Between Loyalty and You

Chapter 2 (Sofia's POV)

I woke to the sound of water running.

Not rain this time. The shower in the adjoining bathroom. Steam drifted under the door in soft gray curls, carrying the scent of his body wash—something dark and clean that had always made my stomach tighten. I lay still in his bed, listening to the steady rush of water, imagining the way it would slide over the hard planes of his shoulders, down the ridges of muscle, over the ink that marked him as belonging to a world most people only whispered about.

My body ached in a low, constant thrum. The painkillers the private doctor had given me earlier had dulled the sharp edges, but every breath still reminded me of the three fractured ribs. The bandage at my temple pulled when I turned my head. The shirt I wore—his—had ridden up during sleep, the hem resting high on my thighs. Cool air kissed the bare skin there.

I didn’t fix it.

The water shut off. A few minutes of silence. Then the bathroom door opened and Dante stepped out with nothing but a black towel around his hips.

I forgot how to breathe.

Water still clung to his skin, tracing the deep cut of his V-lines, sliding into the dark trail of hair that disappeared beneath the towel. His chest was broad, dusted with the same dark hair, the roses and blades of his tattoos glistening under the low light. A fresh scar cut across his left side—recent, still pink. He didn’t notice me watching at first. He moved with the quiet efficiency of a man used to being alone, running a hand through his wet hair, the muscles in his arm flexing.

Then his eyes found mine.

The air in the room changed.

“You’re awake,” he said. His voice was rough from sleep or something else. He didn’t reach for a shirt. Just stood there, towel low on his hips, watching me watch him.

“Couldn’t sleep through the sound of you getting clean,” I answered. My voice came out huskier than I intended. “You always take long showers when you’re thinking too hard.”

His jaw tightened. He crossed to the dresser, pulled out a pair of black sweatpants, and stepped into them under the towel with practiced ease. The towel dropped. I caught a brief, deliberate flash of the heavy length of him before the fabric settled. He knew I’d looked. The knowledge sat between us like a live wire.

“How’s the pain?” he asked, voice carefully neutral as he tugged a soft gray T-shirt over his head.

“Manageable.” I shifted carefully onto my side, facing him. The movement made the shirt slip further off one shoulder, exposing the upper swell of my breast and the edge of the bandage wrapping my ribs. His gaze dropped for half a second before he locked it on my face again. “You stayed in the chair all night.”

“Someone had to make sure you didn’t try to get up and reopen something.”

“Liar.” I smiled faintly. “You were watching me sleep. The way you used to when I was younger, and you thought I didn’t notice.”

He exhaled through his nose and came to the side of the bed. Up close, I could smell the clean heat of his skin. He checked the bandage at my temple with careful fingers, the touch clinical, but his thumb lingered a fraction too long against my hairline.

“The doctor will be back this afternoon,” he said. “Until then you stay in bed. No arguments.”

“What if I need the bathroom?”

“I’ll help you.”

The words landed heavier than they should have. Heat unfurled low in my stomach.

“You’ll help me,” I repeated softly. “Undress me. Hold me up while I—”

“Sofia.”

My name in that tone was a warning and a plea. I ignored both.

I pushed the covers down slowly, letting the silk slide over my bare legs. The shirt was long enough to cover the essentials, but the way it clung to my hips left little to the imagination. I swung my legs carefully over the edge of the mattress. The room tilted for a second. Dante’s hand shot out, steadying me at the waist. His palm was warm, large, spanning the curve of my side just above the bandages.

“Easy,” he murmured.

I looked up at him. Our faces were inches apart. I could see the darker flecks in his gray eyes, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.

“I’m not made of glass,” I said.

“No. You’re made of stubbornness and bad decisions.”

His hand stayed on my waist as I stood. My legs trembled, but I locked my knees. The shirt hung open at the collar, giving him a clear view down the front if he chose to take it. He didn’t look away this time. His gaze traced the line of my throat, the faint bruise forming where the seatbelt had caught me, the soft upper curves of my breasts. Something dark and hungry flickered behind his control.

I leaned into him deliberately, letting more of my weight rest against his chest. My free hand came up and rested over his heart. It was beating hard.

“Feel that?” I whispered. “You’re not as steady as you pretend.”

His fingers flexed against my side. For one dangerous second, I thought he might pull me closer. Instead, he guided me toward the bathroom with rigid control, every step measured.

The bathroom was still warm and humid from his shower. He flicked on the soft light above the mirror and helped me lean against the marble counter. I expected him to leave. He didn’t.

“Can you manage?” he asked, voice tight.

I met his eyes in the mirror. “No.”

It was a lie. A small one. But the way his throat worked told me he knew it too.

He stepped behind me. Close enough that the heat of his body pressed along my back. His hands came to the hem of the shirt. He paused, waiting for me to stop him. I didn’t.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted the fabric. The shirt rose over my hips, baring the simple black underwear the nurse had put me in, then higher, exposing the white bandages wrapped around my ribs and the soft undersides of my breasts. I raised my arms as best I could. The shirt cleared my head and he set it aside.

I stood in front of him in nothing but underwear and medical tape, the cool air tightening my n*****s. In the mirror I saw his reflection. His eyes were dark, fixed on the places the bandages didn’t cover. The curve of my waist. The faint scrapes along my hip. The way my breasts rose and fell with each careful breath.

“Dante,” I said quietly.

His hands settled on my bare waist, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin just above the waistband of my underwear. The touch was meant to steady me. It did the opposite. Heat pooled between my legs, sudden and sharp.

“I need to use the restroom,” I managed, though the words felt distant.

He nodded once, jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped. He helped me lower onto the seat, then turned his back with military precision, giving me the illusion of privacy. I finished as quickly as the pain allowed. When I stood again, he was there, hands ready, eyes carefully averted until I was upright.

He wet a clean cloth with warm water and began cleaning the dried blood from the side of my neck and collarbone. The strokes were gentle, almost reverent. Every pass of the cloth made my skin prickle. When he reached the upper swell of my breast, he paused, cloth hovering.

“There’s blood here,” he said, voice low.

“Then clean it.”

He did. The warm cloth dragged slowly over the soft flesh. My n****e tightened further under the thin barrier of nothing. I felt the tremor in his hand. When the cloth moved lower, brushing the underside of my breast, a soft sound escaped my throat before I could stop it.

His eyes snapped to mine in the mirror.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. The only sound was our breathing and the distant rain against the windows. His free hand still rested on my waist, fingers splayed possessively. The hard ridge of his c**k pressed against the small of my back through the sweatpants—impossible to hide at this proximity.

I rolled my hips the smallest fraction, just enough to feel him more clearly.

His control cracked.

A low, rough sound left his chest. His hand on my waist tightened, pulling me flush against him. The cloth dropped into the sink. Both of his hands now framed my ribs, careful of the bandages but firm, holding me in place as his mouth dropped to the side of my neck. Not a kiss. Not quite. Just the open press of his lips and the scrape of stubble, the hot exhalation of his breath against my pulse.

“f**k,” he whispered against my skin. “You smell like me.”

“I want to smell like you everywhere,” I answered, voice shaking.

His hips pressed forward once—hard, deliberate—letting me feel the thick length of him. The friction sent a jolt straight between my legs. I was wet already, the thin cotton of my underwear clinging. His hand slid down from my waist, over the curve of my hip, fingers tracing the edge of the underwear. He didn’t slip beneath. Not yet. But the threat of it made my knees weaken.

Then, as suddenly as it started, he stopped.

He stepped back so fast I almost swayed. His reflection in the mirror showed a man at war with himself—eyes blown dark, mouth wet from my skin, the front of his sweatpants tented obscenely.

“This is a mistake,” he said, voice raw. “Every second of it.”

“Then make it again.”

He dragged a hand down his face, then grabbed the discarded shirt and helped me back into it with mechanical care. His fingers didn’t linger this time. When the last button was done, he stepped fully away, putting the width of the bathroom between us.

“Breakfast is coming up,” he said. “You’re going to eat. Then you’re going to rest. And we are not going to talk about what just happened.”

I turned to face him fully, the shirt still open at the throat, the taste of almost still thick on my tongue.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” I said. “But it’s going to happen again. And next time I won’t let you walk away so easily.”

Something dangerous and hungry moved behind his eyes. For a second I thought he might close the distance and finish what he’d started—push me back against the marble, drop to his knees, put that controlled mouth between my legs until I forgot the pain in my ribs.

Instead, he opened the bathroom door and waited for me to walk through it.

I did, slower than necessary, letting him watch the sway of my hips under his shirt.

In the bedroom the city stretched out beyond the rain-streaked glass, indifferent and glittering. I climbed carefully back into his bed, the sheets still carrying the scent of him, and pulled the covers only halfway up.

Dante stood in the doorway for a long time, watching me like a man staring at the edge of a cliff he already knew he was going to jump from.

Then he left, closing the door softly behind him.

I lay back against the pillows, thighs pressed together against the ache he’d left between them, and smiled through the lingering pain.

Ten days.

He was already slipping.

And I had only just begun.