Page 41 of SINS & Riley (Dante & Riley #2)
ZVER
“…I want you to fuck me.”
Her words slam deep into my chest.
A drum of diesel barreling toward a lit fuse.
Of all the suicidal things she could’ve said right now, that one tops the list.
She has no idea how close I am to snapping. How thin the leash really is when it comes to her.
My cock’s been at full mast since the second I laid eyes on her, begging me to fuck the defiance straight off her pretty face.
And now? She’s double-dog daring me?
Fine.
I haul her over my shoulder, kick open the nearest door, and slam the lock behind us.
“Hey!” she barks, sharp and nervous, her nails digging into my arm. The sting rips through me, ten-thousand volts of pure lust straight to my dick. “Put me down. What are you doing?”
I drop her hard onto the bed.
“You begged me to fuck you.” My voice is flat, lethal, as I tear at my belt. “This won’t be tender. This won’t be sweet. You want the beast? You’ve got him.”
Her eyes flare. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“If all you want to do is talk…” I yank her wrist, flip her to her stomach, and grind my palm across her ass through the flimsy slip of a dress. “Then you were stupid to come back here. A decision you will regret.”
She jolts, panic spiking in her voice. “Wait. Stop!”
I release her just enough to let her catch her breath. My words cut the air between us. “You have two seconds to run. After that, I’m not responsible for what I do to you.”
She whimpers like she’s wounded.
“One.” My voice is smooth. Dark. A warning.
Jesus Christ, Pom. I’m giving you an out. Take it.
“Two.”
But she doesn’t move.
She stays trembling, her voice so small I almost miss it. “I’m not leaving until I do what I came here to do. Then I’ll go.”
Riley Mullvain is too stubborn for her own good. Whatever restraint I had left snaps.
“So be it.” My hand slams across her ass, hard and merciless.
The second she resists, I pin her neck into the mattress and drag my belt free, slow enough for her to hear the leather hiss. Then my zipper. Every motion deliberate. “Is this what you came for?”
Her body thrashes, sobs tearing her words apart. “There’s something you have to know.”
I flip up her dress and strike the other cheek—harder. Hard enough my handprint will be there for a few hours. “You shouldn’t have come back.”
Her whole body convulses beneath me, shoulders shaking, chest heaving, sobs rattling through my grip. “You don’t understand,” she chokes, broken. “He’s out for blood. I came back to?—”
“To what?” I growl into her ear, pressing the weight of me against her. A cold laugh slips out, bitter. “To get fucked by a monster?”
I begin to slide her panties down.
Her sobs shred the silence, jagged and raw, her body trembling against mine.
“It’s Enzo,” she gasps. “I told him?—”
“Enzo?” I freeze.
If Enzo knows she’s with me, he’ll lose his goddamn mind. I just leveled a million-dollar building of his. She won’t be knocked clear by the blast.
She and the baby will be dead center in it.
What the fuck was she thinking?
“What did you tell him?” I shout.
Her voice fractures, splintering in the air. “I told him I was pregnant.”
The world goes silent.
Every vein in my body seizes.
And like a pressure valve blowing wide open—I release her. Pregnant. She told him she was pregnant.
My body collapses over hers, all power bleeding out.
“And I told him who the father is.”
Slowly, she turns, her beautiful tear-streaked face tilting toward mine. Her voice is a death blow.
“I said it was you.”
My lips hover at her ear, every word grinding out in fury and disbelief.
“Why, Pom? Why the fuck would you do that?”
Her answer carves me open, the slow twist of a knife.
“To save you.”
For a long moment, neither of us moves. The confession weighs heavier than chains.
Then, when my heart starts beating again, my lips press against her temple, breathing her in even as I want to shake her apart.
“That was reckless. Idiotic.”
“I know.”
I kiss the tears streaking her cheek, bitter salt on my tongue. “You’ve thrown yourself—and that baby—into the middle of a goddamn war.”
“I know that too.”
My lips ghost over hers, because I have to know.
If she sees me.
If she’s pretending not to know I’m Dante.
Or if she’s just blind enough to believe the monster in front of her has a soul worth saving.
“Why would you tell him that? The father?—”
“He’s dead.” The word falls soft; the grief that follows feels like a blade.
I curl around her. “It’s too late. Go. Tell Enzo the truth.”
“No.”
“Why, Pom?”
She nibbles her lip, the same spot I can’t resist kissing a second later. Her eyes meet mine, gold-flecked and raw, broken and perfect.
“Because I already lost Dante. And I can’t lose you, too.”