Chapter 5

ARIA

Dante’s hand moves up from my stomach, cupping my breast. His thumb brushes over my nipple, and I gasp at the contact.

“Sensitive,” he notes, doing it again. Watching my reaction with clinical interest. “Good.”

He leans down and takes my nipple into his mouth.

The sensation shoots straight between my legs. I arch into him, tugging against the restraints without meaning to.

“Dante...”

“Shh.” He switches to my other breast, lavishing it with the same attention. His teeth graze the sensitive peak, and I cry out. “I want to hear every sound. Don’t hold back.”

His mouth trails lower. Kissing down my stomach, my hipbones, and the inside of my thighs. Everywhere except where I’m aching for him.

“Please,” I hear myself whimper.

“Please, what?”

“Touch me.”

“I am touching you.” He’s being deliberately obtuse, the bastard. His fingers trace patterns on my inner thigh, so close but not close enough.

“You know what I mean.”

“Say it, Aria. Tell me exactly what you want.”

My face burns. I’ve never said words like that out loud. Never needed to.

But the ache between my legs is becoming unbearable, and Dante clearly won’t give me what I need until I ask for it.

“Touch me,” I force out. “Between my legs. Please.”

“Here?” His finger barely grazes me, and I nearly come off the bed.

“Yes! There!”

“So wet already.” His voice is full of dark satisfaction. “And I’ve barely started.”

He spreads my legs wider, settling between them. I expect him to use his fingers again.

Instead, his mouth closes over me.

I scream.

The sensation is overwhelming, foreign, too much, and not enough all at once. His tongue moves in deliberate circles, and my hips buck involuntarily.

“Stay still,” he orders against my skin, his hands gripping my thighs to hold me in place.

But I can’t stay still. My body is chasing something I don’t quite understand, something building and building until...

The orgasm crashes through me like a tidal wave. I cry out, pulling hard against the restraints as pleasure floods every nerve ending.

Dante doesn’t stop. He works me through it, wringing out every last tremor until I’m gasping and oversensitive.

“That’s one,” he says, lifting his head. His lips are wet, his eyes dark with hunger. “Let’s see how many more I can pull from you.”

Before I can process that, his fingers are inside me.

I’m so sensitive that the intrusion makes me gasp. He starts slowly, letting me adjust, then adds another finger. The stretch burns slightly, but it’s not unpleasant.

“You’re so tight,” he murmurs, his thumb finding that bundle of nerves that makes me see stars. “I’m going to have to work you open before you can take me.”

The image his words conjure makes my inner muscles clench around his fingers.

“You like that idea,” he observes. “Like thinking about me stretching you, filling you, making you mine.”

“Yes,” I admit, beyond caring about being coy.

His fingers move faster, working in and out while his thumb maintains steady pressure. The sensation builds again, impossibly quick.

“Come for me, Aria.”

The command in his voice tips me over the edge. I shatter again, this orgasm somehow more intense than the first. My vision blurs, and I think I might actually black out from the pleasure.

When I come back to myself, Dante is unbuttoning his shirt.

I watch, dazed, as he reveals his chest. Muscled and sculpted, with a faint trail of dark hair leading down past his waistband. He’s beautiful in a way that makes my mouth go dry.

He sheds the rest of his clothes efficiently, and then he’s naked before me.

Oh.

He’s... impressive. Thick and hard and definitely bigger than I expected. A flutter of nervousness joins the lingering pleasure in my belly.

“Scared?” he asks, reading my expression.

“A little,” I admit.

“Good. You should be.” He positions himself between my legs, the head of him pressing against my entrance. “This is going to hurt. I’ll try to make it quick, but your first time is always painful.”

“I know.”

His hand cups my face, surprisingly gentle. “Breathe through it. The worst part only lasts a moment.”

Then he pushes inside.

The pain is immediate and sharp. I cry out, tears springing to my eyes as he breaks through the barrier in one firm thrust.

“Fuck,” Dante grits out, holding completely still. “You’re strangling me.”

I can’t speak. Can barely breathe. The pain is overwhelming, a burning stretch that makes me want to push him away and pull him closer all at once.

“Breathe, Aria.” His thumb wipes away a tear I didn’t realize had fallen. “The worst is over.”

“It hurts,” I gasp.

“I know. It’ll get better.” He stays motionless, letting my body adjust. “You’re doing so well. Taking me so perfectly.”

The praise helps. So does the fact that the pain is slowly, gradually, starting to fade. My body learns to accommodate him, the stretch becoming less foreign.

“Better?” he asks after what feels like an eternity.

“A little.”

“I’m going to move now. Slowly.” He pulls out slightly, then pushes back in. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

It’s not too much. It still hurts, but there’s something else building beneath the pain. Something that makes me lift my hips to meet his next thrust.

“That’s it,” Dante encourages. “Take what you need.”

He sets a steady rhythm, deep and possessive. Each thrust hits something inside me that makes the pain recede further, replaced by growing pleasure.

“You’re mine now,” he says against my neck. “The first man inside you. The first to make you come. Mine.”

The possessiveness in his voice shouldn’t turn me on. But it does.

“Say it,” he demands, his thrusts getting harder. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” I gasp out.

“Again.”

“Yours. I’m yours, Dante.”

He makes a sound deep in his chest—satisfaction and possession and something darker. His hand slides between our bodies, finding that sensitive bundle of nerves again.

The combination of his fingers and his length moving inside me is too much.

“Come with me,” Dante commands, his rhythm faltering. “Now, Aria.”

My body obeys. I shatter around him, screaming his name as the orgasm rips through me. I feel him pulsing inside me and hear his groan as he finds his own release.

For a moment, we’re frozen like that. Connected and breathing hard.

Then Dante carefully withdraws and reaches up to untie my wrists. The restraints fall away, and suddenly I can move again. My arms are stiff from being held above my head for so long.

“Let me see,” Dante says, examining my wrists. The silk left faint marks but no real damage. He kisses each one tenderly, a startling contrast to his earlier dominance.

Then he pulls me against his chest, wrapping strong arms around me.

I should feel awkward. We’re strangers. This whole situation is insane.

But lying here in his arms, my body aching in unfamiliar places, I feel... safe.

Which might be the most dangerous feeling of all.

“Tomorrow we announce the engagement,” Dante says into my hair. “Tomorrow your revenge begins.”

Reality crashes back. This wasn’t just sex. It was a deal. A transaction.

A declaration of war.

“No going back?” I ask quietly.

His arms tighten around me. “Never.”

I close my eyes and let myself drift, aware that I’ve just crossed a line I can never uncross.

I’m not virgin Aria anymore.

I’m not Marcus’s naive fiancée.

I’m Dante Ashford’s soon-to-be wife.

And tomorrow, everyone will know it.

I wake to unfamiliar silk sheets against my bare skin and the disorienting realization that I'm not in my bed.

I am hurting in places I didn’t know could hurt.

Everything between my thighs feels raw and swollen, like I’ve been split open and put back together. My wrists have faint red rings from the silk ties, and when I shift, the sheets slide over skin that’s tender everywhere he touched, licked, and bit. The ache is proof. Proof that last night actually happened. Proof that I let Dante Ashford (no, begged Dante Ashford) take the one thing I’d saved for the man I thought I was going to marry.

The man who was fucking my twin sister yesterday.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, but the images are still there: Marcus’s back muscles flexing, Vivienne’s smug little moan when she saw me in the doorway. I shove the memory down hard and open my eyes again.

This is not my bed. This is not my apartment. These are thousand-thread-count sheets that smell like cedar and sex and him.

I sit up too fast and have to bite my lip to keep from whimpering. The sheet slips to my waist, and cool air hits my breasts ... my nipples are still sensitive and still traitorously tight from the memory of his mouth. I clutch the fabric to my chest like a shield and look around. The room is enormous, all dark wood and steel and glass, the city glittering beyond the windows like it’s bowing to the man who owns half of it.

Oh God. Dante.

The bathroom door opens.

Dante steps out already dressed (black suit, black shirt, no tie, top button undone just enough to make my stomach flip). He looks infuriatingly perfect, like he slept eight hours and conquered a small country before breakfast instead of spending half the night...

My face burns at the memory.

Those ice-blue eyes lock on me immediately, and I swear the temperature in the room drops five degrees and climbs twenty at the same time.

“Good morning, fiancée,” he says, voice low, amused, and completely in control.

The word "fiancée" slams into me like a fist. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My throat feels scraped raw from screaming his name last night.

He crosses the room in four silent strides and sets a cup of coffee on the nightstand. The scent hits me (strong, perfect, exactly how I take it). Of course, he knows how I take my coffee. He probably knows my blood type and my cycle and every single thing that makes me come undone.

"What time is it?" My voice comes out rough and scratchy from screaming his name.

"Seven thirty." He turns from the window, and those ice-blue eyes track over me with the same predatory focus as last night. "I let you sleep in. Normally, I'm in the office by six."

I let you sleep in. Like he's done me some great favor.

"I should go home," I say, looking around for my clothes. My dress from yesterday is draped over a chair, carefully laid out. My bra and panties are folded on top. The thoughtfulness of it throws me.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, eyes flicking over the sheet I’m clutching like a life raft.

Sore. Terrified. Alive for the first time in twenty-four hours.

“Fine,” I croak.

He doesn’t smile, but something dark and satisfied flashes across his face. “Liar.”

He sits on the edge of the bed, close enough that the mattress dips, and I have to fight the urge to lean into him. He hands me a tablet. “Read this. Sign it. We announce today.”

I take it with shaking fingers. The screen glows with a contract (our contract). Cold, clinical words that somehow make last night feel even more real.

One-year minimum marriage.

Ten million dollars if I walk after that.

Sexual exclusivity.