I pushed open the door to the ladies’ room, and as the door swung back, he knocked it open behind me, the door slamming into the wall.
The women in front of me gasped, and I closed my eyes without looking back.
“Get out!” His voice boomed through the room, his anger echoing off the walls. All the women scampered around as they rushed out. I still didn’t turn around. I was struggling to breathe as fear gripped my lungs.
I heard the door swing closed, and then the click of the lock. I sucked in a breath, knowing I was alone with him, locked in with nowhere to go. I could feel his resentment from all the way across the room. It burned right through me, causing an ache to crash against my chest.
My thoughts were scrambling, my emotions scattering all over the place. It was almost time. I just needed to get through this. He promised.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Don’t do this, Dante.”
Silence. Cold, hard, deafening silence.
I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders, grabbing hold of every ounce of courage I had left in me.
As I exhaled, I turned to face him. The second our eyes met, my heart shattered into a million pieces. Memories of our time together came rushing back, blasting through my mind and causing me to become unsteady on my feet.
Dark eyes, strong jaw, broad shoulders, and a presence which held the power to seduce and intimidate at the same damn time. Dante was a force to be reckoned with. A man who had the ability to speak a thousand words without saying anything at all. He was also the man whose touch set my body on fire, whose lips kissed me into submission.
More memories, images of sunsets and silk sheets possessed my mind the longer I stared at him. I could see every trace of anger and pain swirl around in his beautiful dark irises, and it killed me. It killed me to know I was the cause of it, and that I’d be the cause of so much more.
Tears stung the backs of my eyes. “Dante, I’m—”
Without warning, he rushed forward, grabbed my shoulders, and crashed his lips against mine the same time my back hit the wall.
A whimper rolled over my lips as tears moved down my cheeks.
His tongue didn’t beckon. It didn’t tease. It possessed while it moved with vigor against mine. Nothing about his lips was soft or subtle. It was hard and heady. Desperate and angry.
My body had no choice but to melt into his, my legs weakening by the second. The familiar scent of vanilla and musk carried me back to the past. Memories of what my sheets used to smell like whenever he left flooded through my mind. I remembered how his scent clung to his shirts—shirts I would wear whenever we slept apart so I could feel like I was close to him.
More tears slipped down my cheeks, the saltiness of my regret mixing with the eagerness of his kiss.
I should have stopped him. I should have pushed him away, but by God, I was powerless against him. Against the way my body, my soul…my heart reacted to him. Every ounce of longing I had felt ever since I left came back with a force so strong, it was impossible to fight it.
His greedy hands slipped down to mine, fingers wrapping tightly around my wrists. Abruptly, he jerked my arms up and pinned my hands above my head, causing me to gasp as he pressed his body harder against me. I could feel it in the way he touched me, kissed me, in the way he forced his hard thigh between my legs that he was pouring everything he felt into this exact moment.
Anger. Jealousy. Possessiveness. Lust. It was all there crashing between us with reckless waves of desire.
He moved his thigh, pushing it harder against me, lifting my feet off the ground and leaving me no choice but to rock my hips back and forth, desperate for release from the bounds of his seduction. I was losing the fight. I was losing my will to do what needed to be done.
One touch, one kiss, and every ounce of resistance crumbled to nothing but dust.
“Layla,” he breathed against my lips. “Why? Why the fuck did you leave me?”
But his lips didn’t give me a chance to answer as they reclaimed mine, his tongue sweeping through every inch of my mouth.
It was only when his lips moved down my neck that I finally had a chance to reply. “I’m sorry, Dante,” was the only thing I could say. Nothing else mattered but the remorse, and the guilt I felt for leaving him. For breaking his heart.
More tears, more heartache, more regrets. Every second I spent with him so close to me, consuming my body and igniting my desire for him, caused me so much pain, it felt like it had the power to break me in two.
His tongue lapped against the hollow of my neck as one hand moved down my arm, his touch burning me from the inside out. My skin came alive as it yearned for his familiar caress, my body demanding to be sated. The second he cupped my breast, pushing it up so his lips could claim the soft flesh through the fabric of my dress, I moaned out loud.
“Dante, I’m so sorry.”
His kissing seized, his grip on my breast loosening. The warmth of his breath coated the skin of my neck, and I felt the rapid beating of his heart against my chest. He removed his thigh from between my legs, bringing my feet back to the ground. And I whimpered, knowing that it was over. The moment. It shattered along with the desire that almost consumed us both a second ago.
He didn’t look up, one hand still gripping my wrists above my head. “Why now?”