Please note: a part of this chapter 16 is making full use of its rating but it does NOT leak into 'R' territory (I have PG'd it, its pg13 afterall!). Also, there's a LOT of swearing. If you don't like it, this is the only instance where I'd actually tell you to piss off. You're not reading a U, expect some bad language.
Chapter 19 – "She Loves You, Man. Don't Screw It Up."
Dante allowed me to fall asleep in his arms, and yet I woke without him. He was gone. I threw on the T Shirt he gave me (and yes, it did indeed swamp me), and went walking around his house. I checked his study from just outside the door, he wasn't in there. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.
When I took a step inside, I sat in his large chair, admired the various books lined immaculately along one whole wall, and touched along the polished but worn wood of the desk. I carefully started peeking through paperwork cast almost frantically on the table, pulling out the draws and checking post-it's. There was one in particular, but it was on his computer screen. A name; Archer and Does. That exclusive club in central where Dante said he first saw me. Could he be there now? And why?
I stormed through his hallway, and towards the back to see Malcolm. He was sitting on a bench along the wall outside the kitchen doors, on the patio. It was cold and I went back to get something to wrap myself in before returning. I opened the door and he turned around.
"Hey." I said.
"Ariel, right?" he twisted, but also said it like he didn't need confirmation.
"Yes. That would be me." I said standing over him.
"You can sit if you want." He said with a coaxing tap on the vacant space next to him.
I took the seat, paused and then said, "You wouldn't happen to know where Dante is, would you?"
"Why?"
I thought quickly. "He wasn't...we were..." Okay, he doesn't need to know that. "When I woke up he was gone. Just like that."
He nodded slowly but said nothing.
"Nice night, huh?" I said tentative and tense without a clue how to approach this and darting a quick cautious eye beside me.
He shook his head and grinned. "That's not why you're here."
"Why are you here?"
"I think too much," he said. "Not enough space left for it in my head but a hell of a lot out here." He sighed, staring out. "I'm biding my time actually. Till I can get hold of someone."
I raised an eyebrow. "Business or pleasure?"
"Both. I'll take great pleasure making it my business to tear a fucker up."
For a while I didn't say anything, sitting there in the knowledge of who he was referring to, and what tearing him up could look like. Especially from a guy of Malcolm's frame.
"Dante knows," he said.
I gulped. I played it off. "Oh?" My pitch suddenly high.
"Yeah," Malcolm nodded like plans unfolded in his head.
"Maybe he doesn't. Whoever this person is who did this to you...they're probably no one." I tried my damnest to dismiss it.
Malcolm laughed. "What are you? Naive or optimistic? I'm not the best with either."
"I'm just curious where Dante is. That's all I am to you right now."
"It won't matter," he said, back to his thoughts ahead like they sat on a horizon. "You're not going anywhere to find out. You stay right here until he comes back." He got up.
"And where are you going?" I stood too.
"Out."
"You can't just leave me here."
He stopped. Turned, and said. "You don't look like you need babysitting to me. Grown woman, and that." He carried on with where he was going.
I stepped up after him. "Well if you go out I'm coming with you."
"No you're not." He spun to face me.
"I know you'll see Dante. It's obvious." Before he could say anything I interjected. "You're pissed he knows something and that he's probably taking care of it himself and you want in." I made up a guess on the spot. The more I thought of it I realised I could kill two birds with one stone here. One; find out what the hell Dante's doing, and two; keep Nate from potentially being ripped to shreds. "You're angry and I get it," I added, "but if you go I'm gonna need you to take me there too."
He scoffed. "You're ballsy. But you're out of your mind. You don't think that maybe, just maybe, if Dante is keeping you here he's doing it for a reason? He wants to protect you, he's not going to throw you into the lions pit. If I took you there we'd probably end up in a fire-fight over it. He'd win. He's more powerful that I am. He's got many more demon years on me and all that stuff."
Fire fight? Interesting.
"It's okay. I won't say anything," I reassured. "He doesn't even have to know I'm there."
"He can't anyway, he'd fight me over it."
Think, Ariel, think! There must be some way I could figure this out?
"Look," he said. "You were never meant to know that demons exist in your world, nobody is. The rest of you are supposed to bask in your ignorance. But now that you do, it's important to know that you're in a very dangerous place. Dante is not doing you any favours by pursuing you. He thinks he can work it out, that you two can have something real together, something normal, but he's kidding himself. You can't."
"But you're married though, right?" I said to him.
"Married, but apart," he said. "It's complicated as hell." He took his seat again. "It doesn't mean I don't agree with your pairing, just that it's a dangerous one. I know that first hand. And to top it off you're kind of...potent. You know...you. Dante is not the only one who'll be interested in you and he knows it."
"Potent? What do you mean?"
"You know...your fire. Your soul."
My eyes widened at that. "He wants my soul?" I shivered. Please say no...
"No. He should do, but he doesn't...I think he knows someone who will want him to take it though."
My brows drew in and I shook my head at that. "I don't understand...What do you mean by that?"
He huffed and shook his head. If he was thinking he'd said too much, he probably had, but he'd come this far, there was no point stopping now. For a moment he didn't carry on but then he said, "You don't know how much power we can draw from a soul like yours." And left it at that. He didn't even say it ominously, just factually. No tone, no emotion, just clean information.
Before I knew it I'd taken one step back. Malcolm's head turned at the motion as he spotted me move back. He chuckled. "Not me personally. Besides, I could never touch a hair on your head. Not unless I want to be killed in the slowest most devastating way possible. And you're not mine to take anyway."
For the first time in a long while I was afraid to ask something. I didn't know Malcolm. i'd pushed my luck so far but didn't think he had much slack left to give.
He paused to watch me as he seemingly mulled things over. "He's gonna kill me." He laughed without humour, as if it was more a fact than an expression, but as I looked at him it still seemed as though there was an air of truth to that. "Shit..." He leaned back, his hands rested in an interlink over his head. A quick look my way, and he rose to his feet. "C'mon you're going back upstairs."
I stopped in front of him to halt him moving me. "Look, if you don't take me, I'll take a bus."
"You don't even know where you're going."
"I'll follow you."
"They don't pass through here."
"They don't? Okay, a cab then."
"You know any cab offices around here?"
"I'll use an app." I said straight-faced. He was not impressed. "Alright, I'll call my friend," I said. "You won't be able to do much if I go with a friend. Call it hanging out if you want and we just happen to hang out near you. The coincidence. You taking me is a lesser of two evils."
"I can't..." he sighed heavily and shook his head before rubbing at his eyes. "Listen, if anything happens to you it's my neck on the line."
"Nothing will happen to me. And your neck will be fine." I smirked at him.
He clenched down hard on his jaw and his broad neck tensed. I saw an emerging tattoo come through his collar.
"What's that?" I asked him, curious.
He touched his neck. "An underworld marking."
"Dante's from the same underworld as you, right?"
"Yes, but he doesn't have one. You probably know that already."
Ahem.
Oh no... I wondered if he'd heard us? I was slightly mortified at the thought. But sure, I knew that about Dante's body already. Every clean inch of him now. "Why doesn't he?"
"He's already scarred. He wouldn't deliberately scar himself for anything."
Okay. I wish I knew...
"What do you think it would take for him to tell me anything about that? I mean you know him. Perhaps..."
"He's just got deeper things going on, Ariel. Stuff you couldn't possibly understand. You're from two different worlds, literally. It's not my place to say anything more but if he's let you get this far in his life already, then you shouldn't sweat it. You're half way there."
After a long pause, Malcolm moved right by me and kept going. "Fine." He reluctantly turned. "I'm agreeing to take you. You seem a little too tenacious to leave behind and think you'd actually stay behind. I get the feeling you'll find a way out of here."
And he was right. "Thank you." I couldn't help the small amount of triumph.
"But only on the condition I don't leave your side. At least I can protect you. And Dante can't know that you're there. Not until I do what I need to do first. You stay by my side, you hear?"
I nodded. Done.
* *
"You're gonna give me a fu*king heart attack if you're not careful, Mermaid. I mean it. I'll either have a heart attack or Dante will kill me, either way I'm dead and it's your fault." Malcolm said to me.
Malcolm had started calling me mermaid in the car. Needless to say it wasn't like I hadn't heard that one before.
"I don't think you can die from a heart attack somehow." I said back. Of all the ways to kill a demon, heart attack didn't strike me as one of them.
"Okay. You got me." Malcolm conceded at the wheel. "We don't succumb to a lot human conditions, but still, you get what I'm trying to say." He dismissed, his eyes were firmly on the road while steadily nodding his head to the stereo. I watched Malcolm with a wry smile on my face as he sang along. My God it was so funny. He made me chuckle a bit. He briefly looked at me as he rapped about having "got 99 problems" in unison with Jay Z as if he was trying to tell me something. I laughed.
I liked Malcolm. He had steadily loosened up as we drove and he was so personable. I wasn't just "Dante's girl" as he put it, but according to him I was an alright kind of girl. He'd eased up so much that his unguarded self came comfortably through. He started using words like 'dude' at me, occasionally pulled out his curse words so colloquially it was like a part of the air he breathed as he threw them into the odd sentence, and of course he felt comfortable enough to call me mermaid.
We only just drove past Archers and pulled up into the street-lit alley between buildings, the musty glow a welcome safety enhancer. We had arrived in less than half an hour, Malcolm drove pretty quickly. Well, as quickly as he was allowed considering all the speed cameras along the way.
There was a huge queue with some scantily clad women standing in it. A few of them looked unsurprisingly cold as they rubbed at the tops of their bare arms hugging themselves, complete with skirts high enough to entice a gynaecologist, and stilt-like platform heels.
I thought this was meant to be a classy place? I mean, I'd been there before; I knew the clientele. I couldn't believe it had changed so much. In truth, I would probably have been rejected at the door myself for any other occasion had it not been a booked event for work. It's not like I was a member or usually wore the right clothes. Looked like that was no longer the case anyway, unless they did something like this once a week or something.
Once the car settled and the purr of the engine had silenced, I very quickly got out of the car and forcefully stomped up the cobbled middle road as the faint bass of music pumped into the street and voices carried.
The ground sloped slightly upwards like a hill, and I felt the pressure on my thighs and the balls of my feet as I pushed on forward, trying desperately not to twist my ankles between the cobbles. My arms occasionally flailed as I had the odd minor trip-up and slight ankle twist trying to balance.
I guess it was a bad idea to wear heels, but the heels I was wearing were picked out by Dante's assistant. Hey, I will admit she had pretty good taste, and they reminded me of a style someone I once knew used to wear. I didn't anticipate that Dante would tell his assistant to buy me every kind of clothing item there was for every occasion.
I received going-out clothes as well as all the lounge-wear stuff and everything in between, even a small work wardrobe. I mean, I had been entirely expecting to look like a home-body at his place and thought that was all I was getting, which I was fine with. I genuinely thought I'd be all lounge-around-the-house slumming it in baggy clothes. I'm like that at home so...
I wouldn't have bothered making any kind of effort considering, but I knew this place, it just didn't cut it to turn up anyhow, so I teamed the heels very quickly with black ankle-length leggings and a black vest from the basics she got me. It took less than five minutes.
The outfit really didn't take much thought but with the heels it looked quite evening and the vest was a nice fabric with a great cut along the neckline. And there I was having a mental go at the women shivering in the evening air without a jacket. I didn't have one either. No way was I bothering with any dresses like these women here, it wasn't practical for what I was here for.
"Oh, for shits sake Ariel," huffed Malcolm, rushing to my side as I sped up to the entrance.
He held onto my lower arm and I turned over my shoulder.
"You're not getting in that way." He said stopping me. "Probably not the best idea if we're gonna go incognito." he said and moved me quickly around to the side door in the immediate alley. He quickly looked around him.
"What are you doing?" I asked watching his careful movements.
"What us freaks of the underworld do." His mouth stretched into a mock smile. His hand shaped itself over the door handle without touching it. He ran his hand along the edge of the door, each lock behind it clicking back. My eyebrows rose and he pulled at the door. It came away with stuttered give, and he looked back at me.
I laughed in disbelief. "Oh my God!"
"One of our more petty abilities." He shrugged. "But it comes in handy some times. Manipulation of energies, objects...that sort of thing. Harmless really."
Petty maybe, but I thought it was very cool.
"Now, I would usually say 'after you'" he said. "But seeing as we're entering this way, I think I'll go first. I'll take the brunt of anything that could possibly go bump in the night."
"Well then, after you." I said, and I gestured for him to pass ahead of me. He mock-bowed at me and I followed along cautiously after him.
The club was exactly as I remembered it; dark, intimate, and still sexy, save for a few changes. Its warm tones of old were now cool, the accent lighting illuminated parts of the enclosed space with its almost ethereal quality. It was a soft light that dripped with a flattering glow over the throng of patrons enjoying a night out. The soft spotlights from the ceiling hit against those in its direct line, the subtracted parts of black making all those other bodies mould into the darkness.
Archers was actually quite packed. The little enclave in the corner that I remembered had a different decor. As I looked at it I couldn't help but think that was probably where Dante had been sitting that night. It was near enough by the dance floor, but secluded enough to still be VIP and yet allow him enough of an opening to see what was going on further into the club. I could imagine him having watched me from there...it must have been there. There's no way a man like that would go unnoticed otherwise. You simply couldn't ignore someone like that.
"Don't you think we're a little too exposed here?" Malcolm said of us in the centre of the floor with a quick sweep around. "I mean seriously. We need to move. I swear, if you wanna get caught out then you're going the right way about it."
"There's so many people here, how's he gonna spot us?" I said over my shoulder at him, voice raised above the music. "It's too dense to pick us out."
"Oh of course, It's not like he can sense you or anything." He said, sarcasm clearly evident in his tone.
"Really?" I turned, eyes widened in surprise at him.
"Wow. Everything's new to you, isn't it? Didn't he tell you anything?"
I shook my head. Whoa, sensory capabilities. "Malcolm, I just wanna know what he's doing here." I responded. "I mean, aren't you curious?"
"And how are you gonna find out, huh? Oh Heeey, Dante, wassup? Yeah, look, I know you look proper angry right now but you know, I thought I'd check on you and find out what the hell you're doing here and stuff. Don't mind me."
I glared at him.
"You really didn't think this through, did you?" he said.
"Hey, you drove me here." I pointed out.
"I'm about to call you a bitch. Don't make me."
In that very instant my heart leapt into my throat.
Dante stood at the far end deep in the club. He had company. I cast an eye over his 'company', and swallowed at the sight of them.
Malcolms eyes had followed mine as I abruptly halted. "Don't think about it." He said. His voice urged loud in my ear, his low but gentle tone could still be heard over the music. "I know every guy in a compromising position uses this as an excuse but it probably isn't what it looks like."
My eyes burned at the sight.
I wasn't stupid, I didn't immediately come to the conclusion that he was fu*king some other woman behind my back just because there was a fairly attractive brunette pathetically clinging to him. That was clearly her desire, it didn't make it his. But still, I was sore with the sight of it.
His darker-than-dark hair looked almost unruly, like it had been messed with. He didn't bother tidying it. Maybe she'd run her hands through it...
"Fucking hell." Said Malcolm. I turned to Malcolm. His face...it was as if he were surprised maybe? Shocked even?
"What is it?" I asked at his expression.
I was sure he hadn't heard me; he looked way too distracted to have done so. He shook his head and said something so quietly I was never going to hear it in this cave of a club, but I read his lips. I got the impression I was never meant to hear it, that he was speaking more to himself. From what I read of his lips, he said "Dan, what the heck is wrong with you? Not again."
It was something like that if I wasn't mistaken. And I think he called him Dan? I looked back over and got distracted all over again by the scene in front of me.
If there was one thing I was glad for in that moment, it was the edge of the bar taking the brunt of my bare-knuckled grip. A hold so inflexible it felt as though I would snap it in my fingers. It offered me the support I needed to hold myself up. And all this brought on by the image in front of me. One that was slowly gripping at my lungs, my throat, and threatening to turn the slight emerging glisten over my eyes into a downpour. Watching had left me frozen, my breath strangled in my throat. I felt an instant pain in my chest. God, for me to have felt this way at the sight of him with her, I really was too deep in him, wasn't I?
Damn.
He roughly ran his hand through his hair as the woman beside him looked completely taken by him. Well, he did have that sort of effect on people. I wanted to ignore it but it was like a car-crash; I just couldn't stop looking, and yet I didn't want to see it. Though she was clinging to his side, unable to keep from constantly looking up at him, she wasn't the only one with him.
There were two others; a man and a very mysterious-looking woman.
The man was as tall as Dante, incredibly sophisticated in a simple black shirt with an open collar, unbuttoned three studs down. Another good-looking one, maybe the same age as Dante? Brown hair, quite long he could pony-tail it, and from the shading along one arm cutting at the wrist, he had a tattoo sleeve exposed against rolled cuffs. The woman on the other hand, was striking. Dark lips, jet black hair shaped into the sharpest razor-cut bun I'd ever seen, and even from where I stood, I could see light eyes, so light I couldn't distinguish them from her eye-whites.
I swallowed. She was beautiful. Incredibly so. She put every woman in this club in the shade and I suddenly felt very jealous. Some people get all the genetic luck, huh? I wondered if her beauty had struck Dante too. I was sure it had, it wasn't hard to miss. I could imagine him being taken by it and suddenly an old insecurity made its way to the surface. I rubbed protectively over my arms. I took an inevitable instant dislike to her.
I could barely concentrate. That was until the other woman—the one next to Dante—decided that playing flirtatiously with her hair would be the thing to do to get his attention as she beamed a smile you reserve for a man you plan to snare at the end of the night.
Even in this darkened but ice-lit club, I could see she had that whole seductive thing going on, like she was seasoned at it. From the tempting bright stain of her lips, to the provocative length of her dress and the almost ridiculous come-hither sweep of her obviously fake eyelashes. Idiot. I had some really unflattering names running around in my head for her. Names women really shouldn't call other women, it didn't speak well of our supposed sisterhood.
She put her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. I watched to see how he would react. He did smile at her, watched her even, he even looked at her behind as she went to pick up a glass from the table they were stood next to. I could tell she was deliberately bending over, but I wasn't going to make excuses for him other than to say he was a man. Visual fu*kers.
The sickeningly beautiful raven-haired woman at the other man's side gave the flirting-girl one of the most cutting looks I'd ever seen. She looked like the kind of woman who'd stick a slice of poisoned lemon in your drink, watch you drink it until you fell down dead, and then carefully step over your body in killer heels and calmly resume her previous activity as if nothing ever happened. Like the quietly confident assassin type. She was chilling, and she eyed Dante up and down in such a way I wondered if Dante was in any way familiar with her. My insides knotted at the speculative thought.
"Ariel?" said Malcolm after coming out of his clear distraction and into mine. "Your silence is deafening. Talk to me."
I swallowed.
"We need to move." He slightly panicked. He tried to move me but I wouldn't.
I didn't like how much it hurt. I felt weak. My legs could have easily given way and failed beneath me, I felt another pang to my chest as I looked again, and if it wasn't for the grip my hand shaped over the bar edge, I'd have folded into myself. I held steady and swallowed, I was stable all over again. I would have to be.
"Why?" I said back after shaking my thoughts away.
"Damn mistake bringing you here." He chastised himself. "I'm such an idiot, I should have known better. You don't need to see anything here. C'mon, it's time to go."
I yanked my arm clear from his grasp.
"Look," he cautioned, pointing in my face. "If you had any damn sense you'll listen to me. We have GOT to get out of here. Blame me for being easily manipulated, but you, you will not like what you see here if what I'm looking at over there is anything to go by."
My lips almost trembled. "What is it? You're scaring me."
"I should have scared you more back at the house!" he shouted at me as if shouting at himself.
The anger and frustration in his tone spoke louder than all his words. He soon huffed. "Do NOT let Dante see you." He warned.
"Dante's not exactly gonna let anything happen to me, is he?" I said to him.
"Yes, but he'll give you a damn good earful." He reminded me.
Malcolm sounded ill at ease, and I would be stupid not to listen to him this time. His tone was fearful, he realised his mistake in relenting against his initial misgivings and was clearly trying to rectify it. If he was going to get in trouble I wouldn't let him get into trouble because of me. Not now anyway. Back at the house I was too curious, now seeing his reaction I knew he was right. Though I wanted to know what was going on here, I wasn't going to be that person you see in the movies who hears a strange noise in a house and instead of running for the hills, decides to walk into the damn house.
I sent a shallow nod at him indicating that I would do as he said, Malcolm's relief was palpable. But I had a final look back at them, and briefly watched as the woman attached herself to Dante, she was incredibly tactile. He let her touch him, let her glide her painted claw-like fingers teasingly down his arm, which had me swallowing hard at the breath that had lodged itself in my throat. He laughed at something, and at that moment he turned around, as if a sense had pricked at his nose.
He stilled as he saw me.
His smile quickly faded as our eyes connected. I stiffened too. Damn. As I stood there I couldn't move, my mind drifting to the woman's touch, and then to Malcolm's words
He's not supposed to know you're here. Do NOT let Dante see you.
"Oh shit." Said Malcolm. Dante had spotted us both.
I snapped out of it and quickly pivoted away, leaving Malcolm before he even realised I was moving, quickly weaving through the throng of the dancing crowd.
Persistent "excuse me's" came out of my mouth as I pushed through the endless stream of uninhibited bodies loosened by alcohol, and as far away from Dante as possible.
I heard Malcolm's voice shout objectionably loud over the music. It was a reprimand. He had stopped Dante. I turned around and could only just make out their voices. I tried to deafen the music in my ears, but the bass was too high, so I trudged back a little, getting closer, their confrontation looked a little epic. Malcolm had his hand on Dante's chest to stop him going any further, Dante viciously pushed it away from him and pointed in his face. It was then I heard Malcolm.
"Dude, If you're doing what I think you're doing **indecipherable**... She loves you, man. I can tell. Don't screw it up!"
Dante got up in his face and pushed him, then turned and spotted me again. My eyes widened and I quickly turned on my heels and pushed even harder forward.
I suddenly felt a strong masculine hand pull at my elbow, clasping around my arm and pulling me sideways. I kept awkwardly stepping over my feet at the steady force. He instantly opened a nearby door and easily pulled me into it with him. A quick swirled glance at my surroundings had me recognising it as a private function room. He closed the door behind us and swung me around against it, sending my hair swinging around my face. I slammed against the door.
"Don't make me ask the obvious!" said Dante, his arm resting high over my shoulder against the door, his face only inches from mine. It was without doubt the harshest warning tone I'd heard from him and the angriest I'd heard him take with me since he grilled me in the street about Nathaniel. I think some of this anger was brought on by his exchange with Malcolm. It was too early to have settled yet. And then there was me, having come here in the first place.
His eyes were distractingly vicious. And he'd clearly been drinking.
"Drinking, Dante?"
'"It's a club. And don't even think about changing the subject." He said, coming closer. "For f*cks sake Ariel, you're gonna drive me nuts if you haven't already. This is so fu*king irresponsible of you! Why didn't you stay at mine in my bed where I left you? I would have been back in it with you." His eyes were storming. "Maybe I should have gone all kinky sado-fu*king-masochist on your ass and chained you the fuck to it!" he snapped. "I saw Malcolm, he brought you, right? I swear I'm gonna kill him! He won't see me coming until I've ripped his fu*king head off from behind!"
"You leave him alone! And you don't have to scream at me!" I exclaimed in a volume to match his, the same furosity, the same frustration as he shook his head exasperated at me. "You wanna tell me what you're doing here?" I asked. "What that piece of trash is doing on your arm?"
"That piece of trash? She's nobody!" He continued to shout.
"Oh yeah?" I screamed back in his face.
"Yeah, that's what I said!"
"She's beautiful." I said out of nowhere.
"Not like you, she fu*king isn't!" He shouted back right in my face, hitting his fist hard against the door behind me. I jumped.
"Aer, look, I gotta tell you, you are the most stubborn woman ever. And Malcolm....I can't believe Malcolm...facilitated this..." he tapered off to himself.
Wow. He swore a lot usually but I'd never heard him swear this much. There was no doubting his anger. It was some next level outrage.
"Tell me you're not here for the hunter," He said.
"What?" I asked him confused.
"Sydes. That dickhead hunter ex of yours!" He reiterated. My confused face had drawn his attention. "You haven't seen him?"
"Is that why you're here?"
He snorted. "It would take a hell of a lot more than that asshole to get me out of bed with you." He simply said, his face both stern and frustrated.
"So what brought you here? Must have been so damn important for you to have left my side. Did you forget I was naked in your bed, Dante?" I put the image in his head because I didn't want him thinking about that brunette. I wanted to remind him what had been waiting for him at home.
He swallowed, his eyes involuntarily panned down sticking to every inch of me like a magnet. "I don't need that image right now." he said finally, there was a roughness in his breathing and a deep swallow ran through his throat. It was as if he could picture it. He blinked a few times before laying his gaze firmly on me, suppression in his eyes. He was exercising control, especially if that twitch in his jaw was anything to go by.
"Shall I remind you?" I said looking suggestively into his eyes.
"What are you doing to me, Ariel?" he desperately whispered on a hoarsely exhaled breath. He was clearly struggling to contain himself right now, it was clear he was scared of where he'd take this if he couldn't control himself.
Mmm. "What am I doing to you?"
I clenched deep within me at the fire I saw in his eyes, burning away at him. My knees almost buckled at the weight of his stare against mine. I was a total slave to it. I could barely feel myself other than the intense collective longing pitted low within me.
"Wh—"
He placed his finger over my lips.
"Shut up, Ariel. Don't say a word."
I didn't say anything. But I did cover his finger with my warm mouth.
His harsh inhale was more than I could take as he watched my mouth over his finger. I eyed him, watching his mouth part slightly as he felt my tongue move over his index while it sat there in the moistness of my mouth.
He closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds and he pulled his hand from my lips, reaching around my neck and cupping behind it as he pulled my face to his.
His voice was ragged. "Do that again and I'll shove something else into your mouth, and it won't be my tongue, I swear to God I won't hesitate." He said warning me on the most elevated level of desire I could have possibly seen. And judging by the previous times, that was really something. It excited the hell out of me and I just knew this wasn't the time for it. But my God he fu*ks like nothing I could possibly imagine being real.
He fu*ks like a total Master.
He roughly turned me around facing the door, my hands slammed hard against it. He was pressed hard into my back. His erection could be felt easily, he was so finely built I could visualize in my head what I was feeling solidly along my back. I was totally moist.
He grabbed at my jaw and forcefully turned it. "Look," He said coarsely. I could feel his heated breath fan dangerously against the back of my neck. "You see that table over there? I'll have you on it in seconds."
I looked at it with a daring glint in my eye. "As long as it's not her." I said. I reached for him behind me, he grabbed my hand.
"Wait...Is that was this is about?" He said as I turned to face him. "You think you can offer yourself up to me to keep that 'piece of trash' away? You think I give a shit about her?"
"She was practically all over you!"
"Okay. You want me to fu*k her so that you'll be right after all? You can put that imagination to good use. I'll make you watch."
The palm of my hand came round hard against his cheek. I'd slapped him. Hard. So hard it reverberated through my arm like his face was made of steel. The sound snapped the air. It didn't look like it hurt him in the slightest though as within a second of doing it, his head snapped back to me. I was infuriated, I'll be damned if that wasn't the drink talking. Hell it better be.
He grabbed my hands and held them above my head against the door with just one of his.
"What have I told you about hitting me?"
"How dare you! You deserved that." I spat out in disgust.
"So, what am I? Your bit of demon rough now?" he said. "Does that excite you? I get mad, you hit me, we fuck?"
I was both angry at what he said and annoyingly aroused by everything else. His slightly unruly hair, his burning eyes, the promise of him indeed fu*king me. But the thought of what he just said about that brunette started to tear away at me. I almost caught a sob in my throat.
Dante saw it.
His highly charged sexual appetite was still very much there but upon looking at my expression, it had instantly subdued. He sighed and softly said in his low voice. "Come here."
He pulled me. He sounded both sensitive and sexy, like an enticing aroma to be followed blindly because it was just so damn irresistible. And just like that, you're snared. He'd snared me.
I still had the image of that woman touching him, and I made a noise of objection turning my face away from his as I shook my head once at the thought just to get it out of my head. He clearly sensed where my head was at.
"Forget about her." He whispered low in my ear, his lips skimmed my lobe. It was a breathy instruction, almost like a chant. His hand came up to my face to move it back to his.
The thought of anybody touching him...I just didn't like it. The thought of him touching anyone else, of him enjoying another woman and her giving him pleasure...It made me angry, and conjured up the kind of feelings I didn't welcome because those feelings consumed me and flagged up insecurities in me I had spent so much time trying to disguise as confidence.
"Do not start with me what you can't finish." He warned me, as I finally looked up at him. I looked him dead in the eye. "And trust me," he continued. "You don't have to remind me or do anything to get me to want you. I already do. But I'll restrain myself for now. I'm not taking you here. I'm just going to point myself to Malcolm," he said scarily calm. "and rip his fu*king head off."
It really was so normally said, it was as if he were simply asking about the weather.
"You leave him alone." I told him again. "He only did what I asked him to."
"Really? He barely does what I ask him to do, and that's when he's getting paid. Go figure."
I would have reasoned with him some more but I could see he was already cooling in regards to Malcolm. It took some minutes though.
"Dante," I softly spoke, "What are you doing here?"
"I thought that line was part of my script."
I quirked an eyebrow.
"I uh...had something to do first. I would have been back with you in a heartbeat had you just waited for me."
"I'm a light sleeper." I said. "I could tell you weren't in bed with me."
"Should I get one of those mattresses? You know, the one that—"
He broke off as I smiled.
"You can be so strangely cute sometimes in the most un-cute of places." I fully smiled at him.
He looked hard between my eyes, my smile had caught him and he couldn't help but smile back at it just slightly. "I've never had cute before." He said, appearing even cuter.
God, I just needed a minute to breathe, get my ravaged thoughts down to a lowly simmer from the heat of wanting him...
He straightened finally telling me, "I need you to go, Ariel. I need you to go now." he said to me.
"Why?"
"Just remember this, I need you to remember this; don't forget what I am." He said to me.
"I know what you are." I told him. "You're the man I think I've fallen in love with."
Oh God.
I could have heard a pin drop had it not been for the bass pumping through the door.
Why wouldn't he say something? Anything? I quickly gathered my wits about me, and stuttering I said, "Well, I uh...you know...what I just said...it's not, I mean...I think you're right, maybe I should leave." I fumbled as I turned to open the door. "I'll just be—"
I opened the door for a split second.
He shut it back again.
I swallowed. His hand had come over my left side to slam it back shut and rested there. I felt his tantalizing breath on the back of my neck as I stood there facing the door and didn't move. My breathing rate had increased.
"Baby," he whispered against me. It was the first time I'd heard him call me baby and my pulse raced at him calling me that, at his tone, his hunger...
"Listen to me, there are no words that could match what you've just said to me." I heard him say deep against my neck as his intimate breath spread over my skin sending goosebumps flourishing all over me like a field of dandelions; just everywhere. "For all your quirks, you are the most faultless fu*king thing in my life."
I closed my eyes at that statement, my pulse raced more, and I didn't think it was possible to get any faster. Maybe he was more comfortable saying things like this when we weren't looking at each other? I knew he had a hard time talking about his feelings; maybe it was easier for him this way? But I so wanted to see him right now. But I stayed where I was.
"I look at you," he continued, "And I realise I don't stand a chance. I never did. You've hit me hard, Ariel. Real hard. So fu*king hard sometimes I feel like I can't breathe around you. God...Cupid just about shot a full round of amo up my ass."
I smiled at the door. "Cupid?"
He said nothing.
"What are you saying, Dante?" I said, my back still to him.
"I think you know what I'm saying."
I turned around to face him, his eyes were supernaturally dark, swirling like an all consuming black hole.
"I'm gonna give Malcolm one last chance." He said, settling again. His silvers were back. "I'd take you back myself, but we can't be seen together. But I'm gonna ask a favour of Mal. If he can drive you back safe and call me when you get there, then he's forgiven for bringing you here. Just don't stay here, Ariel, please." He implored.
His eyes pleaded with me.
"But why?"
He shook his head. "There's a couple things I don't want you to see here. People too. Trust me on this."
"Demons?"
"Yes."
"What do they want?"
He looked at me, reluctant to say. "A couple of things I'm gonna give them. And one thing I won't." He said into my eyes.
I nodded. "Okay." I said. "I'll go."
"Now." he said.
I made a move.
"Hold on a second," he grabbed me. I turned to him.
"You look so fu*king good by the way." He said with a devouring look. "I noticed." His grin was heart-stopping. "Sydes will probably be all over you if he sees you. Stay the hell away from him."
"Wait, you got a place full of demons but you let a demon hunter in?"
"Sydes is an affiliate of Hall. Hall's the one who sponsors you now. I now know how he did it; he managed to bring Jacey Longsworth round. Got into her thoughts, affected her mind, she gave him a majority percentage as a result that night. We can do stuff like that." He said, reiterating what Nate had told me back at mine.
"You've never played with my mind, have you?"
"No." He said. "Never. Any feelings you have for me, I want them to be real and if I do what Hall did, I'd always question it. I'd always question you. And I don't want to have any doubts about you. I want to believe in everything you say to me and not have to wonder if it was me that made you say it. Your mind is perfectly in tact."
I believed him. I think I always knew it anyway, but I had to ask.
"Hunters will always have a reason to hunt. Some are born, some are made. He was made, but his hatred is pretty damn strong, and with you he now has more than one reason."
"What was the other?"
"His sister."
I looked at him quizzically. "Nera?"
"Have you met her or just heard of her?"
"I knew her. What about her?"
"She's married now." he simply said without having to say anymore. "Think about it." He finished.
I stopped for a second.
"She falls in love with a demon and they have a shot-gun wedding. Two young lovers making a spontaneous commitment. You can imagine how Sydes took it. Added more fuel to his fire of hatred. And then there's you...seems like he's losing all the women in his life to one of us 'demon fu*kers' as he puts it."
Oh my God. My eyes widened as the realisation hit me. "Malcolm..."
.