The Monster In Us

20- piece bY piece

The cuts on my face are pretty bad but I'm hoping that Dante, and everybody else for that matter, will just believe that it was because of my boxing class. I'll just say that I'm a terrible boxer and leave it at that. I'm wearing that tight black dress that he had bought me when we went to Eclipse because Dante had texted me half an hour earlier and said that he's back in Vegas and will be picking me up soon.

After fighting in the desert today, I had some time to work with Coleman at the Renegade, grab some stuff from my office, and say goodbye to my father before heading back to my apartment to clean up the long cut I now have on my forehead. I put on a lot of foundation and concealer to attempt to hide a bruise that's showing up on my cheek now and so I think that I look presentable.

As I'm finishing up my makeup, what feels to be caked onto my face in a thousand layers now, there's a knock on my door. I check my phone to see if Dante had texted me to tell me that he's here but there's no messages so I curiously walk to the door. I check the peep hole and it is Dante but I don't know why he came up here to get me instead of waiting for me downstairs like he usually does.

I open the door with a confused smile. "Hey. Why didn't you wait downstairs?" I ask him.

Dante invites himself into the apartment, shutting the door behind him, and without giving me any explanation, he just puts his lips on mine. Although I'm confused, I just go with it because I don't mind just sitting here making out with him for a minute. Although he might get some lipstick on his face.

"You look good," He mumbles against my lips as he steps forward just enough so that my back is pressed against the wall and my breath is becoming short. Not because the kiss is that intense but just our close proximity is driving me insane right now. Probably because it's been an entire week since we've been this close, or have even seen or spoke to each other.

"You too," I respond in a quiet voice. "What about your steak?"

He pulls away just far enough to look into my eyes. "It can wait. What happened here?" He notices the cut on my forehead and he touches it with the pad of his thumb, running it along the cut.

"Just the boxing class," I belt out my rehearsed excuse. "I'm not very good at it, think that I'm going to give it up."

"Did you put ice on it?" He asks me.

"Yeah, it's fine," I assure him. "Anyway, we should probably get going if you got us reservations."

He squeezes his hand on my hip a little bit. "We still have some time."

He goes to kiss me again but I lean my head out of the way with a small laugh. "If we don't leave now, we're not going to make it out of the apartment. And I'm so hungry and now that you said steak, I've been wanting steak all day."

He stays silent for a moment and an unsaid sexual innuendo is hovering over us. I wait for him to actually say it... 'I'll give you something else to eat'. I look at him, he smirks, but he doesn't say it even though we're both thinking the same thing.

"Alright," He decides, probably knowing that if he did say that, maybe we really wouldn't have made it out of the apartment, and he wraps his arm around my hips as we walk out of the apartment and down the hall. "Let's go eat then."

"Do you want to spend the night?" I find myself asking him before my mind has processed what I'm actually saying. His kiss is still on my lips though, and I can't stop thinking about the next time that I'll be able to kiss him again, and then more. "No, that's stupid, you've been gone for a while so you probably just want to go home."

As he's driving, he moves his hand so that it's on my bare thigh and it's hard to focus on anything other than that, but I still hear his words. "I would, and it's not that I want to be home. I'd much rather be with you. But I have a lot of work to get done by Monday. I was only able to get away for a few hours tonight."