Page 12 of Marked for Life

"About?" His fingers trail from my lip to my neck, finding the tattoo of his initials with unerring precision, as if drawn by magnetic pull to this mark of ownership.

I hesitate, calculating risks against rewards, honesty against self-preservation. "The baby," I finally say, a truth that feels safe to admit. "How everything will change once it's born."

Something softens in his expression—not genuine emotion, but the simulation of it, the performance of normal human connection that occasionally breaks through his obsessive possession. "For the better," he assures me, his hand returning to my stomach, claiming both me and the child with a single touch. "Our family will be complete. Our bond permanently sealed."

I say nothing, knowing any response would be inadequate or dangerous. Instead, I remain still as his hand begins a slow, deliberate journey from my stomach to my hip, to the small of my back where the Severino crest marks me as his dynasty's property. His fingers trace the design through my dress, the pressure firm enough to remind me of its presence, its permanence, its significance in his mind.

"Mine," he murmurs, the word hanging between us, neither question nor statement but pure declaration. His hand continues its possessive exploration, mapping territory already claimed countless times before. This is routine now—this touching, this marking, this physical reinforcement of ownership that happens daily, hourly, whenever Dante feels the need to remind himself and me that my body exists for his pleasure, his possession, his obsession.

What isn't routine, what still shocks me despite months of captivity, is my body's response to his touch. A treacherous warmth spreading through me as his fingers find sensitive places along my spine, my neck, the curve where shoulder meets throat. My breathing quickens slightly—an involuntary reaction I try desperately to control but cannot fully suppress. My skin prickles with awareness, with something that feels horrifyingly like anticipation when his other hand joins the first, both now moving across my body with practiced familiarity.

This is the newest torture, the latest violation—not the touching itself, which has been constant since my abduction, but my body's growing responsiveness to it. Months of conditioning, of having pleasure forced alongside fear, of physical sensations divorced from emotional consent, have created pathways of response I cannot seem to dismantle. My mind screams rejection while my flesh softens, warms, yields beneath hands that have mapped every inch of me.

"Your pulse has quickened," Dante observes, his fingers pressed against the hollow of my throat where the betrayal of my heartbeat is most visible. Satisfaction colors his voice—he's noticed this developing response, this physical surrender that occurs despite my mental resistance. Of course he has. Dante misses nothing, particularly when it signifies another victory in his campaign to possess me completely.

"The pregnancy," I manage, offering the excuse weakly, knowing he won't believe it but needing to say something, anything to deny the reality of what's happening. "It affects circulation."

His soft laugh against my ear tells me he isn't fooled. "Does it?" he murmurs, his lips grazing the sensitive skin just below my earlobe. "Or is your body finally acknowledging what your mind still struggles to accept?"

I close my eyes, trying to disconnect, to retreat to that internal sanctuary I've maintained despite everything. But his hands are everywhere now, his touch expert and deliberately calibrated to extract response. My body—traitor that it has become—arches slightly when his fingers find a particularly sensitive spot at the nape of my neck, a place he's discovered draws involuntary reaction regardless of my mental state.

"See?" he whispers, triumph evident in his voice. "Your body knows who it belongs to, even when your mind resists."

I want to deny it, to prove him wrong with continued rigidity, with physical rejection that matches my emotional resistance. But months of captivity, of claimed pleasure delivered alongside fear and possession, have created something insidious—a physiological response separate from my consciousness, a bodily surrender that occurs regardless of my consent.

His mouth finds mine, the kiss neither gentle nor brutal but consuming, claiming, demanding response I try to withhold but cannot fully suppress. My lips soften beneath his, parting slightly—another betrayal, another surrender my conscious mind rails against while my conditioned body complies.

The shame of it burns through me, hot and suffocating. This response feels like the final violation, worse somehow than the tattoos, the forced marriage, even the pregnancy. Those were things done to me, external forces I could mentally separate from my true self. But this—this response, this physical yielding—comes from within, suggesting a fracturing of self more profound than anything Dante's direct actions could achieve.

His hands move lower, finding the hem of my dress, sliding beneath to touch bare skin. I should stop him. Should push his hands away. Should reassert whatever boundaries still exist between captured and captor. But the calculus of survival flashes through my mind with practiced speed—resistance leads to force, force leads to potential harm, harm threatens the baby I'vegrown increasingly determined to protect. So I remain passive, neither encouraging nor fighting as his touch becomes more intimate, more invasive, more deliberately designed to provoke response.

"You're trembling," he observes, misinterpreting—deliberately or genuinely—fear for desire, compliance for consent.

I say nothing, words trapped behind the lump of shame in my throat. His fingers trace patterns on my inner thighs, moving higher with practiced confidence, with the assurance of ownership that requires no permission, no invitation, no consent beyond his own desire to touch what belongs to him.

When he reaches the center of me, finding evidence of physical arousal my mind cannot control, his satisfaction is palpable—a tightening of his other arm around my waist, a soft sound of triumph against my neck where his mouth has been leaving marks of possession.

"Your body doesn't lie," he murmurs, fingers moving with deliberate skill, extracting responses that make me hate myself even as sensation builds, even as unwanted pleasure spirals outward from his touch. "It knows who it belongs to. Who gives it pleasure. Who owns it completely."

I bite my lip to keep from making sound, to maintain this last small resistance against the tide of physical response threatening to drown my sense of self. But Dante won't allow even this small defiance, his free hand moving to my mouth, thumb pressing against my lower lip.

"Let me hear you," he commands, his voice soft but allowing no refusal. "Show me you accept the pleasure I give you."

When I remain silent, his fingers still, pleasure suspended on the edge of completion. A new form of torture—withholding the release my treacherous body now craves, using physical need asyet another tool of control, of submission, of breaking what little resistance remains.

"Hannah," he says, my name a warning, a promise, a threat wrapped in velvet. "Accept what I'm giving you. Acknowledge who provides this pleasure."

The battle rages within me—mind versus body, resistance versus need, dignity versus the release hovering just beyond reach. And in this moment, physiology wins over principle. A sound escapes me—not quite his name, not quite surrender, but enough to signify compliance with his demands.

It's sufficient. His fingers resume their skilled manipulation, pushing me over the edge I've been fighting, sending waves of unwanted pleasure crashing through my body. My knees weaken, my weight supported entirely by his arm around my waist as sensation overwhelms resistance, as physical response drowns out mental rejection.

In the aftermath, shame floods through me so intensely I cannot look at him, cannot bear to see the triumph in his eyes, the satisfaction of another barrier broken, another aspect of self claimed by his relentless possession.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, his hand still intimate against me, prolonging the moment of vulnerability, of exposure, of complete physical surrender. “You’re fucking perfect, Hannah.”

I say nothing, words impossible past the knot of self-hatred in my throat. What does it mean that my body responds to him now? That pleasure can be extracted despite lack of consent, despite emotional rejection, despite everything that makes this situation what it is—captivity disguised as marriage, possession disguised as love, obsession disguised as devotion?

Dante seems to sense my internal struggle, his hand finally withdrawing, adjusting my clothing with meticulous attention that feels like further violation after the intimacy of momentsbefore. "Don't overthink this," he advises, as if reading the self-recrimination in my silence. “Just belong to me.”

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