Page 121 of Auctioned Innocence
“How could I be so blind?” My voice shakes with self-recrimination, rising with each word. “So fuckingstupid? I’msupposed to be smart, supposed to see patterns, and I let my feelings for him?—”
The words catch in my throat like broken glass. I can’t even finish the sentence because the truth is too devastating. I loved him. Trusted him completely. And he used that love to deliver me to monsters.
“Thirty-five years Dante.” I turn to face him, feeling broken and raw. “Thirty-five years he’s been playing the long game. And I never suspected. Not once. Even when the evidence was right in front of me.”
“Sofia—”
“Don’t.” I stand, fury at myself replacing the grief that’s been eating me alive. Papers flutter to the floor as I sweep my arm across the bed, needing to destroy something, anything. “I had access to all the security data. I analyzed every breach, every compromised operation. The pattern was right there and I missed it because I couldn’t imagine Uncle Lorenzo would?—”
“Because he was your family,” Dante steps closer, his voice gentle. “Because he raised you. That’s not stupidity, that’s love.”
“Love is a weakness I can’t afford!” The words explode out of me like a scream. I grab the nearest file and hurl it at the wall, watching papers scatter like my shattered illusions. “My naivety almost got us all killed. Got Maisie killed. Got you almost killed. All because I was too fucking trusting to see what was right in front of me!”
Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and angry and shameful. I hate that I’m crying. Hate that Lorenzo still has this power over me even after everything.
“I’m supposed to protect people,” I whisper, my voice breaking completely. “That’s what Renaldis do. We protect our own. And instead, I led wolves straight to the door because I was too blind to see that one of our own was the wolf.”
Dante crosses to me then, his hands gentle on my shoulders. “You are not responsible for his choices.”
“I should have been smarter.” I try to pull away, but he holds firm. “Should have questioned. Should have?—”
His kiss cuts me off, hard and demanding and full of everything I need to hear but can’t say. I bite his lip in retaliation, tasting blood and my own frustration and the salt of my tears.
“You are brilliant,” he growls against my mouth, his hands framing my face, thumbs brushing away the angry tears. “You are not responsible for his betrayal.”
“I should have been smarter.” But my hands are already pulling at his clothes, needing to feel skin, to forget, to lose myself in something real and solid. My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, desperate and clumsy with need. “Should have seen through his lies.”
“He spent thirty-five years perfecting those lies.” Dante’s shirt hits the concrete floor as I yank it over his head, my hands immediately going to the hard planes of his chest. “And twenty-two of those years learning exactly how to manipulate your love for him.”
His skin is warm under my palms, real and solid and alive. I trace the scars scattered across his torso, each one a story of survival, of fighting, of being exactly who he appears to be.
“But I’m not supposed to be just any family member,” I gasp as his hands work at my pants, fingers rough with urgency. “I’m supposed to be better. Smarter. I’m supposed to see the threats.”
“You can’t see every threat,” he says fiercely, lifting me as my leggings pool around my ankles. I kick them away, needing nothing between us, needing to feel every inch of him against me. “You’re not superhuman, Sofia. You’re justhuman. Beautiful, brilliant, but human.”
He pins me against the cold concrete wall, the contrast making me gasp—his body burning hot against my front, the wall ice cold against my back. The rough texture scrapes against my shoulder blades as he presses me harder against it, one hand braced beside my head, the other gripping my thigh.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer, needing him inside me, needing to feel something other than the hollow ache Lorenzo’s betrayal left behind. When Dante enters me in one hard thrust, I cry out, my head falling back against the wall.
“I let my emotions cloud my judgment—” I start to say, but the words dissolve into a moan as he moves inside me, each thrust driving thoughts of anything but this from my mind.
“Your emotions make you who you are.” His movements are almost punishing, matching my need to forget, to feel something other than the betrayal eating me alive. The wall behind me provides leverage as he drives into me harder, deeper, each thrust sending sparks of pleasure through my nervous system.
“They made me weak.” But I’m clinging to him now, nails scoring his back as pleasure builds, trying to mark him the way this pain has marked me. My legs tighten around his waist, ankles locked behind his back, pulling him deeper.
“They make you strong.” He shifts angles, hitting that spot inside me that makes me cry out his name, the sound echoing off the warehouse walls. “They’re why you’re willing to put yourself in danger for others. Why you’re willing to love even when it hurts.”
His pace becomes more frantic, more desperate, one hand tangled in my hair while the other grips my hip hard enough to bruise. I don’t care. I want the marks. I need proof that this is real, that he’s real, when everything else in my life has turned out to be lies.
“I can’t afford to be blind again.” My voice is raw with need and pain and the desperate desire to never feel this broken again. “Can’t afford to trust like that.”
“Then don’t trust blindly.” His breath is hot against my neck, his voice ragged with exertion and emotion. “But don’t stop trusting completely. Don’t let him steal that from you too.”
The orgasm hits me like a lightning strike, all-consuming and devastating. I cry out, my body arching against his as muscles clenching around him as waves of pleasure crash over me. He follows me over the edge with a groan that sounds like prayer, his body shuddering against mine.
We collapse against the wall, breathing hard, hearts hammering against each other. Sweat cools on our skin in the warehouse air, and I can feel his pulse racing beneath my palms where they rest on his chest. After a moment, he carries me to the mattress, laying me down gently before covering my body with his own.
This time is different. Slower. Sweeter. His hands map every inch of my skin like he’s memorizing me, like he’s trying to heal the broken places with his touch. I drop a single feathery kiss right over his heart and my arms glide around him to rest on his mid-back.
