Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
He finds my lips pressed down passionately. “We have… to… go,” he says, looping his arm around me.
“How did you do all this?” I murmur. “With the lights and everything.”
“There are tools, small electrical disturbances, remote access, things like that. It only worked because you want to be out here. I couldn’t have gotten into the house. It’s on a separate system. I bet he has a generator and nuclear arsenal down there.”
I can feel him smirking, his lips still against me as he talks.
“Come on, Mia. We need to go. We don’t want to miss our date.”
“In the dark,” I whisper, finding his lips again. “It suits us, right?”
Kissing him feels so right, especially when I initiate it. There’s something so hot about being the one to make the choice, to claim him as much as he’s claiming me.
“Let me help you over the wall.”
He takes me by the hips and then lifts me as though I weigh nothing. It’s so exhilarating that I almost laugh, but then I bite down to stop the sound. I perch on the wall as he effortlessly vaults over, reaches up, and helps me down.
“What’s so funny?” he whispers.
“I’m not laughing.”
“But you were trying not to.”
“Okay, Mr. Night Vision.”
He laughs as he leads me across the street. I feel like a princess being sneaked from the castle by her Prince Charming.
“It was how easily you were carrying me. It felt crazy. I felt so light.”
“You’re the perfect size,” he says huskily, sinking his hand deeper into my hip as though he owns me. “Every inch of you… You’re the perfect shape, my pinup princess.”
“Your princess,” I say, grabbing his arm, feeling that all-encompassing warm, fluttering feeling that gripped me the first time we fell asleep in each other’s arms. Only now, I don’t feel even the tiniest bit sleepy. “Nobody else’s. Okay?”
“Never,” he says fiercely.
“Where are we going?” I ask once we’re in his car.
“You deserve the best,” Dante tells me. “The best restaurants. The best service. The best—”
“I don’t need the best,” I cut in. “Dante, I’ve had the best all my life ever since I was a kid. All the nicest things. All the school trips. All the newest phones. Do you think it made me happy? I want you, something real. Something us.”
He lets out a trembling sigh. “There’s something I’ve never shown or told anyone,” Dante tells me.
A shiver runs over my body from the shift in his tone of voice. It’s like some part of him is disappearing into darkness, into the past, maybe.
“It’s not exactly a date,” he says.
“But it’s something important. It’s something you need to show me.”
“Before I met you, I could’ve gone my whole life keeping this a secret,” he says.
“But we’re different.” I touch his arm.
He reaches up and places his hand on mine. He does it with an air of hunger like he needs the connection between us. “I don’t want to lie to you, Mia.”
“Lie?”
“About who I am. I’ve kept a secret from the Family for a long time.”
“What sort of secret?” I whisper as his tone gets even darker.
“I can show you,” he says. “Do you trust me?”
It’s been a few days since the party and our first meeting. The answer should be no, but he saved me from Vito and myself. He’s going to help me with Dad—help me take my revenge. “Yes,” I tell him.
He looks at me in that just-Dante way. It’s the way that tells me he’s seeing right to my heart, whatever flourishes in there, and he’s accepting it all.
“I’ve been having blackouts,” he says in a deep, husky voice.
I place my hand on his leg as he drives, squeezing, hoping he can feel the support moving through me.
“The doc says there’s nothing physical. It’s mental. Not handling my anger in the right way or some therapy shit, I guess.”
“You don’t have to downplay it,” I tell him, squeezing his leg. “Maybe it could help.”
“When I’m with you, I feel like it could never happen,” he says passionately. “My instincts know better. They want me to spend as much time with you as possible, every single moment.”
“I guess I’m your good luck charm.”
He smirks. “That means I’ll have to keep you around.”
I try not to let the shiver mean too much—how it dances through me and lights me up from deep inside.
“We could keep driving now,” I murmur. “Just keep going and—”
I cut off when I see his hands go tight on the steering wheel. I’ve forgotten about his ma. My friends. Everybody. “But the Family.”
“Not the Family,” he says. “Just family.”
We’re quiet as he drives through the nearly empty city, diners and convenience stores shining brightly in the night. “David is so cute,” I say, not even sure why. It just comes out. Or is that a lie, an excuse?