Apparently I wasn’t the only one out for blood here.
His lips were my own personal hell.
They were either his biggest lie, or his greatest betrayer. Every kiss he’d ever given me, when we were in love or in hate, told me how he cared. Told me how he longed. Craved. Pined. Mourned. Despaired. Told me he was as desperate for me as ever.
I hated him for it, and I couldn’t get enough, my hands driving into his hair, nails scoring against his scalp, tongue diving in to taste his liquor sweet breath, clashing with his as unwanted whimpers escaped my throat.
I let it go on for way too fucking long. I have no defense for myself there.
It was too good. Too sweet. Too bitter. Too pleasurable and too painful.
I lost myself so completely that at one point, I even let my hand pull at the chain around his neck, fingering the cursed object that it held, which was a complete slip-up. As soon as I realized I was doing it, I jerked my hand away.
Finally, it was my sex drive that put an end to that torture. I was throbbing from the inside out and addictive as it was, kissing him was not enough to physically satisfy me.
It was one of the few times in my life where I could say that my libido worked in my favor.
I started tearing at his shirt, wrenching at the front until buttons flew, shoving it off his shoulders, then pushing impatiently at his chest when it caught on his elbows.
He wouldn’t budge, still kissing me like I was the air he needed to breathe.
I’d almost forgotten. Dante always turned fucking into making love. Even when he was drunk. Even when it was rushed, hurried, hard, angry, or desperate. You name it, he turned it all into something more.
I didn’t want any of that.
I wasn’t here to make love.
I was here to make war.
I bit his tongue hard enough that he recoiled with a curse.
I smiled at him, a hostile baring of teeth, and pointed at his pants. “Clothes off. I didn’t come here to make out with you all night.”
He was too far gone to tell me no, thank God.
His eyes were glazed over, his breath short as he started to unbutton his slacks.
I rolled over onto my belly and began to crawl across the bed.
If he could resist that view, I’d lost my touch.
I didn’t want him to have control of any part of this, and I didn’t plan to let him kiss me again.
My ploy worked.
He was on my back before I could make it to the other side.
He covered me, lips on my shoulder, hands cupping my breasts right as I felt him lining his thick tip up at my entrance.
He paused too long there.
“Do it,” I bit out.
I hid it better, but I was as far gone as he. I needed this. Needed it like the possessed need an exorcism.
“Ask for it,” he spoke into my skin.
There he was. The Bastard I knew and loathed.
“Go die in a fire,” I gritted out, pushing back against him.
“Ask me nicely,” he added. “Say, please, Dante.”
“Please go die in a fire, Dante,” I spat out right as my elbow connected sharply with his ribs. He grunted in pain, and I made a break for it.
He caught me just as my second foot hit the floor and had me flipped around and straddling his lap at the edge of the bed.
He looked up at me with a conciliatory smile and said, “I take it back. Old habits, ya know? But I take it back and I’m sorry. I meant it about the truce tonight.”
A please and a sorry from him all in one night?
It was a miracle.
Or the apocalypse.
One thing was for sure, it wasn’t fucking normal. Or right. Or even okay. I could count on one hand the number of times he’d said both words combined in the last five years.
And for this he was sorry?
He had plenty to be sorry for, grievances much worse than anything he’d done in the last five minutes.
I was once again torn between wanting to slap him, choke him, or fuck him blind.
I settled for a compromise, my fingers sliding around his throat and squeezing lightly as he pulled my head down to his and started kissing me again, almost clumsy now in his drunken passion.
His pants were opened, his thick cock jutting out, and I shifted my hips, poising myself over him. I gripped his neck and shifted until his tip pushed into me. With a groan, I tried to impale myself on him.
His stubborn hands on my hips halted my progress.
This was how it was with us. A never ending struggle for dominance.
Usually he won the bedroom portion of that struggle, but I always told myself I let him do it for the simple fact that it got me off harder.
He could dominate me physically, so long as I always had the last word.
I thought mine was the better deal, in general, but at that moment it was pissing me off to no end.
I pulled back to ask him what his problem was, but lost the breath to do so as just then he flipped me smack onto my back.
He stood, impatiently shedding the rest of his clothing while I watched. My wide eyes sucked up each luscious inch of tanned, muscled skin he unveiled.
I parted my legs wide and raised my knees up until my heels were digging hard into the mattress. Fuel to his fire.
It worked well enough. He was naked and on top of me between one gasping breath and the next.
“Scarlett,” he breathed his sweet liquor breath against my mouth right as he started to push into me.
Even his drunk breath I hated. Even that held bittersweet memories that reminded me inevitably of our love and our losses.
My eyes were shut tight as I breathed back, “Don’t talk. Your voice ruins it for me.”
“Scarlett,” he repeated, this time with a smile in his voice.
“Shh. I’m trying to pretend you’re someone else. Every time you speak it ruins the illusion.”
“It’s been too long, angel,” he murmured, then took my mouth and shoved in hard.
I was ready. Beyond ready.
I was wet, throbbing, aching, hungry, desperate for him.
I hated myself for it, but I hated myself for a lot of things. At least this thing brought me as much pleasure as pain, or rather this part of it did.
It felt so good when he started moving that I found my nails clawing into his back every time he started to pull out, then clamping into him with every rough shove in, until, as he began to move faster, I was scoring with gusto into the abused skin over his shoulder blades.
He wasn’t complaining, and I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
It was quick. It always was the first time.
“I can’t hold it back,” he moaned. “I’m coming.”
“Selfish prick,” I taunted into his ear.
Of course he took that as a challenge. I’d meant it as such. Either it’d motivate him to get me off faster, or it would make him feel inadequate. Both counted as a win for me.
He chose the former, one of his big hands snaking between our bodies, his familiar fingers going unerringly for my clit, working at it with a precision that made my eyes roll up in my head, my overactive mind gone blank for one glorious, regrettable moment.
Tears stung the back of my eyelids as I came. He followed me with a low groan, taking my mouth as he rooted deep and let himself go, emptying inside of me.
It was the sweetest torture, the most delightful torment, to let the man that had ruined me for joy bring it back into my body for one brief instant.
The full-on drunk I’d tricked him into earlier must have still been affecting him. He was usually good for more than one short round. A lot more.
But this time, after a soft kiss on my cheek (a second before I shoved him off me) he rolled onto his stomach and passed out cold.
With one last sneer at him I got up and started gathering my clothes.
I was just zipping my dress when my eyes caught on his shoulders. Or rather, what I’d done to them.