Page 120 of Filthy Little Fix

I go to the window. Outside, only the trees and the invisible guards. I wonder if they recognize me as part of the house, or just as Dante's project.

Then, a sound. Low, almost nothing. It's because of the silence that it's so obvious. A metallic click. The door.

I turn. Slowly.

Him.

The silhouette appears first. The blazer hanging on his shoulders, the vest still buttoned, the tie loose. He says nothing. Just closes the door behind him, locks it.

"You won a war today."

His voice is hoarse. As if he'd been smoking, or talking too much to people he hates.

He takes his watch off his wrist. He puts it on the dresser.

"You sent me a night off," I say. "Did you come to put me to sleep?"

He approaches.

"Do you want to sleep?"

"I want you."

He doesn't react. He looks at me with that intensity that melts my bones.

Then I confess, "If your plan was to leave me alone until I became docile, it worked."

He stops a step away from me. He frowns, not understanding what this absence did to me. Maybe he didn't expect it to create more submission. Maybe he doesn't know I'd doanything. Iwanthim to know.

"You think I ignored you?" he says. The same threatening tone from all my fantasies. Fuck. My whole body trembles. "If I had walked through that door a day earlier, Nyx... with the rage I was feeling and the way you look at me... your broken rib would have punctured your lung."

My legs almost give out. It's a relief. There's no regret in the way he looks at me. No disgust, no disagreement. When he pushed me away at that hotel, he was genuinely concerned. Concerned about using too much force, hurting me too much. He cares, and I almost want to laugh. Iwanthim to hurt me too much. The concern is an aphrodisiac.

Was he following the medical reports? Did he wait for me to describe no acute pain to the doctor? Did he wait for the doctor to clear sudden movements?

I touch his tie. Loose. "So why are you here now, Dante?" I whisper. "Do you think I'm healed enough for you?"

I take his hand—the same one that punched that man's face into a mass of flesh, the same one that held the gun that blew off Sal's hands—and bring it below my chest, placing it over my broken rib. I press his hand against it.

For a second, nothing happens. Dante's hand remains rigid under mine. I challenge him in silence, at the same time I plead.Please. Don't push me away.

His jaw clenches. It's instantaneous with the tremor in his hand. His fingers slowly firm up, until his hand is pressing against my body. He squeezes.

The pain is a sharp explosion. I don't fight it. I lean in, offering more, and I can't suppress the sound—a low, breathless moan, a mixture of pain and a pornographic relief.

His breathing is heavy. His eyes darken.

"Fuck, Nyx..." he growls.

His fingers tighten, and I have to grab his shoulders to keep from falling.

"I was trying," he says, gravely. "Not to fucking lose control."

It's a confession. The rawest and most honest he's ever given me. He was keeping himself away. For me. The world spins. He is all I can cling to.

"Do you know how many times I touched myself these last few days?" I whisper. Shameless. "Thinking about it. About you. About your voice. About your hands on me."

My hand slides from his chest, down his torso, and stops at the cold buckle of his belt. I hook a finger there.