Page 121 of Filthy Little Fix

"I can't stop thinking about it," I confess. "You can break my ribs, Dante. I won't stop you."

He lowers his hand from my rib to my waist. In a second, he lifts me, as if I weighed nothing. I wrap my legs around him, hold his shoulders to anchor myself, and he walks to the bed with a delicious impatience.

I missed this. His body is a wall, exuding heat.

He pushes me onto the mattress. The ache in my bones feels good—anythingcaused by him is good. He climbs on top of me, tearing off his blazer in a hurry. I slide my hands over his shoulders, help him get rid of it, and he allows it. He throws the thousand-dollar blazer on the floor like trash and thrusts himself over me.

I pull his tie with one hand. He leans closer, and quickly undoes it. The fabric slides between our fingers until he throws it on the floor.

He kisses me. Finally. Without gentleness, without warning. It's a deep, wet kiss, marked by his teeth grazing my lips, and by the metallic taste of some old rage.

I moan against his mouth, and he swallows me. Everything in me bends to receive him.

I want to see him. I want everything. I pull back with my legs still wrapped around him.

"Let me see you," I ask. My voice comes out strained, a sigh. "Please."

He stares at me for a second. As if considering if I deserve it.

Then, slowly, with a perverse solemnity, he undo the buttons of his shirt.

One by one.

I stop breathing.

One. Another. His shoulders, his chest—broad and defined. His skin is marked by old scars and tattoos I've never seen. Black ink, military lines, dates, acronyms. Some faded by time. Others covered by scars. One in particular, on the left side of his chest, looks like a knife wound. Fused to his flesh as if it were part of him.

All belong to him. Stories he'll never tell me.

The fabric of the open shirt slides down his arms, but he doesn't take it off. He leaves it hanging, loose. He knows exactly what he's doing to me.

"Fuck..." I whisper.

I want to touch everything, trace every line, memorize every damage they've tried to inflict on him.

He is violence in the form of a man. And yet, he's here. Above me.Allowingme to see.

"May I?" I whisper, hovering a hand over his skin.

That look in his eyes...

I run my hand over his skin like someone caressing a sacred altar. I feel the hardness of his muscles, the uneven texture of the scars. I feel smaller beneath him. And at the same time, more alive than I have ever been.

"You are..." I moan in supplication. "Fuck, Dante."

"I am what?"

That intonation sends an obscene heat between my legs.

I swallow hard. My words fail me. I want to call him my salvation, my monster, my personal hell. I want to beg. I want tothank him. But no word seems sufficient for what he is. For what he is to me.

I say the only thing that makes sense upon seeing him. What he is.

"My god."

I lean forward, ignoring the pain in my ribs. My lips find the skin of his chest, and I kiss the edge of an old scar. His skin is sacred.

"I worship you," I whisper. I feel his heartbeat quicken against my palm.