Page 75 of Ruthless Desire

I keen as he circles my clit, each flick and swirl wringing a fresh flood of arousal from my treacherous body. Dante plays me with expert finesse, building me higher and higher until I'm writhing in his grip, my hands scrabbling for purchase on his sweat-slick skin.

"That's it," he coaxes, slipping two fingers deep into my eager heat. "Ride my hand, fuck yourself on my fingers like the desperate slut you are. Show me how much you need it, how much you need me."

His filthy words stoke the flames, a pressure coiling tighter and tighter at the base of my spine. I rock against his thrusting palm shamelessly, pride and reason long since burned away in the crucible of his ardor.

"Dante, please," I sob, teetering on the knife's edge of relief. "I can't... I need..."

"I know, Moya Koroleva," he assures me, his free hand coming up to wrap around my throat, holding me in place as he starts to finger me in earnest. "And I'm going to give it to you. Going to wring every last drop of pleasure from this succulent little body until you're spent and shaking and ruined for anyone else's touch."

Then, his teeth close over my hammering pulse, biting down just shy of pain. The depravity. The dark possession of the act hurtles me over the edge, shatters me into a million glittering pieces. I cry out his name like an invocation, a prayer, my release gushing over his plunging fingers in hot, steady pulses.

Dante works me through the aftershocks, his touch gentling as I slump bonelessly against him. Stray tremors wrack my frame, my nerves still sparking with residual bliss.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to my damp temple. "You're always so beautiful when you let go, when you give yourself over to me completely."

I want to deny it, to summon some witty rejoinder that will cut him down to size.

But all I can manage is a weak moan as he withdraws his fingers, bringing them to his lips to suck clean. The sight of him tasting my essence, his eyes fluttering shut in hedonistic appreciation, sends a fresh wave of want crashing through me, drowning me in sense memory.

"Insatiable," he chuckles, no doubt feeling the way I clench around the emptiness he's left behind. "My perfect little paintbrush. You'll be the death of me, you know that?"

I laugh, a fractured, disbelieving sound. "That's supposed to be my line."

His smile is a dark promise, his eyes glinting with an emotion I dare not name. "Ah, but what a way to go. Consumed by the flames of our desire, lost in the inferno of our own making."

He stands, pulling me up with him. I stumble slightly, my knees still weak from his ministrations. Dante catches me easily, the hard planes of his body a steadying anchor.

"Come, moy voron, we have much to do before Enzo’s party," he commands, lacing our fingers together. "And I have such delights in store for you, before we go. Pleasures and agonies beyond your wildest imagining. And you'll beg me so sweetly for them all."

My stomach clenches, equal parts trepidation and anticipation. The rational part of me wants to run, to scream, to deny the twisted hunger his words evoke. But that part gets quieter with each passing day, each heated touch and honeyed threat.

In the end, I let him lead me into the belly of the yacht, into the opulent den of sin he's prepared just for me. Because as much as it terrifies me, as much as it tears at the tattered remnants of my soul...

Dante's brand of ruinous adoration is a drug I can no longer resist. And falling into his dark embrace?

Feels like coming home to the hell I was always meant to rule.

***

The Tuscan sun dips below the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of orange and indigo as I walk the grounds of the villa. Each step takes me further from the main house, the distant strains of music and laughter fading until all I hear is the whisper of the warm breeze through the cypress trees and the pounding of my own traitorous heart.

I shouldn't be here. Shouldn't have let Dante lure me away from the safety of the crowded terrace, the watchful eyes of Enzo and the other guests. But the temptation, the dark thrill of the forbidden, is too strong to resist.

Just like he was proving to be.

I round a corner and there he is, lounging against the trunk of an ancient olive tree - sinful and almost biblically dangerous - like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, tempting Eve. The fading light casts his features in a sinister portrait, all sharp angles and deep shadows.

Those obsidian eyes find mine, twin black holes threatening to devour me whole.

"Natalie." The way he says my name, low and intimate, sends a shiver down my spine. "I was starting to think you'd lost your nerve."

I lift my chin, defiant even as my pulse trips into overdrive. "What do you want, Dante?"

Those kissable lips curve into a blade of a smile. "You know exactly what I want, solnyshko."

He extends a hand, an unspoken command. Every instinct screams at me to turn and run, to flee the peril incarnate. But my body betrays me, drawn to his darkness like a moth to an infernal flame.

I am a marionette dancing on strings only he can see, my will siphoned away drop by treacherous drop. How much of me will be left when he finally tires of this game? Will I even recognize the shell he leaves behind?

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