Page 63 of Ivory Obsession
He looked at me, not with his usual confidence but something else, something bordering on desperation. “I wish I knew,” he admitted softly, reaching for my hand again.
“Well,” I said, standing up and trying to fight the tears in my eyes. “Now you have all the time in the world.”
Chapter Twenty-Six: Dante
She was gone.
Jade had left, her parting words slicing through the din like a blade. My mind was a scrambled mess of thoughts, all tangled up with images of her walking away. Desperation clawed at my insides, disbelief nipping at its heels.
“Check, please,” I muttered to no one in particular, tossing down a wad of cash without counting. It could have been hundreds or just ones – didn’t matter. Nothing did, not without Jade.
The cold night air slapped me as I shoved through the restaurant doors. The city was alive around me, uncaring, while my world crumbled. I spotted her, a retreating figure on the sidewalk, her shoes clicking out a rhythm of escape.
“Jade, wait! Let me drive you home,” I shouted, my voice slicing through the cacophony of honking cars and chattering pedestrians. The raw edge of my plea hung between us, desperate enough for both our sakes.
She didn’t stop, didn’t turn, but I’d be damned if I let her walk away into the night. Not like this. Not when every fiber of my being screamed to pull her back into my arms.
I caught up to her, my hand closing around her arm, more gently than I had intended. She spun around, a flash of anger igniting in those steel eyes. “I’ll take the subway, or a cab. I don’t need a ride,” she spat out, an icy barrier forming with each word.
“Absolutely not.” My words cut through the chill, laced with a menace I didn’t bother to hide. “Let me at least do the gentlemanly thing.”
Defiance etched her features as she crossed her arms, but she followed me, silent and seething, to where my car waited. The sleek, black sedan stood like a shadow against the concrete and the dim glow of the streetlights.
Unlocking the doors with a beep that sounded too loud in the night, I held one open for her. She slid into the passenger seat, her movements stiff, as if every inch of her protested the act. I got in beside her, and the tension swelled, filling the confined space like a malevolent ghost.
My hand found her thigh, a move once welcomed, now fraught with a desperate need to ignite what we’d lost. She flinched away from my touch, her body language screaming louder than any words could.
“This is over, Dante,” she said, her voice so stern it might as well have been a slap.
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “I can smell how wet you are, Jade.”
“Stop it,” Jade insisted, her voice strained with an emotion she was trying too hard to mask. Her eyes darted away from mine, but I could see the pulse quicken at the base of her throat.
I ignored her plea, my fingers inching up the fabric of her skirt, determined to reclaim the connection between us—forcefully if necessary. Her scientific mind might be a fortress of logic, but her body...her body never lied to me.
“Jade,” I growled low, pulling her face closer, “you can’t deny this part of us.”
“Let go of me, Dante,” she demanded, but even as she spoke, her lips parted slightly, a telltale sign of her ambivalence.
The patrons in the parking lot were lost in their own worlds, oblivious to the tempest brewing within the confines of my car. Our breaths mingled, her resistance faltering as I found the warmth between her legs, my fingers moving with a familiarity that belied the chaos of our situation.
She bucked against me, caught between protest and surrender, and I knew I had her. The fight left her eyes for a fraction of a second, and I seized it, pressing my advantage with a relentless pursuit of her pleasure.
I pulled the fabric of her panties to the side. “See, I know exactly what you want,” I said. “And you’re going to sit here and let me pleasure you until you’re screaming my name.” I shoved two fingers inside her, her body arching under the violation, under the pleasure.
“Dante...” she gasped, and there it was, the surrender I’d been chasing. Her eyes fluttered shut as she sank into the sensation, her hands clutching the sides of her seat while I worked her into a frenzy. “Please stop.”
“No,” I said. “If you didn’t want me, you wouldn’t be sitting here in my car.”
Each stroke of my fingers sent a jolt through her, the sheen of sweat on her skin catching the faint glow from the city lights outside.
“I want to memorize what the inside of you feels like,” I said as I continued fucking her with my fingers. “I want you to remember what it feels like to be taken apart by me.”
Her protests fell silent as waves of pleasure coursed through her, her senses overtaken by the relentless rhythm of my touch.
The taste of victory was sweet on my tongue as I delved deeper, matching the rhythm of her body with my strokes. Her breath hitched, her eyes fluttering open to meet mine. There was a spark in them I hadn’t seen in weeks. It was resistance, yes, but also a flicker of the desire she’d been trying so desperately to bury.
“Stop... Dante,” she managed through gritted teeth, but it was a plea without conviction. Her gaze held mine, the fierce determination that was so uniquely Jade slowly giving way to a raw need.