have to settle for you.” Strong words. Bold words. Her tone didn’t quite pull it off, though. She sounded needy.
“Your normal outlets,” he repeated slowly. He flexed his fingers on her hips, urging her to rock against him again, just the tiniest bit. “Tell me something, Rosa.”
“I don’t want to tell you anything.” The ridge of his cock lined up perfectly with her clit, and each stroke sent little zings of pleasure through her. What was he doing to her? They were barely touching. Even when she was more than ready to go, it usually took her a lot longer with Jackson to get to this point.
Except this wasn’t Jackson, was it? This was Dante.
Desire wound through her, thick as honey, and Rose knew her body well enough to recognize it wouldn’t take much to get her there. He hadn’t even kissed her. Hadn’t gone down on her. Hadn’t fingered her. Their movement could barely be called dry humping because it was so constrained.
He leaned forward until his lips brushed her ear. “You were so angry when I got away. Did you fuck someone to work out that rage?”
“I already told you. I fucked Romeo. Repeatedly. I went straight from shooting you to riding his cock.” Lies. All lies. Romeo hadn’t so much as touched her, and she certainly hadn’t pressed the issue. Romeo Capparelli was attractive enough from a distance, but once a person got close enough, only a fool would be convinced they saw something in his soulless eyes. Rose fully intended to do her duty and marry him to smooth over things, but she hadn’t been looking forward to consummating the relationship.
“I remember now. He fucked you everywhere, right?” He said it so casually. His tone gave her no warning. One moment he gripped her hips and the next he jerked her tighter against him and ran his hand down the center of her ass, his fingers delving between her cheeks. “Your ass.” Dante kept going until he cupped her roughly from behind. “Pussy.” He used his free hand to grip her chin and dragged his thumb over her bottom lip. “Mouth.”
“Da,” she finally managed. Rose licked her lips, her tongue sliding along his thumb and making his eyes go even darker. She was playing with fire, but she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop. “He made it good for me with his long, thick cock and clever fingers. And he ate my pussy for hours, until I lost count of orgasms. Nothing mediocre about it.”
Dante tightened his grip on her chin until it was just shy of painful. “Bugiarda.”
“What does that mean?” She’d fully intended to learn passable Italian at some point since the Capparellis had continued to be an issue, but Rose didn’t have the same skill with languages that Lorelei did, so she’d found reasons to put it off again and again. She wished she’d learned now.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
“Nyet.” She didn’t exactly mean to switch to Russian, but she was having trouble thinking straight with his hands on her. He held her up away from his cock and too tightly to rock against his fingers. Frustration loosened her tongue. “Ya nikogo ne trogal, krome tebya, ublyudok.” Something she didn’t mean to admit, even if he didn’t understand.
I haven’t touched anyone but you, you bastard.
Not out of any loyalty. She didn’t feel it for him. But it just hadn’t happened. Romeo didn’t push her on anything remotely sexual, and she wasn’t foolish enough to touch anyone else in the meantime, not while negotiating their pending marriage and what it would mean for both families. Rose could be reckless, but even she wasn’t that selfish.
And… There was her foolish heart to consider. It hadn’t felt right with anyone else and so it was easier to blame her pending marriage on her celibacy. Better that than admit she missed the man who’d lied to her, betrayed her. The enemy.
He stared hard. “What does that mean?”
“It means I fucked Romeo on every surface.”
“No… I don’t think so.” He tilted his head to the side, surveying her face. “If you’re going to use that mouth to lie to me, I’ll put it to better use.”
She expected him to shove her to her knees, to guide her to suck his cock, but Dante simply shifted his grip on her chin and pressed two fingers into her mouth. She was so shocked, she forgot to fight. Or that was what she told herself as he held her gaze and fucked her mouth with his fingers. Not fast. Not even hard. But so damn thoroughly that she’d never felt so owned in her life.
The rough pads of his fingers dragged through her lips and over her tongue, so deep, she gagged. Dante didn’t stop. He wasn’t touching her nose, so it wasn’t like she couldn’t breathe if she concentrated, but it was so damn hard to concentrate with him thrusting back down her tongue and giving her no time to recover.
And still, he watched her as if she were the most interesting thing in the world, a piece of art to be surveyed and purchased and owned. “I was so very careful with you, Rosa. Never too rough. Never too possessive. Safe. I let you set the pace when you sucked my cock, when we fucked. No longer.”
She tried to question him, but he gagged her again. Dante’s brows slammed down. “No, you will not lie to me anymore. I’m going to ask you a question, and you will give me the honest answer. Do you understand?” He didn’t remove his fingers, but he stopped fucking her mouth long enough for her to nod. “Bene.”
Dante eased his other hand off her pussy, reversing its journey in dragging his fingers over her ass and up to the small of her back. The rough handling had pulled her panties partly to the side, and the slick fabric of his shorts felt obscene against her throbbing center. “Let there be no misunderstanding between us. You can provoke me as much as you like, but I will not force you.” He held her gaze until she had to fight not to look away. “Do you want this cock?”
Her pride demanded she say no, but she’d already decided on this plan for reasons she couldn’t really drag into the light right now. It didn’t matter. She wanted this. Rose nodded slowly.
Dante slid his fingers from her mouth. “With your words, Rosa.” She started to wipe at her mouth, but he shook his head sharply. “No, I like you a mess. Now, stop stalling and tell me what you want.”
If she did this, there was no going back. Oh, she could change her mind later and she sincerely believed Dante would respect that choice even if he’d continue trying to seduce her. But there’d be no going back for her, and she’d have to answer some truly uncomfortable questions when she finally got back to the city.
It doesn’t matter. I’ll deal with the fallout later. I want this. I simply do.
“Da. Yes.” When he didn’t move, she gave him more. “I want your cock, Dante. Fuck me. Make me come. Please.”
He pressed a little circle to the small of her back, expression going contemplative. “If you change your mind, this stops. I will not have impatience on my part getting in the way of our future.”
They didn’t have a fucking future, but she managed to keep that to herself. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Bene.” He stood, lifting her as he did and setting her on her feet. “Sit on the bench, spread your legs, and pull your panties to the side. Now.”
