CHAPTER FOUR : A Night To Remember

Ava:

When I didn't kiss him back immediately, a hand slid to my waist and his grip tightened as he bit my lips softly.

Everything about him changed. The kiss turned urgent, greedy. His hands gripped my waist, pulled me closer. The heat of his skin burned through the fabric of my dress. His mouth moved down, tracing my jaw, my throat, then lower.

He wasn’t just leaving kisses on my body, he was devouring me whole. 

“What happened before the accident?” He suddenly asked, cracking the tension with just a sentence.

I choked out a breath, “What?”

Dante looked up at me, unblinking as he asked again, “What happened between you and Ivy moments before the accident?”

His question and tone sent a jab through my heart, “What do you mean by that?” The accusation underneath his voice was far too loud and sharp to ignore.

He didn’t say anything, he only met my eyes with his sharp ones that sent a shiver down my spine.

“I don’t remember anything that happened that night,” I told him after a moment.

“Nothing?” He didn’t believe a word I said, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He looked away from my eyes and tugged my dress lower until the only thing covering my chest was my brown lace bra. A breath escaped my lips when I noticed how darker his eyes had turned. I knew at that moment that if I didn't stop him right now, he wouldn’t listen to me later on.

There was a burning fire climbing up my skin and curling around me whole, warming up my insides in a way that desired closeness.

Still, I said in a low whisper, “Dante, we shouldn’t…” 

His fingers moved along the curve of my collarbone and trailed its way down my breast, and he looked up, holding my gaze with his, “You don’t want to?” He asked quietly.

I released a deep breath, and I completely forgot the last straw of reasoning I was holding onto when Dante knelt before me and reached for his belt, unbuckled it and slipped it off, before setting it aside, “Isn’t this part of your responsibility as my wife?” he probed.

My gaze forcefully trailed up from the movement of his fingers on the zip of his pants, “That’s not… Not what I’m talking about.”

“Then what?” Despite the fact that we hadn’t concluded on the conversation, Dante got up from the bed and for a moment I thought he was angry, but every single word stuck to my throat faded so easily when he tugged his pants down and I saw the intricate, and neat font two word line tattoo below his hip bone. I could only see the first word which read: ‘Sin.’

His pants hit the floor with a heavy sound, but I barely heard it. My eyes were stuck on that single word inked just above his waistband

My mouth had gone completely dry.

“I’m giving you a safe word,” he said suddenly. Seriously. “Say it, and I’ll stop.”

I looked up at him. There was no hesitation in his eyes, but there was something else. 

“What is it?” I asked, and my voice was steadier than I felt.

“Red.”

He waited for a beat. “Say it now, if you want and I’ll stop.” It was like he was giving me one last chance to stop this before it escalated.

I didn’t say it after a moment, and I watched his eyes darken on me. I swallowed, eyes locked on his, as he climbed back onto the bed. My dress bunched around my thighs, and I didn’t move to fix it.

He came back to me, knee on the mattress, then the other, crawling over me slowly, controlled. He reached out and tugged the fabric of my dress lower again, pausing at the edge of my bra. His fingers brushed my skin, and I swear I stopped breathing.

A flicker of something sharp passed through his expression. Then his hands were on me. One slid up my thigh, the other pressed against my ribcage, thumb dragging over the curve just under my bra. My back arched like it had a mind of its own. Every nerve in my body was keyed up.

He leaned in, his mouth against the side of my neck. “You don’t even know what I’m going to do to you.”

At this point I wasn’t sure I knew what was going on anyway, but I didn’t talk about how we shouldn’t be doing this.

Or about how I had merely tried to see him as my brother-in-law just a week ago.

He pulled the dress down to my waist. My bra stayed on, barely. The straps slipped from my shoulders, and I thought he might take his time. I thought wrong.

He didn’t kiss me softly. He didn’t move slowly. His mouth was rough and hot and selfish like he was taking up his time to make sure I remember the very detail of what he was doing to me. 

He yanked the last of the dress from my legs, and his hand wrapped around the back of my neck and pulled me closer until there was nothing between us but breath and skin and heat.

When he finally pushed his boxers down, I saw the rest of the tattoo.

‘Sin lives here.’

The font was neat. Stark black ink against the pale skin just above his hip. My eyes lowered a little, and I swallowed the lump stuck to my throat. He was big, well endowed and circumcised. I couldn't take my eyes off his lower half, until he claimed my lips again.

Dante's eyes were wild with hunger when they met mine.

He leaned in again. His hand dragged up my side, then slid behind my back, undoing the clasp of my bra with one flick. It slipped free, and he pulled it away, tossing it to the side before coming back to claiming and touching every single part of me till I was breathless, trembling, and utterly undone beneath him.

✦✧✦✧✦

I woke up the next morning with guilt strangling me like wire around my throat. I knew this would be the aftermath of the night, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from sleeping with a man I probably shouldn’t want even though we were married.

My hand found the empty half of the bed. It was cold, Not freshly-abandoned cold but long-gone cold. Like no one had even slept there.

I fell asleep before Dante last night, so I couldn’t tell if he had even slept here.

My eyes fluttered open, and something tight wrapped itself around my chest as I sat up, the sheet slipping from my shoulder to reveal the love marks left on my skin.

One look around the place was enough to tell me Dante had left the room immediately after I fell asleep. I couldn’t find his shoes, suit, tie, or anything of his. Except a red box of what I assumed to be clothes for me.

I stretched a little and found my white dress folded on the other side of the bed, and that was when I noticed the piece of paper on the pillow.

I stared at it for a long time before reaching for it.

My fingers trembled as I unfolded it and saw the one line, and eight words which were neatly written in dark ink.

‘Business meeting in L.A. Don’t wait for me.’

I wasn’t sure what the second sentence meant until I turned to the back of the paper, expecting to see something or a number I could reach him with, but I saw nothing of the sort.

My heart didn’t break in half, it completely fractured, along with the hope that I could ever make this marriage work out.

.