Page 10 of Claimed By the Don

"I saw a strange car outside," I explain roughly, my grip on her tightening reflexively. "Tinted windows, no plates. It felt...wrong."

I stop myself from elaborating, from voicing the dark fears chasing themselves in circles around my brain. The last thing I want is to frighten her more.

But my Ginetta is too smart for that, too attuned to my every shift in mood. Her eyes search mine, a small furrow forming between her brows.

"This is about more than just a weird car, isn't it?" she asks softly, her thumb rubbing soothing circles over my galloping pulse. "Dante, talk to me. What's really going on?"

I close my eyes briefly, torn. I never wanted to burden Ginetta with the ugliness of my world, the grim realities that accompany the power and privilege of my birthright. She's my getaway, my slice of untainted peace amidst the blood and bullets. Bringing her into that darkness feels like a perversion of everything she is - good and kind and so fucking innocent.

But one look into those gorgeous eyes, brimming with concern and trust, and I find myself spilling secrets like poison from a wound.

"Things are...tense right now," I begin haltingly, each word a struggle. "With the family business. We've been butting heads with a rival organization. Carving out territory, asserting dominance. It's pretty standard stuff for my world, but..." I pause, blowing out a hard breath. Hating the way Ginetta goes still against me. "Lately, it's escalating. Our enemies are getting bolder, striking closer to home."

I don't say what I'm really thinking - that my home is currently a warm armful of sweet curves and silken skin. That the most precious thing in my world is staring up at me with worried eyes, so terribly fragile in the face of the monsters howling at our door.

But she hears it anyway, my brilliant girl. I watch the realization dawn across her expressive face and my heart clenches.

"You think they were here for me," she whispers, the words trembling on a thread of fear. "Because of you. Because of us."

"I don't know," I admit hoarsely, brushing a thumb over the delicate ridge of her cheekbone. "I pray to God not. But I'm not naïve enough to ignore the possibility." I swallow hard, my throat gone tight. "Ginetta, if anything happened to you because of me...I'd never forgive myself."

Her eyes shine with a sheen of tears, but her jaw sets in that stubborn tilt I've come to know so well. "Don't," she admonishes fiercely, her fingers tightening on my wrists. "Don't you dare try to scare me away for some bullshit noble reason. I knew who you were when I met you, Dante. I went into this with my eyes wide open."

"Baby, you have no idea-"

"Maybe not," she cuts me off, her gaze flashing. "Maybe I don't know the details of your world. But I know you." Her expression softens, one hand coming up to cup my jaw tenderly. "I know the man you are, Dante Russo. The man I...I'm falling in love with."

Everything in me goes still at her quiet declaration, the air fleeing my lungs in a shocked gust. I stare at her in wonder, my heart rioting behind my ribcage. She loves me. My beautiful, stubborn, impossible girl loves me, even knowing the sins I carry. The darkness forever staining my soul.

I surge forward and claim her lips again, pouring every ounce of the overwhelming emotion storming through my veins into the kiss. Ginetta meets me with equal fervor, her hands sinking into my hair as she opens to the demanding thrust of my tongue. I want to crawl inside her, merge our bodies into one until there's no beginning or end. Only a tangle of flesh and feeling, unbreakable.

Clothes fall away as I walk us back towards the bedroom, lips and teeth and tongue mapping every exposed sliver of skin. Ginetta arches into my touch like a woman starved, bitten-off pleas and breathy moans spilling from her kiss-swollen lips. It's the headiest kind of power, reducing this fierce, stubborn creature to a trembling mess of need. And it's all for me.

By the time I lower her onto the bed, we're both naked and desperate. I couldn't slow down if I tried, too drunk on the feel of her arching beneath me. I've been hard since the moment I pulled her into my arms and the need to be inside her is a fever in my blood, a relentless pounding ache I feel in my fucking teeth.

But I force myself to pause, to lean back and just look at her. My Ginetta, spread out like a decadent feast before me. Miles of silken skin and dangerous curves, nipples peaked into tempting diamonds, her lush thighs parting in welcome. And at their apex, her pretty pink pussy glistening with arousal. Ripe. Ready.

Mine.

I must make some sort of sound because Ginetta shivers, peering up at me from beneath a curtain of thick lashes. "Dante," she breathes, beckoning. Pleading.

I'm helpless to resist her. I lower my head and capture one dusky nipple between my lips, tonguing the sensitive bud until she bows off the bed with a keening cry. My hands caress the geography of her body, skating over the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, hungry to learn every curve and valley. I stroke and knead and suckle until she's writhing beneath me, broken pleas tumbling from her lips.

"Please," she gasps as I kiss a fiery path down her trembling stomach, my fingers trailing through the dewy folds of her sex. The musky scent of her arousal is making my head swim. "Need you, please..."

I groan low in my throat, my cock pulsing out thick drops of precum. I want to taste her so badly my mouth floods with saliva. I want to lap up her sweet honey until she's bucking against my face, screaming her pleasure to the heavens. But the need to be inside her is too strong, an imperative pounding through my veins.

So I crawl back up her body and notch my aching dick at her slick entrance, my arms shaking with the effort of holding back. I find Ginetta's gaze and hold it, our eyes locking as I press my forehead to hers.

"I love you," I tell her roughly, the words wrenched from some deep, hidden place inside me. A truth embedded in my bones, undeniable. "Cristo, Ginetta, I love you so fucking much."

Then I'm pushing into her, slow and inexorable, watching her wince at first, then her eyes flutter closed on a ragged moan as I stretch her impossibly full. Her molten heat grips me like a fist, silken walls squeezing rhythmically as she takes me to the hilt. And God, nothing has ever felt this good, this right. Like I was made to mold myself to her soft curves.

I pull out slowly, gritting my teeth against the exquisite drag of her folds around my sensitive flesh. Then I'm slamming back in, setting a hard, driving rhythm that has the headboard thudding against the wall. Ginetta meets me thrust for thrust, her heels digging into my ass as she urges me deeper. Harder.

"Yes," she pants, her nails scoring my flexing back. "Just like that. So good. You feel so good."

Her voice is my undoing, the breathy praises igniting a wildfire in my blood. I grind into her like a man possessed, determined to wring every ounce of pleasure from her willing body. My hand snakes between us to find her swollen clit and I rub the sensitive nub in tight circles, groaning at the way she clenches around me in response.

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