“The medicine helped.” I point to the door. “I left my prescription in your truck.” Technically, he left the prescription and paperwork in the truck. Dante had taken it from the doctor. He hadn’t let me handle anything on my own.
“I will have one of my men pick up your prescription,” Dante says. “In the meantime, you should get some rest. Unless you’re hungry? I could have the chef whip you up something to eat.”
While I’m no longer nauseous, I am tired. “Sleep sounds good.” I patter toward the dresser and pull out a tank top and shorts to wear to bed. Eventually, I would need another wardrobe. “Dante?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to need new clothes, again. Pretty soon, I’m going to start showing.” I’m hoping he will let me accompany him out to the stores, the market, anywhere outside of the castle that I’ve been locked inside.
“And when you do, I will make certain Moreno picks up enough clothes to fit you.”
I exhale a heavy breath. “That isn’t what I meant.” He knows what I meant. He has to. Dante isn’t an idiot. I’d suspect that he’s avoiding letting me leave. Is he afraid that I won’t come back?
He should be afraid.
“We will talk about it another day,” Dante says and clears his throat. “Right now, you’re in no condition to be wandering stores. You need to be getting the nausea under control and eating more calories. If you don’t like what our chef prepares, I can kill him and have someone else brought in to cook for you.”
“No!” I gasp. My mouth drops, and I recognize that smile on his face. “You bastard!” I smack his arm. I can’t believe his antics.
He quirks a grin. “I had you.”
“You’ll never have me, Dante,” I say.
His lips are a firm line, and his brow creases as he considers my words.
He can’t have me because I’m not his to have. Not so long as I’m forced to live in his castle, under his command, with no ounce of freedom.
He can own my body but not my heart.
Dante slips past me. His hands rest on my hips as he guides me to sit on the edge of the mattress. “Never is a long time,” he whispers.
His breath is warm and delectable. It sends a shiver through my insides. I try to hide the shudder, but he smiles knowingly. He’s proud that he can arouse me with such a simple touch.
I hate him for it. I hate how my body betrays me. I want to hate Dante. It would be easier to scream at him and tell him that he’s a monster. But the truth is I can’t do that. I’m bound to him in a way that goes deeper than even I care to admit. It’s not just the baby that attaches me to him.
There’s more to it.
The longing for something that I’ve never had, never experienced before.
I can’t explain it. I’m not sure that I want to either. It makes me uncomfortable, like an itchy sweater that I want to peel off and burn.
“You could have destroyed me today.” He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear and then dips my chin back to meet his stare.
His eyes are fueled with want and need. Hunger. Desire. Arousal.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“How?” I don’t feel like I have any amount of power, even minute.
“At the hospital,” Dante says. “You could have come up with any number of reasons to not let me in the room with you.”
He leans closer, his forehead coming to rest against mine, and I emit a soft moan from the back of my throat.
I hate him for dragging me to his home, keeping me here, but he hasn’t been unkind. I’ve been treated better under his direct care than I had those handful of days at the compound.
There hadn’t been the right time to tell a nurse that I’d been held against my will.
Dante was always at my side. Doting. Loving. Affectionate. He isn’t that man back in Breckenridge.
The hospital staff doesn’t know him the same way that I do. To them, he is just a concerned father. To me, he is my abductor, my captor, and the father of my unborn baby.
Two of those things I couldn’t help. The third, I would ensure no matter what that he never saw through.
If he is beginning to trust me, then I will use that to my advantage.
Dante will never come near my child.