“But he didn’t reject you,” Dr. Das pointed out.
Amara shook her head, sipping more water. No, he hadn’t rejected her. “I think he’s being careful with me.”
“That’s considerate of him,” the older woman noted. “But you don’t sound too happy about it.”
“I mean,” Amara bit her lip. “I like that he’s thoughtful because I don’t know how I’ll react in a situation like that. But I just want him to do it, you know. It makes me anxious. Can we not talk about this?”
Dr. Das nodded, tucking a stray curl back in place, making a note in her journal. “Okay. What about Nerea? How are you dealing with her?”
Amara thought of the woman and bit her lip. “I’m not really thinking about it, honestly. It’s conflicting.”
“Why?” Dr. Das asked.
Amara leaned back on the comfortable couch, staring up at the ceiling. It had a nice abstract pattern. “My father has never been in my life. It’s just been Ma and I and I’ve never felt anything was missing. But knowing he had another kid he actually raised, and we never even knew. It’s just too odd. I mean, I’m not jealous or anything. She’s actually really nice to me. It’s just weird. I always wanted a sister, but I don’t know if I’m projecting that desire to see her affection, or if she’s truly affectionate for me. I don’t want to hinder any potential relationship we can have but I also don’t want to trust too easily.”
“Fair enough,” Dr. Das spoke from her chair. “Seems like you want her to earn your trust.”
“Yes,” Amara agreed.
The other woman stood up, indicating their time was ending. “I want you to think about two things for me this week, Amara.”
Amara nodded. She liked the direction Dr. Das gave her. While she knew a lot of people in their world didn’t believe in therapy, Amara knew her time with Dr. Das was one of the main things keeping her together.
“You’re seventeen so I want you to think about the two things any average teenager would think about at your age,” Dr. Das told her as they walked out towards the main door. “First – think specifically about not what you wanted to do with your life, but what you can see yourself doing now. What is something you could get passionate about, something you could truly believe in doing? Think about that.”
Amara nodded, willing to work on that. She wanted to know herself and learn this new girl she had become, whoever she was.
“And?” she asked, opening the door to the house, knowing Vin would be waiting to drive her back home. She wasn’t comfortable driving yet.
“And I want you to think about the young man waiting for you.”
Amara frowned, turning her neck to see who she was talking about.
Dante. Dante in a suit, leaning against the side of his Range Rover, eyes hidden behind shades, waiting for her.
He was waiting for her.
“I specifically want you to think about what you feel for him.”
Amara watched him standing there in the middle of the day, the boy who had been her dream, the man who had become her reality, the one who had carried her into the light every single day when her body couldn’t move, the one who had made her smile through her nightmare time and time again, the one who had kissed her scar and looked at her like she was a treasure. Amara looked at him, waiting for her, and she knew.
She was in love with Dante Maroni.
“You’re unusually quiet,” Dante noted as he drove them back. “The session went okay?”
Amara glanced at him. Dante drove the same way he did everything else – confidently, with ease, like he’d been born to it. She had been on the passenger side of his car a grand total of two times and she already loved being chauffeured by him.
“Yes,” she answered him, keeping her eyes on his profile. God, he was a stunning specimen of the male variety – strong nose, high cheekbones, defined jawline, proportioned full lips, that vein that went down the side of his neck and into his collar, and those dark, fathomless eyes she had called pretty as a kid. She was intensely, insanely attracted to the physicality of him, but Amara knew she would have loved him even if he had been disfigured and ugly. It was who he was on the inside, who he was with her, that made her soft for him.
“We just talked about how to navigate sex,” she said, partly answering him.
She saw him cast a glance at her from the corner of his eyes, his jaw clenching. “I didn’t know you were sleeping with anyone,” he said casually. Too casually. “Anyone I know?”
He’d probably break the fictional guy’s bones. God, he was easy to rile.
Although he had never really made a move on her, Dante was possessive of her, but in a weird way. It had started out as protectiveness of her after her abduction, and somewhere down the line, possessiveness seeped in. He didn’t mind that she had a very hot guy best friend. In fact, he loved her friendship with Vin and her nascent bond with Tristan. But he watched with dark eyes that burned when they were alone, stamping her entire being just with a look. When anyone was around, he somehow toned that look down, hiding it with the charm that had become second skin to him. But she knew. He had already branded her heart deep.
Amara rolled her eyes. “I’m not. But eventually, I probably will.”
His hands tightened on the wheel, that vein at the side popping. “Any candidates?” he asked, his voice a little rough.
Amara looked down at her hands, seeing the scars on her wrists she usually hid with bracelets.
“You.”
Her word shot through the tension in the car like a bullet, notching it higher and higher, until she could feel blood rushing to her face, unable to look at him.
He swerved the car to the shoulder suddenly, making her look up and grab the door handle to keep from falling to the side, her eyes taking in the little dirt road he pulled into.
“What-” before she could voice her question, she was out of her seat, straddling a very hot Dante Maroni, his hands spearing into her hair, his mouth crashing on hers.
His mouth crashed on hers, and the tension that had built between them through the years snapped, the recoil of it exploding her senses.
She shivered from the suddenness of it, feeling, truly feeling, him under her, one of his hands holding the back of her head, the other sliding down to the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. She gripped his hair, pulling him closer still, her breasts crushed against his shoulders, her core burning, unashamed of the pleasure just the kiss brought her.
She deserved this pleasure. She shouldn’t have to be ashamed of her body for wanting it. Even as she knew this logically, she fought the curl of shame that beckoned her, telling her anything pleasurable after everything her body had been through was wrong, that her desire for any man to penetrate her was wrong.
No, no, it wasn’t wrong. Her wanting this man wasn’t wrong. Her wanting to have sex and feel pleasure wasn’t wrong.
He groaned against her mouth, his tongue flicking at her closed lips, parting them, swooping in to lick at her tongue, and she felt it between her legs, right where his bulge was pressing into her. Slanting her face to the side with his hand in her hair, he deepened the kiss.
Her heart pounded, tasting him.