The Emperor (Dark Verse 3)
The Emperor: Part 3 – Chapter 13

Part 3 – Tempest

(Present Day)

“I’ll follow you

and make a heaven out of hell,

and I’ll die by your hand, which I love so well.”

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

She knew something was wrong the moment she saw him at her door in the middle of the day. He never came to her during the day.

“Dante-” his mouth was on hers before she could utter more, the urgency in his kiss infusing her blood, the taste of him after weeks, weeks of not seeing him, aphrodisiac in her veins. She hadn’t seen him since the night they had the heated falling out over her telling Morana the truth about Tristan. He had come to her that night, both their tempers high, and fucked her all night through in anger that had blown into exhaustion.

He pushed her into her new apartment – the one she’d bought herself three months ago – pushing the door close with his foot, turning her to press her against it, hard. Her balance tottered in her heels – heels she’d come to love because of how confident and powerful they made her feel, but also because every time she put one on, it reminded her of that first time.

Before she could catch a breath, he was on his knees, her legs over his broad shoulders, her panties a scrap of fabric in his hands, ripped and discarded, and his mouth was between her legs.

A man who ate his girl out solely for his pleasure was a different breed of dangerous, and Dante Maroni was the most dangerous of all. In all the years they had been doing this, Amara had lost count of how many times she’d woken up with his mouth between her thighs, how many times he’d bent her over just to taste her, how many times he’d pushed her against the wall to make out with her pussy. He did it for no other reason than he loved it, and he’d made her addicted to his skilled mouth, ravishing her tryst after tryst, orgasm after orgasm, hour after hour, just because he could.

Her pussy knew him, recognized him, and drenched for him within seconds. Amara pushed her head back against the wall, his hands the only things holding her upright, and saw Lulu watching them curiously from the doorway.

A strangled laugh escaped her, ending on a moan as he pushed his tongue inside her, his hand wrapping around her thigh to rub her clit. Fuck, he was good. So, so good.

Amara bit her lip, grinding against his mouth, chasing her pleasure, unashamed of her body’s desire after so long with him. Some days, she still felt a twinge of guilt for never having told him the extent of her assault, or how it still affected her, how she still woke some nights drenched in sweat, a heartbeat away from screaming, and how Lulu – her sweet, loving Lulu who had grown up to her full furry body – always climbed on her chest and started purring like a motor to calm her down, her big green eyes on Amara.

“Lulu is watching us,” she told him, tugging at his hair.

“Let her watch,” he growled, looking up at her, the sight of him on his knees before her making her melt. “Let her watch how I’m going to fuck her mom hard against the door.”

Oh my.

With that, he straightened to his full height, having grown a few inches taller somehow, broader, more filled out, still towering over her in her heels. Dante Maroni as a boy had been her unrequited; Dante Maroni as a man was her undoing.

His hands went under her ass as she unzipped his pants, taking out his hard, familiar length, feeling the heavy weight throb in her palm. He lifted her easily, lined himself up against her, and thrust home.

Home.

He felt like home.

Amara felt her eyes burn and closed them, her body shuddering with the pleasure of connecting with him, her heart weeping knowing he would leave after. She shouldn’t keep doing this. She couldn’t stop doing this.

His mouth took hers, her taste on his lips making her clench around his cock, the kiss wet, sloppy, perfect. He pulled out an inch before pistoning his cock in, her walls fluttering around him in greeting, gripping him tight, keeping him.

“Missed you,” he pressed his forehead into hers, his eyes dark and heavy on hers. “I missed you so fucking much, dirty girl.”

Amara felt a lump in her throat. “I missed you too,” she whispered, and his eyes roved over her face, as though memorizing her, trying to trace if anything had changed since the last time he’d seen her. The last time they’d been in the same space, tempers had been high and she’d called him a coward in her frustration of being stuck in the same loop with him because he either wasn’t moving them forward or wasn’t telling her. They hadn’t talked much that night.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, taking in the slash of his dark brows, the wide forehead, his strong nose, shaven jaw, swollen mouth, his hair that was usually slicked back from his face falling forward as he fucked her. She took every part of him in, seeing how much he’d changed physically from a decade ago, from the twenty-year-old boy who had rooted himself in her life to the thirty-year-old man he had become.

She knew he understood what she meant. But something was wrong. His eyes were too dark, too heavy. She’d spent enough time learning the browns in them – how the sunlight hit every fleck, turning them to burnished gold; how night made them black holes, sucking everything they saw into themselves. She knew his eyes like the scars on her wrist – every little bit memorized, imprinted on her heart.

“Dante,” she rasped out.

He kissed her, silencing any question on her lips, picking up his pace, lifting her higher so he hit that magical spot deep inside her, turning her liquid in his arms. Tilting her head back, she gripped his shoulders as he kissed down her neck, licking her scar like he loved to do, his mouth wrecking her heart. Over the years, he had kissed every inch of her body, seen every one of her physical scars, and lavished them with love like they were the most beautiful badges of bravery. They were her veins of gold, he’d said so many times.

Losing herself to the pleasure, Amara felt the tingling start in her toes, heat scorching the base of her spine as the friction drove her deeper and deeper into the abyss.

“Fuck, your pussy has been hungry,” Dante muttered, his own pleasure loosening the filthy thoughts in his head. “She’s missed me, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Amara panted, trying to push back against him but he kept her pinned in place, hammering into her, the door shaking behind her with each thrust.

“Fuck yeah,” he licked the line of her neck, biting her pulse point, sending sparks of ecstasy through her bloodstream. “So horny, you’re dripping all over me.”

Dirty-talking Dante was her kryptonite. She went crazy when he talked like that.

“What are you going to do about it?” she challenged, clamping her walls deliberately around him as he entered her again.

He bit her jaw in retaliation. “Own this pussy,” he grit out, changing the angle, the speed. “Own you. Fucking all of you. So deep you won’t get me out.”

Fat chance of that.

She bit her lips as he lifted her higher, taking her hardened nipple into his mouth through her dress, the fabric rubbing wet against her sensitive flesh. Her nerves caught fire.

“Oh god,” she whimpered, her voice straining as he hit her g-spot again, and she exploded all around him, gasping for breath, her walls clenching and squeezing him, her body shaking as he kept thrusting in and out, over and over.

“Just like that,” he groaned, burying his face in her neck, his motion roughening. “Come on my cock, baby. Fucking soak me. Mark me.”

She kept coming as he hit her spot, over and over again, before he exploded inside her, soaking her walls with his seed, pushing in as deep as he could go.

They stayed there for a few seconds, catching their breaths, the intensity of the experience still making her shiver as he stayed lodged inside her, his face in her neck, pressing soft, sweet kisses to her skin. This, this was exactly why she had been waiting for him, for so many years. Months of separations dissolved in the moments of connection, so true, so raw, so pure, she knew she would never have it again. There was no other Dante for her, and she knew there was no other Amara for him.

He lifted his head, cupping her face, his eyes moving over her. “I’m sorry too. I have to go.”

The abruptness of it made her heart sink. She hated it when he left, and truthfully, she hated him a little for leaving every time, even as she understood it. Usually, he stayed a little longer though. She didn’t understand what was causing this rapid shift.

And she saw something in his eyes, something she had never seen before. Fear.

That brought her up short. “Dante-”

“Ask me to kiss you, Amara,” he commanded, something he hadn’t said to her in ages, his eyes so heavy, so dark, his pupils and irises merging to make a black hole, absorbing everything that she was into them.

Warning bells began to ring in her ears.

“Kiss me,” she told him and he held her face, pulling her up to her toes, pressing his mouth to hers in the softest, most soulful kisses he’d ever given her. He stayed that way for a long minute, before pulling out of her, pulling away from her, and adjusting his attire.

Amara watched with silent eyes as he left, as quickly as he’d come. Like a tornado without a warning, he’d blown in, shaken her foundations, wrecked everything inside her, and left her standing in her living room with a probably-traumatized cat, hickeys on her neck, and a leaking pussy.

She got the news two weeks later.

She saw the news two weeks later.

Dante Maroni was dead.