Page 26 of Marked for Life

He captures my mouth in a bruising kiss as my second release crashes through me, more intense than the first. Seconds later, he follows, my name a broken curse on his lips as he empties himself inside me.

Afterward, he doesn't immediately pull away as he usually does. Instead, he gathers me against his chest, one hand stroking through my hair. I can hear his heartbeat gradually slowing beneath my ear.

"Why did you do that?" he asks finally, his voice unusually quiet in the darkness.

I know he's referring to my unexpected initiative earlier. I trace patterns on his chest, avoiding the tattoo of his name that marks him as permanently as he's marked my life.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "I saw something in

I saw something in your eyes. Something broken." My voice is barely a whisper against his skin. "I wanted to fix it, even just for a moment."

His body tenses beneath mine. For several heartbeats, there's only silence, his fingers frozen in my hair. I've said too much, revealed too much of what I saw in him. Vulnerability is dangerous with Dante—both his and mine.

"You can't fix me, Hannah." His voice is hard again, that brief tenderness receding like the tide. "Don't mistake what just happened for something it's not."

But even as he says it, his arms tighten around me, contradicting his words. His body tells a different story than his mouth, something I'm slowly learning to read.

"I know what you are," I say carefully. "I'm not trying to change you."

He shifts suddenly, rolling me beneath him, his weight pinning me to the mattress. In the moonlight, his face is all sharp angles and shadows, his eyes bottomless and searching.

"What am I, then?" he challenges, one hand wrapping loosely around my throat—not squeezing, just reminding me of his power. "Tell me what you see when you look at me."

I swallow against his palm, choosing my words with care. "I see someone who takes what he wants. Someone dangerous."I pause, gathering courage. "Someone who's afraid of needing anything he can't control."

His nostrils flare, jaw tightening. For a moment, I think he'll punish me for my honesty, but instead, his thumb strokes along my pulse point.

"And yet here you are," he murmurs, "offering yourself to me. Knowing what I am."

"Here I am," I agree, the truth of it settling heavily between us.

He studies me for what feels like an eternity, as if trying to solve a puzzle. Then he releases my throat, rolling onto his back and pulling me against his side.

"Sleep," he commands, but his voice lacks its usual edge.

And as I’m falling asleep, I hear him whisper, so softly I almost don’t hear it. “You still can’t see that I’m the man who would die for you.”

CHAPTER 17

Dante

Ihaven’t slept. How could I, when her words echo in my head like a prayer that’s been answered after a lifetime of waiting?I feel something.Three words that have changed everything. More than any possession, any claim, any mark on skin could ever achieve. I pace my office, haunted by the memory of those words. They play in my mind over and over, each repetition sending waves of something deeper than satisfaction—this is transcendence. This is the culmination of everything I’ve worked for since the first moment I saw her. Not just ownership, not just binding, not just the blood of our child growing inside her, but her. Her heart, her mind, her complete surrender.

The sun rises, casting gold over my office, spilling across the reports, the emails I’ve neglected. My empire, once the core of my existence, now feels like background noise—necessary, sure, but peripheral. She is everything now. She is the possession that matters. Physical, legal, biological. And now, finally—theemotional surrender. The first crack in her walls, the first flicker of what I’ve been orchestrating with meticulous care.

I summon her to me as the house wakes up around us. The world goes on, oblivious, while the only reality that matters—Hannah and me—unfolds in the space I’ve created. She walks in, cautious, her pregnant belly leading the way, her hands over our son. My son. Growing exactly as I demanded, just like everything in my life.

"You didn’t sleep," she says, her voice soft, but it’s not the detached compliance I’ve grown used to. There’s something different—something more. Genuine concern. Real connection. She’s finally feeling it. We’re finally connected.

“Sleep is irrelevant,” I say, crossing the room in three steps. My hands find her face, holding her with a tenderness that hides my obsession. My focus. She’s mine. In every way. “Nothing matters but what you said yesterday. Nothing matters more than your confession, your acknowledgment of what’s between us. Beyond the physical. Beyond the legal. Beyond everything I’ve built to claim you.”

She doesn’t pull away. Another victory. Another barrier falls. She’s mine. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Every part of her is becoming mine.

“I need you to understand,” I tell her, my voice thick with the weight of what I need her to know. This isn’t just possession—it’s everything. “What you are to me. What I would do for you. What exists between us can’t be explained by words. By any definition you know.”

Something flickers in her eyes—not fear, not calculated compliance—but awareness. The truth of what I’m saying is starting to sink in.

“I’m listening,” she says, carefully, as always, picking her words like she’s learned the art of survival. But there’ssomething else in her voice now. Something more than just the survival instinct. Something like acceptance.

---