Fractured Freedom: A Brother’s Best Friend Second Chance Romance (Tarnished Empire)
Fractured Freedom: Chapter 28

Delilah

“I want to go home.” I had more fire in my blood and emotion pulsing through me than I’d had in days. I’d felt myself slipping, felt the guilt and the pain and the anxiety enveloping me even before the cruise ship.

It was like I could watch the weight of all my stupid problems pour in on me but couldn’t stop it, couldn’t patch the holes. They filled my boat and pulled me down, ready to sink me.

I tried avoiding them, tried patching them, and tried filling them with happiness. But the worry overpowered all my efforts, spurting through and shooting my happiness straight out of the boat.

I was sinking now, drowning in fear at being with someone who could hurt me as much as seeing him kiss Izzy had. Then there was guilt at feeling that fear, at feeling the depression when I really didn’t have such a bad life.

That one practically suffocated me, the guilt so intense I could barely breathe even when I had oxygen everywhere around me. Just like I had everything I wanted around me too. A good family. Friends. A man who really loved me. A twin sister willing to fight for us even though she was in love with him too.

She’d apologized for kissing him and cried. I’d held her hand while she did because that’s what sisters do.

I knew her pain. Losing Dante wasn’t for the weak of heart.

Even with the knowledge that they were never going to be together, that she couldn’t love a man who didn’t love her like she thought he loved me, I wasn’t sure I would be able to commit to him.

The pain that shot through me at seeing another woman’s lips on his was enough to let me know I couldn’t handle it if I really did lose him. I wouldn’t be able to move on. I’d be lost at sea, no one there to save me, because I didn’t know how to save myself from that heartbreak.

Except my wolf was going to cross a fucking ocean of my worries and depression before he’d let me go that easy.

“Your home is right here with me,” he grumbled as he started driving out to his family’s farm.

When I was younger, and even into college, I hadn’t questioned why his mother had all that land. “Did your dad buy your mom this farm?”

“Sure.” He shrugged as he stared out at it. “Or maybe he stole it from someone or made them sign it over. Never really looked into it.”

“Have you ever looked into him or wanted to get to know more about him?”

“Not anymore. I got his name, and that’s about all I need from him. The rest is dead and gone. No point in dwelling on what can’t be.”

I nodded. His words held more meaning than he probably realized. “You’ve come to terms with that. Can you come to terms with what can’t be between us?”

“Lilah.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “I almost lost you, Little Lamb. I held your hand, and the fire between us was so damn small—you know what that feels like? To have someone you love almost dead in your grasp, no way to bring them back?”

I pictured him on a battlefield because his eyes were far away as he said the words. I knew there were things he’d never tell me, war stories, mob stories, heart-wrenching ones. “I’m sorry I put you through that, especially if you’ve had to go through it before.”

He slammed his hand on the wheel. “Shit, I put you through it and myself. Your brother is right. I should never have dragged either of you into this.”

I shrugged and stared out at the sunset over the hills. “You wouldn’t have been able to make me leave.”

“Beautiful, smart, and stubborn,” he grumbled as we turned toward the big red barn. “You remind me of one of my mom’s horses, even though you’ll always be my little lamb.”

We pulled into his driveway and followed it around to the back of the house, out about another acre. The land was lush with green grass and rolling hills. A couple of horses gathered near a hay bale, and the gravel crunched under the tires, making a few cows moo.

He turned toward the big red barn we used to go to when an animal was in distress.

“Is she sick? The horse?” I asked.

“Sort of.”

Dante turned off the ignition, and we sat there for a minute before leaving the car. He breathed in deep, and his hand was on his abs for about two seconds before he dragged his gaze up to mine. Pain and hunger and determination swam in his eyes. “I’m going to show you Autumn in that stable, and we’re going to work out what is between us in there too.”

“I don’t think we can have anything between us. Not after what we’ve been through. Not after seeing you let another woman kiss you, and not after how my heart felt about it.” It was anger and pain and regret all mixed in my tone.

“Lamb, don’t even try to do that today. I’m not in the mood.” He opened his door and slammed it. I watched him stare up at the sky, pull on his neck, and swear once or twice before he rounded the hood of the car and came to open my door.

“Do you need me to carry you?” His green eyes trailed up and down my body and then stalled at my head, like he was trying to figure out if the brain trauma had healed.

“Carry me? What for?” I tried to push past him and get out of the car myself, but his hands were at my waist immediately, then around my back to aid me in walking like I was a porcelain doll. “Dante, I’ve been resting for a week. It was a minor brain trauma.”

“It wasn’t minor. You were in a coma.”

“From the pressure against my skull, and it’s completely subsided. It’s not … I’m fine.” I chuckled at how ridiculous he was being.

He took a step and pivoted in front of me, never letting go of my body. My chest was to his, my stomach against his abs, and other things touching other things. Of course my body reacted immediately, but what I didn’t expect was for the look of anguish in his eyes to affect me most.

His hand trailed up my back to my neck where he wove his fingers through my hair. His forehead fell to mine.

“One.” He breathed in, and my body immediately relaxed into him. “Two.” He sighed, and I closed my eyes.

He counted the rest of the way to seven. And then his eyes opened with a sparkle of unshed tears beneath a furrowed brow as his thumb rubbed a sensitive spot just below my jaw. “I almost lost you. And it’s my fault for letting you run around on that island in the first place. It was reckless, and I’ll have to live with that the rest of my life.”

I pulled back from him, stepped out of his reach even though my body longed to stay in his arms, and shook my head. “Not true. I made the decision to stay there myself.”

His lips thinned into a disapproving line before he slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks and began walking on the dirt path toward the barn. It was a sight to see, a man so beautiful in business attire, dirtying his loafers to walk to a stable. “You can say that, Lilah, but I should have forced you to come home rather than letting you run wild over there.”

“Wild?” I trotted up to him to poke him in the arm. “I had a job. I was a responsible adult. And you know I didn’t go there to get wild.”

He hummed. “Can you admit why you went?” Dante peered over at me before he opened the barn door. It was one of two large wooden doors, the handles black metal with a large drop bar latch across them. He paused, like he was waiting for me to admit and accept everything in my life.

Maybe I needed to. Maybe we both needed to hear I was healing.

But I wasn’t healed yet. “I went there to be free of myself.”

“Free of yourself?” he whispered like he couldn’t believe I’d said it.

“Yes, from this stupid idea that I’m perfect here, when really I’d lost a baby, when really I’m struggling with depression, with expectations, with who I am.”

“You’ll never be free of those things, Lamb,” he murmured.

“Yes, I can be. I was getting there.”

His hand flexed on the handle of the door. “No, you were forgetting and suppressing, but that doesn’t work. You can’t be free of it because it lives with you … forever.”

“That isn’t freedom. This isn’t a life if I have to live with that, Dante.” Why did I feel like I was pleading with him, with the world, in that moment?

“That’s all life is, Lilah. You know that. It’s work and pain and suffering for the beauty of living. You think I tortured all those men and killed some in hopes I would forget? No, I took the ugly, and it chained me down, but the beauty of you and this world set me free. It’s not a complete freedom. It’s fractured and broken and wrecked.”

He opened the door to the barn stalls. I’d been there before, years ago, but they’d since redone everything with sleek treated oak. They had ten individual horse stalls, five on each side of the barn. In the middle was a lunging ring, an open area where they ran horses round and round. There was a high-end fan above us that cooled everything down without displacing even a straw of hay.

I didn’t respond to his viewpoint on life because my jaw had dropped at all the renovations. I walked over to one of the stalls. The beautiful wood was stained and treated so it was smooth to the touch. I ran my hand over it and gripped the gate where the wood ended and the iron began. It took me getting on my tiptoes to peer between the iron bars and to see into the horse stall.

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“We redid some things a few years ago so that animals in distress could feel more comfortable. My mom and the workers will bring them in here if they’re pregnant, suffering from some ailment, or if it gets too hot out.”

I was already searching to see if there were any in here now, ready to comfort them. “I used to love coming over to see the animals with Dom.”

Dante smirked at me. “Woman, you didn’t only come with Dom. You were here every couple days, tending to a horse or a cow or a lamb.”

“Well, they needed someone,” I murmured, and then I saw a reddish horse in the corner stall. She shook her head and huffed a little as I walked toward her. “She’s hurt?”

“Physically?” He crossed his arms where he stood. “No. Emotionally, I think she might be dying of a broken heart. She lost her foal a week ago.”

I held out my hand for her to smell before running it along her neck. Staring into her kind eyes, rimmed with giant lashes, I smoothed the hair on the large bulge of her jaw. “Just a week ago?”

He nodded. “My mom’s kept me updated. Emmy hasn’t eaten since, and we had the vet come in to see if we should move her, but they think she should heal here for a month or so.”

“How did it happen?”

“It was stillborn. She was laboring, and they were sure it was alive, but the delivery didn’t go as planned, according to my mother.”

“Does Emmy pasture with the other horses?”

“She used to when I visited.”

I hummed. It felt safe here. Perfect temperature, perfect lighting, food right in front of her. Haystacks upon haystacks, and expectations upon expectations. Everyone expected her to heal perfectly here since the conditions were ideal. I faced Dante with determination. “She needs to go outside.”

He searched my eyes for answers. I knew he’d brought me here to see what this horse needed to heal and probably what I needed to heal too.

“You’re sure?” he asked. “Because it’s probably going to be painful out there for her.”

“She needs to feel free, even if she’s not, and she needs to do it on her own, even if it’s painful. She couldn’t have the baby on her own. So”—I went to the lock on her stall and wiggled it as I said the words I knew weren’t about the horse anymore—“let her do this on her own.”

He nodded and went to get the keys for the lock at the opposite side of the barn.

I whispered to her as I pet her soft mane. “It gets better. And worse. And I think you can live with it like maybe I’m living with it. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, except we’ll have more scars, right? And that’s not such a bad thing.”

Dante came up behind me and let me do the honors of unlocking the stall door. Then he placed a halter on her.

Together, we led her to the back of the barn where large sliding doors opened into a fenced-in pasture. As he removed the halter once more, I swear she stood taller, held her head higher, and her trot had more bounce.

I smiled when she didn’t even hesitate to take off galloping into the open field, the wind flying through her mane as she shook it.

With her went some of my pain, some of the failure, and some of the guilt. Other mommas went through what I had and made it out the other side, maybe broken, but probably wise enough to know themselves better. Our freedom may have been fractured, tainted by our pain and our growth, but we still had it. I could have it too. “We’ve all got to be okay in some way, right?”

“Of course,” his low voice rumbled from behind me. “Let’s give her all the time she wants.”

I followed him inside, and we let the breeze blow through the doors as we went back to her stall.

Dante straightened it up without saying much. He hung her halter on a large hook right outside the stall, then turned to stare at me in the middle of it. “You looked at that horse like you believed she could overcome it.”

I nodded, frozen in place by his penetrating stare.

“You think you can’t, though?”

“I thought that at first.”

“And now?” He didn’t move toward me, but I saw him ready to close in. He didn’t have to circle me or take a step in my direction for me to know that he was about to pounce, that he was about to be the wolf to my lamb and that I would crumble beneath him.

“Now I know I did overcome it.” I shrugged. “I’m just not sure I want to risk going through it again.”

He growled and cracked his knuckles. “You’re not sure you want to risk it with me?”

I glanced at the halter. What a representation of both freedom and prison. “I can’t imagine losing you and living through it. I felt the pain of seeing you with Izzy—”

“That wasn’t anything and you know it.”

“You let her kiss you.” I was still furious that he’d allowed anyone near his lips. “And I know you didn’t want it, but the fury that licked through me probably made me pass out. To think what would happen to me if you actually wanted someone else—”

“Never going to happen, Lamb.” He paced toward me on a mission.

“It could, considering I’ve decided to move on.”

“You do have to move on,” he concluded. But him agreeing with me almost brought me to my knees.

I gasped as he said it, sure I’d heard him wrong. “Right.” I pushed my wavy hair back and tried not to give in to my heart breaking in front of him. This would have to happen anyway. It was good he was on board. Even if it hurt like hell. “Well, I think the best way to do it is to remain friends for the family and try to forget all that’s happened between us. I’m happy we had what we did—”

“You’ll be even happier when you figure out that we’re going to have more than we ever did before.” He took a step forward, and I narrowed my eyes. “Together. Not apart, Lamb.” He narrowed his eyes back at me. “Why can’t you see we’re better together?”

“You kissed my sister, Dante,” I tried to explain, “and I almost died. That’s an indicator we won’t work. Also, my brothers—”

“You think I’m afraid of your brothers?”

“Dom is going to be livid.”

“He’s already livid. He’ll just have to punch me a few more times.”

“I have a disorder. I can’t be happy half the time.”

“Sure, but everyone has a disorder if you dig hard enough, and I’m willing to replace your way back to happiness every time.”

“I can’t have kids with you!” I screamed at him, tears in my eyes.

“Little Lamb.” He was in front of my face now, holding my cheeks like he could hold me together. I leaned into his touch because I think my body believed he could. “Do you know my mom’s moving?”

“She’s …” His hands were in my hair, feeling my skull. “Are you checking my head?”

“Just have to be sure. Does anywhere hurt when I press?”

“No. Are you serious?” I stuttered. “I’m a nurse. I know when it’s fine.”

He pressed on my temples and then my skull and neck. “Pressure points matter, Lilah. It’s an acupuncture technique. This is good,” he murmured and kissed my temple. “Real good.”

“Your mom’s selling her farm?” Why did that make the tears spill over immediately. “Who will take care of the animals? And Emmy? And my lamb is—”

“You’ll take care of them,” he said like it was just another sentence to throw out, not monumental at all.

“Me?” I whispered, but it sounded strangled, completely confused as I pointed to myself. “I’m not … I don’t have the means to—”

He shoved a note in my hand. It was wrinkled and worn like he’d been carrying it for days. I unfolded it slowly, my hands shaking, my heart beating fast.

Seven to Lilah’s Heaven

Lilah’s Eat Pray Love List

1. Leave home (done)

2. Do something crazy (you went to jail, Lamb)

3. Explore food here and EAT (you like gelato, quesitos, mofongo, and mojitos … too much)

4. Explore places here and PRAY (you read at the beach, saw the fort, the streets, the stores, any other places?)-the bioluminescent water, a statue

5. Explore men and LOVE

*explored voyeurism

*explored water play

*What else, Lamb? (wax play)

6. Find peace (I can search with you forever)

7. Find heaven (with me)

*buy the farm

*accept a proposal

*marry the wolf

“I bought the farm at double her asking price. For us.”

“You what?” I screeched.

Dante whispered, “I’m going to marry you, Little Lamb, and we’re going to have babies here. Right where you think expectations are too burdensome and people are always thinking you’re the absolute best. And instead you’re going to get dirty on this farm with me and prove them all wrong.”

“Are you insane?”

He went down on one knee, and he smiled bigger than I’d ever seen him smile. “I asked your dad for your hand earlier this week. I don’t think he gives a shit that your brothers are going to beat the piss out of me. I don’t either. I’ll let them have a couple good punches, then I’ll make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“What page?”

He pulled a ring out of his slacks’ pocket. No box around it. Just a big, beautiful teardrop diamond set on a band with three diamonds on either side. He held it out in front of me. “I was going to try to get every color in your eyes on the gemstones, but it would have been impossible. So instead, seven diamonds to get us to heaven, Lamb. You know I’m not letting you go. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy, and I’ll rip apart anyone who makes you sad. Literally. I got a taste of losing you, and I know I should let you go so you can have a normal life, but I want to try for a future with you. It’s what we both deserve.”

“Dante, no one expects you or me to—”

“We’re crushing people’s expectations, Lilah. It’s not about them. It’s about you and me. What’s going to make you happy?”

“I …” There was a large part of me that was scared to say yes. Scared of what could happen. Scared I couldn’t see the future, couldn’t predict the pain or the failures. But none of that mattered as much. “I just want you.”

“You got me, baby. For the rest of your life. Say yes. Marry me.”

“We’re going to have to be engaged a long time. Until we figure out the new family dynamic, Dante.”

He nodded like he was willing to say yes to anything in that moment.

I took a breath.

“Don’t make me count to seven with you right now.”

“Yes,” I blurted, smiling as tears streamed down my face.

“Thank fuck,” he grumbled and slowly slid the ring onto my finger. We both admired how it fit snugly, perfectly, like he’d measured it exactly right.

His attention to details in regards to me always had been perfect.

He stood and, instead of kissing me, backed up to the stall door and shut it. It latched in place with a loud click.

The breeze blew from the fan above us, but my heartbeat escalated, my palms started to sweat, my breath hitched as my vision tunneled straight to Dante, staring at his eyes that hungrily roamed over my body.

He growled, and this time he really did circle me, once, twice, and then he kneeled before me.

“What are you doing?” I asked. He’d already proposed. And now his slacks were in the dirt for a second time.

His piercing green gaze held mine as he grumbled out low and rough, grinding into all the right places of my mind, “I’m about to grovel, Lamb. I need you to forgive me.”

I was about to ask for what, but my question was lost when he removed both my shorts and panties in one swift movement, then closed his mouth around my clit so fast that I didn’t have time.

I fell forward, catching myself on his shoulders as I dug my nails in and gasped. I’d missed his touch on me, and my body practically bucked on his face right away, so wound up and ready for him that I knew the tears in my eyes would overflow.

Part of the emotion was from getting what I wanted. Dante was it. And I was jumping into what could be heaven or hell on earth, but I wanted to believe in love. It might not have added up most of the time, and it might not have been an easy study, but it was full of hope, and I could rely on that.

His hands were on my ass, kneading and caressing it to the same rhythm as his tongue. I clawed at his hair, trying to get closer to him, trying to have him consume me. I had this man’s ring on my finger, and my body wanted the same symbolism acted out between us.

“Dante, oh my God, you’re forgiven. Can we please go somewhere so I can have you? I need you in me. I need you. I need you. I need you.” I whimpered it as if it would come true if I said it over and over.

He slid his thumb inside me and then pulled an ass cheek taut enough that his middle finger could graze my asshole. “Baby, I have to get you good and ready for me first.”

“No, I’m ready,” I cried. “I’m so ready.”

He chuckled and grabbed my thigh to put it over his shoulder. He looked up at me then and commanded, “Show me how ready. Hop up, baby. Ride my face like the good girl you are.”

“You’re so crude sometimes,” I said. Yet, I was already crawling up him and rearranging myself so both my legs were on his shoulders, and he turned me around so that my back was against the stall’s gate.

“Ride, baby,” he said, and I rolled my hips into his face as his tongue went to my pussy. With his finger probing my asshole and his thumb pumping me between my folds, I knew I wasn’t going to last. I’d been without him for days, and I got off from just his touch alone.

Being back where we’d started and making it our own was enough to push me over the edge. Still, he played with my pussy like he wanted to drag things out. His tongue darted in and out, lapping at my wetness but not taking it to the next level. He sucked my clit and swirled it in his mouth, treating me like a languid hobby.

“Please, Dante. Faster. Please,” I begged.

“Dante!”

I froze on his shoulders when I heard his mother’s voice outside the barn doors. “Someone’s here? Are you crazy?” I tried to wiggle off him, but his hands dug into my ass and held me there. “Don’t you dare—” I warned.

Mrs. Reid called out, “Do you have Lilah with you?”

“Get rid of her and keep riding my face like a good girl, Lamb.” His tongue doubled the pace. His hands were everywhere. It was everything my body wanted, and I felt myself approaching the freaking orgasm of a lifetime, the one that wasn’t just fireworks but a nuclear explosion of epic proportions.

“I’m with him, Mrs. Reid. We’re um—” I gasped when his finger dipped into my ass and curled. “He’s giving me a riding lesson. We need a minute.”

“Oh, totally understandable.” She peeked her head in and I waved over the gate like a crazy person, trying to make sure she didn’t come any closer. “Oh, goodness. Is he proposing right now? I’m ruining it.”

I nodded frantically and then for a second thought that was rude, so I tried to shake my head no, but when he sucked hard on my clit, I waved her away. “Just give us a minute, please.”

She shrugged. “Sounds good.” I heard her footsteps retreating as she called out, “Dante, remember to tell her to keep her legs tight when she’s riding. We don’t want her falling off.”

I felt the man smile against my pussy.

“You’re an asshole. I deserve the best orgasm of my life now,” I whisper-yelled at him.

“You’ll get seven to heaven, baby, I promise. When has your wolf ever let you down?”

“Never,” I screamed as the first one hit.