Jessica pulls back, her teasing voice just loud enough for me to hear. “Come on, lover. We’d have a beautiful baby together.”
Jesus fucking Christ. My limbs feel heavy and numb as I back out of the room and walk numbly into the restroom, locking the door and sliding down the cool tiled wall with the clipboard clutched to my chest. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating, drowning. Anxiety rises up inside me, floods me until I’m shaking.
Pulling breaths through my nose, I throw the clipboard across the room, watching it clatter to the floor. Iknewhe was an asshole. Iknewhe was cheating on me. And with his assistant of all people—God, what a cliché. But none of this is news to me.
So whythe fuckdo I feel this rage? Why do I still let him get to me? I’m sick of it. Sick of letting him dictate everything. Sick of men controlling my entire life.
I can’t believe I actually thought I might be able to lift up the edges of his controlling, self-absorbed, egotistical bullshit of a personality. What did all my effort get me anyway, besides a front-row seat to another woman’s hand on my husband’s cock? Was I seriously entertaining the notion that I could change him? Men don’t change—at least, not men like him. He takes what he wants without a hint of guilt or a second thought. With no shame, no regard for anyone else’s feelings, and certainly without a worry of getting caught.
It’s time to set some boundaries, once and for all. Except that every time I try, my body betrays me. I need to pull myself together. March back in there and exercise some self-control.
Smoothing my hair, taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and will myself to calm down. I’ve got this. I have a job to do and I’m going to do it. Not my problem if Dante is interrupting his workday to get laid. Now I’m going to interrupt his getting laid with work.
When I get back to his office, clipboard in hand, Jessica is nowhere to be seen. Well, at least I won’t have to confront my husband and his mistress at the same time.
Dante looks up from his computer, his annoyed expression deepening when he sees that it’s me. He can be as annoyed as he wants. I’m not leaving until I’ve said my piece.
I shut the door pointedly behind me. The snick of the lock sliding into place unleashes something in me. It takes a second to realize what it is.
The absence of fear.
“You listen to me.” I approach his desk and slap the clipboard down. His eyes snap to mine with a warning glare. I could not care less. “I don’t give two fucks what you do on company time, even though everyone knows that fucking your assistant is generally considered bad business practices—not to mention a pathetic cliché.However—”
I only pause to take a quick breath. Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.
“You willnotbring a child into this nightmare, you understand? Jessica is a conniving bitch who’d use any child you two had as a pawn, guaran-fucking-teed. It’s exactly how my sisters and I grew up—nothing but pawns between our parents until Mom finally walked out, leaving us to be bargaining chips for our father. But I guess you know all about that, don’t you?”
A muscle works in his jaw. I stab my finger in the air at him.
“Maybe you can’t keep yourself from sticking your dick in other women, but I am putting my foot down about you having children out of wedlock. So youbetterwear a damn condom when you’re fucking around.”
Picking up the clipboard, I turn to leave, but he’s way too fast and grabs my wrist. I didn’t even hear him get out of the chair before his fingers closed hard around the delicate bones. Dante holds my gaze as he walks around the desk to face me. His body is brimming with anger, the heat of it sizzling around him. I’m still not afraid. I’m incensed.
He grins humorlessly. “Aren’t you a jealous bitch. You’re the only one allowed to have my children, then?”
I let out a low laugh. “I don’t want anything from you, certainly not a child. The world needs less Bellanti assholes in it, not more.”
Pulling my wrist away, I turn for the door. But he grabs the clipboard and tosses it across the desk, then pulls me into his arms, wrapping them around me. The moment he lifts my chin and looks at my mouth, I know I’m in trouble.
“Oh, you definitely want something from me,” he says. “You know exactly what you want from me.”
“I don’t.” I try to say it with conviction, even as my voice cracks and my knees go weak.
“Liar.”
His hand slides over my abdomen, as if feeling for his child. Then it slips down the waistband of my skirt, into my panties, dipping into the shameful wetness that’s gathered between my legs. When he plunges two fingers inside me all at once, I can’t help but moan.
Damn, damn,damnmy stupid body for betraying me again.
The instant shock of pleasure jolts the fight right out of me. I sink into his touch, hating myself as I do it, but powerless to stop it. He doesn’t make a sound as he begins a fast, powerful assault on my clit. In seconds, I’m panting and grinding against his hand. My orgasm builds fast and potent, but he stills his fingers before I can come, as if he knew I was about to and couldn’t wait to deny me.
A sound of protest works from my lips. Satisfied with whatever I just proved to him, he spins me around and shoves me facedown onto the desk, yanking up my skirt. My palms go flat on the surface as he presses into me from behind, trapping me. A deep ache throbs in my pussy as Dante grinds his hard cock against my ass.
I push back against him, telling myself it’s to force him away, though it’s really because I need to feel his dick inside me.
He doesn’t make me wait.
Tugging the crotch of my panties to the side, he plunges into me, filling me. I moan again—I can’t help it—and he begins to thrust. I meet him thrust for thrust, wanting more, wanting it deeper, harder. More.
