Dance with the Devil: A Dark Standalone Romance (The Midnight Series Book 1)

Dante

Ari stays for an hour, consuming the sushi I had delivered quickly and imbibing a quarter glass of wine. Despite telling her she’s welcome to stay, I know she feels like she’s intruding. She doesn’t quite trust me yet, but she will. I intend to be a permanent part of Francesca’s life, so I’ll have to win her best friend over somehow. We say goodbye, and once the front door closes, Frankie turns to face me.

“So. You missed me?”

I can’t help but smile as I watch her from across the room. “Perhaps.”

“Admit it.”

“I missed you. I never intended to make you feel like I was leading you on. I want to do this with you. But I have logistical things like a mortgage and my clients⁠—”

She takes a step back and holds a hand up. “Hold on. You want to date me?”

My brows pull together, and everything comes into focus for me.

Her worrying that I was ghosting her or leading her on.

Her reluctance to believe that I can barely breathe when I’m not in the same room as her.

My undying need to take care of her, knowing she might be carrying our child. And if not this month, then soon.

My entire life orbits around her, and she still has no fucking idea.

For the last two years, I wake up and go to sleep thinking of her. I spend my free time scrolling through her social media accounts. I email her constantly, just to talk to her, and when we have our monthly Zoom meetings, I pretend like I’m staring off into the distance, but I’m really watching her on another monitor.

How would she know all of this? I’d never told her.

For all she knew, I’d slept with my assistants before on business trips.

My chest aches as I take a step closer to her.

“No, Francesca. I don’t want to date you.”

Her face falls but she quickly recovers, standing up straighter. “Oh. I—that’s fine⁠—”

“I warned you,” I say, my voice low as I take another step closer. “I told you there’d be no going back. I am consumed by you, Francesca Bristow. But no, I don’t intend to date you, because I already know what your favorite food is. I know what your cunt tastes like, and if I could recreate it somehow, I’d turn it into my own personal blend of heroin so that I could inject it straight into my veins.” She lets out a tiny gasp, and I step closer. “I know your biggest secrets and your deepest desires, because I’ve been watching you for a long time. I now realize that it may seem one-sided, but dating you just feels trivial. You are mine.”

Her chest heaves up and down as I get closer, merely inches away from her now. “Y-you’ve been watching me?”

“I have.”

A wrinkle forms between her brows, and I take the last step closer before reaching up and rubbing my thumb over the crease. Bending down, I kiss her forehead.

“This is it for me,” I tell her, my breath hot against the top of her head. “I’m not asking anything from you. Just—let me stay with you.”

She wraps her arms around me, and I feel her melt into me.

“But what about your clients?”

“I can do Zoom sessions for anyone who doesn’t want to be transferred to a colleague, and meet face to face once or twice a month. I can fly back when I need to.”

She pulls away and looks up at me. “You’ve thought about this.”

I move a tendril of hair behind her ear. “For two years.”

Her lips twist into a smile. “You’re in love with me?”

I narrow my eyes. “Only when you’re not being a pain in my ass.”

She giggles. “I don’t know if—this is all so new to me⁠—”

My hand moves to the back of her hair. “Like I said, I’m not asking for anything from you.”

“You want to live here? With me?”

“If you’ll have me.”

Her gray eyes scan my face, studying my expression intensely. “My house is small. You’d be leaving your mansion⁠—”

“How do you know I have a mansion?”

Her cheeks bloom pink. “I may have checked your house out online. I also know how much you bought it for.”

“It seems I wasn’t the only one.”

“Well, you did book out an entire hotel so that we had to share a hotel room⁠—”

I lean down and smash my lips against hers, claiming her in every way I know possible. She moans when my other hand comes to the small of her back, and I back her up until she’s pressed against her living room wall.

“Like I said,” I mutter against her lips as I pull the waistband of her leggings down and grab onto the flesh of her hips. “Two years.”

She groans as I work her leggings down her legs, and then she steps out of them. I pull her shirt over her head and then run my hands over the globes of her ass, squeezing her before lifting her up and wrapping her legs around my waist. I fumble with my belt, but after a second I manage to pull my cock out.

“I might not be in love with you yet but I love your cock,” she rasps out, gripping my waist with her legs.

I squeeze precum out of the tip and use it to circle her cunt, which is already wet for me. “That’s fine with me.”

“I need you,” she breathes, running her hands over my chest and unbuttoning my shirt. “I need you like I’ve never needed anything before and it scares me.”

I press the head of my cock against her. “Trust me. The feeling is mutual.”

Thrusting inside of her, I let my forehead drop against hers as I roll my hips forward, seating myself fully inside of her. Our breaths are mixing as we both pant and rasp, and her fingers slowly scrape against my chest as I pull back, looking down at the slick mess she’s made of my cock already.

“Please,” she whimpers. “Fuck me, Dante.”

I don’t ask questions as I slam back into her, as she cries out, as her pussy grips me firmly and she closes her eyes.

“Don’t you dare close your eyes,” I growl, reaching a hand up to her neck and forcing her to look up at me. “I want to see your face as I give you everything I have.”

“Oh god⁠—”

“Let me make one thing very clear,” I say, my voice rumbling as I slowly pull out of her. “When I’m inside of you, there is only me. When I am fucking you, there is only me. When we are together, you say my name.”

I slam back into her and her pretty little mouth drops open, her expression almost pained.

Except, I know she’s not in pain.

Not with the mess she’s making.

Her hand comes to the side of my face, and something akin to understanding passes between us.

“Fine. Then fuck me harder, Dante.”

Fuuuck.

This woman⁠—

Just when I think she couldn’t be more perfect, she puts my hand on her throat and guides me to squeeze her neck harder. She moans, her eyes rolling back. I soften my grip in case she’s getting lightheaded, but her eyes flash as she rolls herself on my cock.

“What are you doing? I said harder. Choke me like you mean it.”

Christ.

She’s going to fucking kill me with her words. Flay me alive with her perfect tits and her warm, tight cunt. Hypnotize me with those gray eyes and cut me open until there’s nothing left.

She both stirs something dark and lethal inside of me, while also completely steadying the darkest parts of me at the same time.

Possession so deep and exacting cuts through me that I realize I’d go to the depths of hell to keep her mine. To keep her happy.

I’d raze the entire world before I ever let anyone hurt her.

Squeezing her neck harder, she moans again. I feel her clench around me when my thumb brushes her skin tenderly, and her eyelashes flutter as she gasps.

“That,” she rasps out. “The way you look at me while—choking me—” She squeezes her eyes closed as both of her hands grip the material of my dress shirt tightly.

“Eyes open, baby girl.”

She snaps them open as I rub my thumb over her skin. “The way you look at me—how did I ever go without it?” she asks, a hint of vulnerability in her voice.

Something cracks inside of my chest as I bend down and press my lips against hers.

She comes a second later, whimpering something unintelligible onto my lips as her cunt pulses around me. Kissing her while she comes is intense. She draws the pleasure down directly from the base of my spine with every contraction, every whine and moan that leaves her lips.

“Fuck, Frankie,” I tell her, my voice hoarse as I press her harder against the wall. “That’s it⁠—”

I explode inside of her. My orgasm nearly knocks me over, and my legs shake as I struggle to breathe. My hand drops from around her neck to her waist, and I drop my forehead against hers. I pant as my cock empties inside of her, and when I’m finished, she’s watching me with an open, affectionate expression.

Her legs start to shift, but I reach out and steady her so that she stays put.

“Not yet,” I tell her, brushing my nose against hers. “Give it a few minutes.”

“You’re serious,” she whispers, placing a hand on my chest. “This isn’t some kind of kink you have? You want to get me pregnant?”

I huff a laugh and close my eyes as I recover. “You have no idea how badly.”

“You understand that—that—what happened to me—three years ago—could happen again, right?” she asks. Her voice sounds so helpless, and I open my eyes immediately. “If I can’t—if something’s wrong and I can’t carry to term⁠—”

I take my hand and grip her jaw firmly. “I don’t care. That doesn’t matter. But I’m not going to stop trying.” Her lower lip trembles, and I lean down to brush my lips against hers. “I know you’re scared. But I also know you’re brave as fuck. This is crazy. Trust me, as someone in the professional mental health field, everything about this should give me pause. But for whatever reason, it doesn’t. I want this.”

“It is crazy,” she replies, her voice cracking. “Why me? You could have anyone. Why me?”

I growl as I slide my still-hard cock into her as deep as I can go. “You don’t seem to understand just how much I want you. How long I’ve been waiting for you. Not someone like you. You. Since the first time I saw your picture. Your eyes—it was like I was seeing into a future I didn’t even know existed.”

Her lips quiver. “You’re quite a wordsmith, you know.”

I kiss her gently. “I saw something in you that felt identical to me. I can’t really describe it. I felt it with a picture. And when I saw you for the first time? It felt like I was making a pilgrimage home.”

“I had no idea.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Then why antagonize me for two years?” she asks, lips pulling into a smile.

“Because I didn’t know how else to hold your attention. Because I knew if I complained about not being able to log into my work email, you’d roll your eyes and hop on Zoom to help me. If I asked you to do something over email, I knew you’d confirm it was done by the end of the day, which meant I would hear from you. I knew that giving you no choice but to come to San Francisco with me meant that I’d get the chance to show you that I could be good enough for you.”

“That’s still debatable, but the UGG boots that first night sure did help your case.”

“Let’s be honest,” I murmur, pulling out and pushing back into her heat. “I’ll never truly be good enough for you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to prove it.”

She lets out a tiny moan as I grip her thighs. “So many pretty words, Dr. Kincaid. Are you planning on fucking me again or are you just teasing me?”

“You’re so impatient,” I growl, pulling away from the wall and carrying her across the living room. Pushing the bedroom door open, I gently deposit her on the bed and move her up the mattress, all the while keeping myself locked inside of her. As I hover over her on my elbows, I take her right knee and move it higher so that I can go even deeper.

“We should do it again. I want you to be full of my cum. I want it to leak out tomorrow when I fuck you again. I never want it to stop. There’s something very primal about knowing I can claim you like this, Francesca. Knowing that you’re letting me.”

She stares up into my eyes and gives me a devious, little smile. “Well, I’m not letting you do anything because you’re not moving.”

“How do you ask?” My hand grips her fleshy thigh tighter.

“Please,” she whispers. “Give me everything.”