Her hands kept hitting him over and over, her body shaking with anger. He took a hold of her wrists, pinning them over her head, his eyes heated, enraged. “You knew I was faking soon enough, Amara. And you still ran, taking my child. Wanna know how that made me feel?” He leaned forward, his face an inch from hers, his cock pushing deeper inside her. “Pissed. So. Fucking. Pissed.”
She stared at him, angry, annoyed, aroused, and clenched her inner muscles around him, really tightly.
He growled over her, his hips flexing, her anger, her annoyance, her arousal reflected back at her.
“I’m going to fuck my anger out on your pussy,” he told her, his jaw clenching. “I’m going to use your body, and I’m going to be selfish as fuck.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll use you back.”
“Fuck, yes, you will.”
With that, he straightened, held her hands above her head, and slammed deep inside her. Amara stretched her legs open again, trying to give him more room but unable to move with the way he had pinned her down. One hand holding both of her wrists, the other came to grip her jaw, his eyes dark on hers as he picked up speed, thrusting hard and deep inside her, the friction and the inability to move doing things to her body she couldn’t understand.
He fucked her, hard, fast, deep, so deep, and maybe it was the pregnancy but Amara had never been as aware of every inch of him, of the depth of every thrust that bottomed him out, of the clench of every muscle, as she was in that moment.
His teeth came to her chin, biting her as he hit the spot inside her with his cock, and her eyes closed.
“Marry me, Amara.”
The words had her lids opening, the fierce look on his face making her wetter as her heart clenched.
“Be my wife, be my dirty girl, be mine,” he mumbled against her lips.
“You’re a romantic,” she huffed a laugh, a breath whooshing out of her.
He kissed her scar, moving inside her, his voice matching his harsh breathing. “Give me your dreams and your nightmares, your pleasure and your pain, your fantasies and your fears. Give me everything. Be my queen outside, and my filthy girl inside,” he hammered his hips into hers, his words coming out rough, gritty, raw. “And make me fucking yours, so everyone who looks at my ring knows I have you finally. Say yes, Amara.”
God, he was killing her.
Amara felt her neck arch as a current of pleasure shot through her, her mind becoming mushy.
“Marry me.”
“Dante-” she whispered against his lips just as he smashed their mouths together, passion flaring hotter between them. For long minutes, there was the sound of their breathing, the creaking of the table, the slap of flesh hitting flesh. She came gushing within moments, he followed right after, pressing their foreheads together.
“Say yes, baby.”
Amara fluttered her eyes open, seeing the man her soul recognized as own, and said ‘yes’.
“We’ll need to come up with a proposal story,” Amara told him as she walked up the hill to the mansion, her hand in his. “I don’t think that one will be appropriate for the baby.”
He gave her a hot look, his lips turning up, but stayed silent.
The sun was setting over the horizon, the light falling on the stone walls of the mansion and setting them on fire. It felt surreal, the moment – being back on the grounds she had grown up on, the grounds that had seen her birth and her ruin, the grounds that had waited for her to return home. More surreal was walking on that ground, hand in hand with the boy she’d been infatuated with and the man she had fallen in love with, without secrecy or fear or shame. While she was aware of the few eyes that turned their way as they climbed the mansion steps, while she knew the lingering staff would feed the gossip with everything, there was something liberating about this kind of open affection, one that she had been denied for so long. She craved it like the dry soil that had burned and cracked, thirsting for one drop of rain. She soaked it up like she would never get it again, her cracks not gone but healing, and only desired more.
The sound of his phone ringing had them stopping in the entryway. A flash of fur had her looking down to see Lulu twining between Dante’s legs, her fur marking the bottom of his pants.
“I should probably get some lint rollers, shouldn’t I?” he said wryly, looking down at her fur baby. Dante bent to scoop Lulu up in one arm, bringing her to his face. “Don’t shed on me where people can see. I have a reputation to protect.”
Amara felt amusement crawl up her cheeks, seeing the huge man in the expensive suit and the tiny cat getting fur all over him, making her laugh. Dante turned to her, handing Lulu over. “Head on to the dining room, I’ll make some calls.”
Amara nodded, watching as he strode away, the dark jacket of his suit stretched across his wide back, a flutter of feminine appreciation making her sigh. She could ogle him now, as openly as she wanted to.
Feeling happy in a long time, Amara hugged her fur baby to her chest. “I’m glad you’re okay, Lulu.”
The cat squirmed in her arms, before settling. Lulu was a weird cat. Sometimes she fell asleep right in Amara’s arms, and from experience, Amara knew she was settling in for a nap. She kissed the top of her head and walked towards the dining room.
Amara had only been in that room on a few occasions, mostly when she’d been helping her mother. She had never had a meal there. It felt surreal too, standing on the door, watching as the staff laid the table for dinner. Her instinct was to join them, helping them place everything, but she refrained. She didn’t know how she was going to be the lady of the house when she had grown up serving them. It was an odd realization, and something she needed to think about. While she didn’t want to be detached from the working members of the compound, as Dante Maroni’s wife she would have to adhere to certain expectations.
The twelve-foot table was the focal point of the hall-like room, with tall windows with a stunning view of the darkening hills, and a huge crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling that glimmered in the sunset with different colors of the fire.
Amara watched from the sidelines as two of the girls who had been her juniors placed the cutlery on the long table, avoiding looking at her as she stood at the door with a napping Lulu.
Fuck expectations. Just because no one before her had been friendly with the staff didn’t mean she couldn’t start. Forgetting one’s roots was one of the biggest mistakes she had seen people make. Roots were important for a tree to grow.
Putting a wide smile on her face, she headed into the room and noticed the five staff members pause.
“So, you’re all just going to ignore me?” she asked them in a teasing tone.
One of the men smiled. “Welcome home, Amara. It’s been a long time.”
She smiled back. “It has been a very long time, Fabio. How is your knee?”
His smile widened. “Still twinges.”
Amara turned to the woman who had been her mother’s apprentice. “And you Maria, is your son still playing football?”
The older woman gave a stiff smile. “Yes, Miss Amara.”
The stiffness of the smile made her own wobble a bit. Amara hugged Lulu closer and swallowed.
“Give us the room, please,” a feminine voice from the door had Amara turning to look at Chiara Mancini, Leo Mancini’s wife. While Amara had never had any interaction with her, she didn’t like the woman one bit. Chiara was extraordinarily beautiful, perhaps one of the most beautiful women Amara had seen, but her soul was rotten. Rumor said she had been married by a much older Leo who had raped her in the marriage. Amara had been empathetic towards the woman until she had heard about her taste for younger boys. Tristan being her first extra-marital affair hadn’t endeared her any either.