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January 21 - February 1, 2025
“You love watching what I do to you. How you melt into such a gorgeous wanton for me.”
“I’m going to make you come all over my cock with our enemies just down the hall,”
“You’re going to suck on my fingers while you orgasm so they don’t hear your pretty cries.”
“Your capo. There is no one else. Only me. Only you. Only us.”
“It’s okay. Pregnancy is still a long shot for me, unfortunately.” “And if it happens?” I demanded as something painful twisted in my gut. “If we make a baby? Because, Elena, I do not intend to stop fucking you and filling you with my cum.”
“I don’t know… I used to want to be married first with the white picket fence American dream kind of life. But now…now I don’t know. All I do understand is that your world, maybe our world now, is a dangerous place to bring a child into.”
“But not for a baby of ours. Not when he or she will have you as their shield and me their sword.”
“There is no shame in anything between us, lottatice mia. I will not have you feel embarrassed of your emotions with me. Embarrassed of the dreams I hope you’ll come to share with me. Most people have reason to fear me. I’d end them without blinking for even a slight offense against me or mine. But you?”
“You have nothing to fear in me, capisci? You have had enough to fear in your life and I will break apart the entire universe if it dares to harm you again. Do you understand me?”
“It’s not you I’m scared of so much as I’m afraid of myself. I have the tendency to ruin every good thing I’ve ever had. And yo...
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“Tu si l’azzurro dò mare sì duci e si amar,” I told her. You are like the sea, sweet and salty. “A sailor does not leave the sea because it storms, and it does not begrudge the ocean her moods. I have no intention of giving up on you, Elena, because there is no part of you I do not find worthy and fascinating. If this ends, it will be because you choose to end it, and you refuse to let me fight to win you back.”
“Io sonno con te.”
“That sounds good.” “What?” “Our plan, you said, like we are a team.”
“When Rocco had dared to insinuate that I could be taken from you…” I shivered. “I realized that I need to stop being a passive participant in my own life. I think I’ve been the victim too long. I want to be the kind of woman who fights for what she wants. And I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you.”
And the only woman I want to eat for breakfast is you. Spread your legs.”
“You’re driving,” I pointed out helpfully even though a little thrill zigged down my spine at the taboo idea. “I’ve been driving since I was thirteen. I can multitask.”
“Relax, lottatrice. You don’t need to fight or strain to find this pleasure. Just ease into it like a warm bath. Close your eyes and listen to your capo’s voice. You’re going to make yourself come for the both of us. Because I want to see your thighs clench. I want to hear your soft, keening little cries as your tight cunt clenches around your fingers. Then, when you’re finished, you and I are going to take turns licking the cum from your hand.”
“I’m going to use every day to fuck you so often, you’ll want me to stop even as you beg me for more. I’m going to teach you how fucking beautiful you are in every single iteration I can think of. Your pert arse in the air as I fuck you from behind and spank your bottom as red as your mouth. Your breasts when I twist and tease your nipples into aching points. Maybe I’ll clamp them when we put the washing out on the line, tie you up like a sheet by the wrists and put clothespins on those red peaks.”
Elena, nothing is wrong between us. You spread open for me, playing for me, all of it is only ever right,”
Dante was home, so no matter what, I would never be homeless. I’d have his shelter, his protection, and his love to guide me through the worst of life and the worst of myself.
“It is a privilege, Elena, to know you intimately. To know what makes you hurt and what makes you blush. To know what your demons are so I can slay them for you when you don’t have the strength or watch you overcome your own nightmares because I love to watch my fighter conquer everything in her path. It is an honor to know you, and I won’t ever take that for granted.”
he and our men here haven’t met you as you are now.” “As yours?” “Not just as my woman, but theirs. The woman, la Donna, they will be expected to lay down their lives for just as I would,”
“You aren’t my lawyer anymore, Elena. Tu sei la mia regina.” You are my queen.
It’s my sanctuary, and I hope it will be yours too.”
And I loved him then even more fiercely than I had the moment before that. Because that was who Dante was. He was a dangerous man with the biggest heart I’d ever known, and he never hesitated in offering his love, guidance, or protection to those in need.
“Ti amo, cuore mia,”
“You are with me now, Elena. Let me welcome you properly to my world.”
“From the start. I was always going to change everything for her.”
“Elena,” he called when I turned away, waiting until I looked back to smile and say, “You’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been before. You had the courage to follow me here and I won’t ever forget that or stop striving to be worthy of it.”
they called me ‘principe ereditario dell'inferno.’” The Crown Prince of Hell.
She was a lady. She deserved diamonds and silk and lace, manners and galas in velvet dresses.
“Say another word against her, and I’ll take your eyes and your balls.”
He endangered you, lottatrice, and that means he needs to be punished properly.”
At that moment, I didn’t think I’d ever felt such profound love and gratitude for another human being. It was heady to know that a woman as smart and capable, as careful and thoughtful as Elena trusted me wholeheartedly. I’d dragged her into the underworld, and instead of being resentful, regretful, even scared, she was boldly walking at my side, holding my hand in support and offering her love without judgment. Fuck me. I’d never been a lucky man.
I’d never had someone who was just wholly and happily mine.
To think, for so long I’d never known true happiness. How foolish I’d been to think I could carve life up into parts and parcel them into neat little boxes on a shelf. I’d massacred any hope of joy, slaughtered newborn happiness before it could ever grow legs and stand tall. I’d condemned chaos, thinking it was the antithesis of everything a proper young woman should work for. Yearn for. How wrong I’d been. Dante had dragged me into the dark depths of his anarchic life and shown me the pleasure to be found in the shadows, the exhilaration of living on the knife’s edge of danger, and the
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You have no idea how sexy you are. I didn’t care. That was the secret to Dante’s sexual power over me. Every single aspect of his person robbed me of thought, of the ability to self-criticize. My habitual voice of doubt and loathing was drowned in his scent, in the rough scrape of his deep voice against my senses and his skin on my skin. I was lost in him, less myself and more myself than I had ever been.
“You wreck me,” he grunted, hips knifing forward to thrust even harder into my hand. “From the inside out. You fucking wreck me.” “Vieni per mei,” I begged. Come for me.
“Va bene, cuore mia,” he murmured, kissing my hair and holding me close. “Sleep well, and I’ll watch over you.” “I know,” I muttered, already half-asleep. “You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel safe.”
“You know I’ll do what it takes to keep our family safe.” “And Elena?” “Always.” Anger reignited in my gut as I thought of Umberto endangering her last night. “She will always come first.” “Her safety or her happiness?” And wasn’t that the question. “I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure both,” I admitted. “Even if it means sacrificing my own safety and happiness. No one has ever put my woman first, and I am not going to make that mistake.”
“Non tutte le ciambelle riescono col buco.” Not all donuts come out with a hole in the middle. An old Italian phrase meaning not everything works out as planned.
“There’s no going back for her,” I muttered, rubbing at my chest where the ache emanated. “Do you regret it?” “No. I almost wish I did. But I’m too selfish. She was meant to be mine, Tore. I’m just sorry she had to give up everything she worked so hard for in order to be with me. It seems like a poor trade.”
“This world of yours is savage.” “This world of ours, lottatrica mia. I wouldn’t love you so much as I do if you weren’t capable of withstanding the savagery.”
“By my definition, there is no one braver or worthier of love and admiration than you.”
“And there will never be a time where I want to be parted from you so get the idea of going to New York alone out of your head. You belong by my side.”
“Because I’m a woman and you’re a man?” “Because you’re Elena and I’m Dante,” I corrected. “I belong at your side just the same.”
I’m a big girl. A smart girl. I can make my own decisions and the most important one I’ve ever made in my life was getting on that damn plane with you. I left everything to be yours! So do it. Make me yours and never let me go.”
you’re at my side, Elena, those bullets people sling at me could end up in you. You want to risk your life to be with me, huh?”
“I’m willing to take a life-altering risk for a life-altering reward,” she told me steadily, her flames cooling to ice-cold surety. “I don’t know what love means to you, but to me, it means loving someone no matter what baggage they come with for as long as they’ll let you love them and as hard as you possibly can. The only risk I fear is one where I lose you. You fell in love with a fighter, Dante. Let me fight with you.”
I wanted to throttle that beautiful long neck for thinking she could get out of loving me alive. I wanted to beg God or whoever might be in charge of fate not to take her from me the way They’d taken my mother. I had seen too clearly what happened to her after being caught up in Noel’s dark world. I couldn’t fucking bear it if that happened to Elena.
