Page 41 of Ruthless Silence
"It's nothing—"
He's already pulling me toward the bed, making me sit while he retrieves the first aid kit. When he kneels in front of me, pushing up my sleeve, we both see it: a shallow graze, maybe three inches long. Lucky. So incredibly lucky.
His hands shake slightly as he cleans the wound. Not from fear. From rage. He wants to go back, wants to kill them all again for this small hurt they caused me. The controlled violence in him makes my stomach flip and my pussy throb.Cristo, what is wrong with me?
"I'm okay," I say, watching him work with unnecessary care. My voice comes out breathy, affected by his proximity. "Really, Dante, it's just a scratch."
He doesn't respond, too focused on cleaning every speck of blood. His torn collar gapes as he leans forward, and I see them. Scars across his throat, white against olive skin, deliberate and cruel. The sight makes my chest tight, but also… God help me, I want to trace them with my tongue.
My hand moves without permission, stopping just short of touching. "Can I?"
He goes completely still, that predator stillness that makes prey freeze. His hand shoots out, gripping my wrist hard enough to bruise. For a second, I see the killer everyone fears, the man who could snap my bones like twigs. My pulse races under his thumb, and wetness floods my panties.
Then slowly, deliberately, he guides my hand to his throat. Permission and warning combined.
My fingers are gentle as they trace the worst of it, a jagged line across his throat. The scar tissue is raised, rough, warm under my touch. This is why he can't speak. Someone did this to him, took his voice with deliberate cruelty. The scar tissue is old but extensive, and my eyes burn with tears I refuse to shed.
"Ten years ago?" I whisper, my finger following the path of old violence.
His breathing changes, chest rising faster. He nods.
The massacre. The same time Papa died. The timing isn't coincidence. It's connected, all of it tangled in blood and secrets.
"Show me," I say, the words escaping before I can stop them. "All of them."
Dante's eyes search mine, looking for mockery, pity, revulsion. Finding none, he stands slowly, fingers working the buttons of his ruined shirt.
The fabric falls away, and I forget how to breathe.
His body is a torture map. But underneath the scars, he's still devastatingly male. Hard muscle, the V that disappears into his pants, the same body that I saw working out in the gym and the same one that covered mine three days ago. My traitorous pussy clenches at the memory, even as my heart breaks at the damage.
Systematic scars cross his chest, ribs, shoulders. Not random violence but deliberate cruelty. Burn marks that are definitely cigarettes. Knife wounds too precise to be from fighting. The room feels smaller with his shirt off, the air thicker.
"Who did this?" I whisper, my hand hovering over a particularly vicious scar across his ribs. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin.
He shrugs, but his eyes hold murder. His hand wraps around my throat, gentle but claiming. His thumb presses where his marks have faded, and I know he's thinking about putting them back. My nipples go painfully hard.
"The massacre," I say, pieces falling into place even as my body responds to his touch. "This happened during the massacre. We're connected by that night."
He nods once, thumb stroking my pulse point that races for entirely wrong reasons.
"They tortured you." The words burn my tongue. "Someone held you down and did this."
His free hand signs: "We both lost that night."
The truth of it crashes through me. He suffered too. Connected by timing, by blood, by losses neither of us chose. My body trembles, overwhelmed by conflicting needs. To comfort, to kill, to climb onto his lap and fuck the pain away for both of us.
The tears come before I can stop them, hot and shameful down my cheeks.
I'm crying for my enemy. Crying for the man who killed Papa. The betrayal burns worse than the graze on my arm, but I can'tstop. Worse, my pussy is wet while I cry, my body a complete traitor that wants him even in grief.
His thumb brushes away a tear, and he signs: "Warriors don't cry for their enemies."
"Then what am I?" I whisper, catching his hand, pressing it harder against my throat. Needing the anchor of his touch even as I hate myself for it.
"Mine," he signs with his free hand, possessive certainty in every movement. "My warrior. My enemy. My wife."
I reach out without thinking, my palm flat against the worst scar over his heart. His skin burns under my touch. He covers my hand with his, pressing it closer rather than pulling away.
