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I deserved the pain.
I’d done far less treacherous things in the past, and Valentino had punished me harshly enough that I knew I could take some of Dante’s ministrations.
But the knife never dug into my skin.
“How long have you known?”
“I—I just found out yesterday before dinner.”
I’d thought a lot about it on the eleven-hour flight. I’d considered the merits of telling him the truth, and I decided that hiding something else from him wouldn’t be fair. Not when I’d built our entire relationship on lies.
“Goddamn it, Sienna,” he shouted, tightening the grip on the hilt of his knife. He moved the knife toward the stretchy band at my waist. I prepared myself for the inevitable. “Why the fuck do I still want you? Was this all a lie, too? Did you get into my head and make me feel these things for you?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head and looking down at his conflicted face as he slit the waist of my pants away.
I flinched, but the cool metal only touched my skin. It didn’t slice or cut.
“I know you tried to kill me, but all I want is to fuck you. I can’t think straight when you’re this close. You must have done something to me.”
I saw the war he raged within himself, and my heart fluttered.
“I feel the same way,” I whispered.
“The difference is, I don’t think I can bring myself to kill you, and you still tried to do it.”
The knife ran down my thigh, cutting the fabric of my pants in long lines and barely grazing my skin. I couldn’t peel my eyes away from it, expecting him to cut me as he went. But the only time it touched me—the only time I flinched away from the coolness of the blade—he pressed the flat part into me. Never the sharp side.
“I couldn’t follow through, either,” I reminded him as one hand dropped to my exposed thigh, gripping me tightly there as the other cut away my second pant leg.
His breaths shuttered as the last of my pants were torn from me, leaving me bare before him. We’d been like this many times, but I felt vulnerable this time. I knew he wouldn’t use my nudity to make me suffer. It wasn’t in his nature to be so cruel, even after what I’d done.
“I should use this knife in other ways, Sienna.”
He held it between us, pressing the tip lightly into my chest. I knew I deserved it, but it didn’t change the fact I didn’t want it to end this way. I didn’t want this to happen between us.
“I know.”
“But I can’t,” he said as he slid the cool metal between my legs and pressed it there. I withheld the way my body involuntarilybucked for him. I forced myself to hold still as he used the tip to slide over my panties. Then he followed with his hands, gripping and tugging them with enough force that they tore from me. “You did your job too well.”
I tugged at the cuffs on my wrist, knowing I could slip them if given enough time. I hadn’t tried, and as he moved the knife up my naval, then further still, I held my breath. The terror that rippled through me made sense. It was natural to feel the threat and be afraid. But the arousal that pooled between my thighs was unexpected.
“My feelings for you weren’t part of the job. Sleeping with you wasneverpart of the job.”
He held the blade to my throat and stood, looking down at me with an unreadable expression. Only this time, I didn’t think he planned to kill me—not when the lust and heat in his gaze matched my own.
“I’m only here because I care for you, and I knew that taking you out of this world wasn’t an option. Not when you’re so much better than any of the people I’ve been around for the past decade. It just…took me a while to recognize and accept that.” He moved the knife down my chest, ripping away the shirt there with an ease that told me precisely how sharp it was. “You’re the first man who has shown me I don’t deserve to be hurt. That I can be happy without being abused. Whatever you did changed me.”
He licked his bottom lip and moved behind me. In a matter of a moment, the cuff on my left wrist was gone. He left it dangling on my right wrist as he moved back to my front and pulled me from the chair into his chest.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he admitted.
“Whatever you want to do.”
I knew how ignorant I was being. I should have never let him bring me back here. I should have never allowed myself to be caught despite my feelings for him. But a part of me knew I deserved to be punished for what I tried to do. I deserved whatever Dante decided to do to me after I’d nearly killed him.
But he only lifted me into his arms. I wrapped my bare legs around his hips.
“Tell me why you changed your mind,” he told me. “I need to hear you say it.”
