Page 53 of The Contract

He holds the cloth under my ass. His other hand splays against my back.

“Open for me,” he says in a low, rough voice. When I make a sound of protest, he presses his cheek against my temple and says gently, “Come on.”

I tuck my face against him. Fingers flexing against his pecs, I try to do as he says. At first I’m embarrassed when cum spills from my hole into the cloth he’s holding under me. But he murmurs against me, pleased, so I let myself open.

I feel so fucking vulnerable as I let my body release like that, as I let him hold me and catch the spill from my ass. It’s so intimate that even though I’m not upset, my eyes prickle. Tears spill. Dante’s face shifts. Hesitantly, his lips press against my temple. He kisses me.

With anyone else, such a small kiss wouldn’t mean much, but Dante has never, ever kissed me before, not in any way. I sigh against him and relax.

Later, we’re down in the kitchen. I barely got one bite of my steak at the charity dinner, so Dante makes curry.

“Where did you learn to cook?” I ask him as he slides a bowl in front of me.

We’re both wearing warmups and t-shirts. His left forearm is bandaged. Maybe I should stop stabbing him.

“The internet,” he answers.

“Oh.”

“Did you imagine I had private culinary lessons or something?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I find the lives of rich people hard to imagine.”

“Hm.”

He doesn’t offer anything, of course. I want to ask him about himself, but I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how. His relationship with his parents is obviously tense. We went to the dinner tonight because of his mother, but their brief interaction was so strained that it was painful to watch. To someone whodoesn’t know Dante, it would have looked like he was being a complete ass to her, but I could tell he was trying. And he never even spoke to his father.

I had forgotten about it until now. It was right after that that he started tormenting me with the vibration. I don’t think that was a coincidence. Now, looking back, I don’t really know how to feel about him turning on me like that. But he didn’t really turn on me, not in the sense of turningagainstme. He took control of me. He fixated on me.

When he does that, it’s so intense that I always think I can’t handle it. But every time, he just pushes my boundaries back a little further. He shows me another part of myself.

Why is he like this?

Or maybe I should be asking: why do I like that he is? But I know the answer to that.

Everything with Dante is so fuckingreal.

I know he’s dangerous. He’s controlling and domineering. He’s sometimes cruel. He’s maybe a little crazy. But he’s also taken better care of me than anyone in my life has ever done. He’s made me feelseen. Like I really exist. Like it matters that I do.

“Do you want more curry?” he asks. “Or do you want ice cream?”

“Ice cream?” I echo incredulously. “Since when did a dessert enter this house?”

He pretends to be annoyed, but I can tell he’s amused.

I give him a skeptical look. “It’s probably vanilla, isn’t it?”

“What about me strikes you as vanilla?”

I burst out laughing. He smiles. I fucking love when he smiles. It reveals such a different side of him.

“So what is it?” I ask.

“Vanilla,” he deadpans.

“No, it’s not.”

He sighs, disappointed that I called his bluff, because, no, it’s not vanilla. It has all kinds of crap in it, caramel and cookie pieces and more than one kind of chocolate. It’s decadent and totally delicious.

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