“He’s fine. Better than before. He’ll stay put unless we need him.”
“My dad is right, by the way,” he said. “We should get married. So that if anything happens to me, you and the baby are set for life.”
I laughed, but not because it was funny. “That sounds like something a dying grandparent would say. Not a mob boss.”
“My father is both,” Dante replied. “You don’t have to say yes. But it would make him happy. And it would—” He stopped, tried again. “It would be nice for me, too.”
“Is this a proposal?” I asked, sitting up.
He stood, coming to kneel in front of me. “It’s neither. It’s…” He trailed off, looking at my hands, picking one up and tracing the line of my pointer finger. “I want to give you a name that means you’re not alone in this. I want you to know—if it all goes sideways—I’m never going to let you vanish. Not you. Not the baby.”
I felt the edges of the sheet between my fingers, the way the cotton went thin with too many washes. I wanted to say something clever, to make a joke about shotgun weddings or mafia traditions, but the words stuck somewhere between my lungs and throat.
For the first time in months, the prospect of future tense—of anything beyond the next forty-eight hours—actually felt possible. I tasted panic at the back of my tongue, sweet and sharp. “You’re not going to die,” I said, too loud. “Not before me, anyway. That’s the deal.”
Dante smiled, and it was the real version—the one that showed his crooked left canine and made him look, for a split second, like the boy he must have been before the world ruined him. “You’re the only scientist I know who talks like a gangster. Is that a yes?”
“Call me traditional, but I want an engagement ring.”
Dante laughed, low and disbelieving. “I’ll get you a ring,” he said. “Hell, I’ll get you a whole jewelry store.”
“Now you sound like your father,” I said, but the words came out softer than I wanted. I let him hold my hand for a minute, both of us pretending we didn’t notice the tremor in my fingers, the way his thumb pressed too hard against my pulse like he was trying to memorize the beat.
“Once we have a plan,” he said, “I’ll get you whatever you want.”
He meant it. I could tell. I looked at his hands, big and scarred, and tried to picture them sliding a ring on my finger at some greasy courthouse while Marco hit on the bailiff and Enzo critiqued my handshake. I tried to imagine what kind of ring Dante would pick out for me—something gaudy, or something understated, or maybe just a glint of metal with a history neither of us would ever admit to.
I wanted it. Even if it was just a placeholder for some other life, some alternate future where I wasn’t an asset with a price tag sewn into my DNA.
But I also wanted to live. That came first. Everything else—weddings, babies, even a name that wasn’t penciled onto a hotel guest log—could wait.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll marry you. After the baby is born. I don’t want to go to dress fittings while pregnant.”
“That’s fair,” he said, then stood up and kissed me again on the mouth, cheek, and then on my ring finger, where his lips lingered for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
I thought he was going to tell me to get dressed, but I should have known better. He grabbed the bottom of my shirt, and yanked it over my head, leaving goosebumps up and down my arms.
“Dante,” I said, but before I could finish the thought he’d pulled me into his lap, hands hot on the small of my back.
He kissed me just below the ear, then said, “Maybe I want you a little bit pregnant at the wedding. So everyone knows I did it on purpose.”
He pressed his mouth to my collarbone, then down the curve of my sternum, the heat of his breath a warning before his tongue followed. I braced both arms behind me, ready for the inevitability of him—how even in the middle of existential dread, he could make wanting him feel like a survival instinct. He didn’t bother undressing himself, just pushed his sweats low enough to free his cock.
He was already hard, the curve of him hot and heavy against my thigh. He nudged me gently, like he was asking permission, but his hands had no patience for hesitation. He slid a palm up my spine, into my hair, and cradled the back of my head as he kissed me—slow at first, then rougher, like he wanted the taste of me to last all day.
I let my legs fall open, settling on top of him so the length of our bodies pressed together—skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat. He guided himself into me in a single, careful thrust. Even after months of this, I still gasped; he always stretched me just a little, filling me in a way that felt more like home than any bed or city ever had.
I rode him slow. Let myself move, let the pleasure be a filter for all the static in my brain. I liked how his hands gripped my hips, how he matched me stroke for stroke but never took over—at least not until I told him to. Maybe that was what I loved most, the way he could be brutal and gentle in the span of a single breath. The way he looked at me, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, even if we both knew tomorrow might destroy us.
He kissed me, deep and a little desperate, and I felt the tension in him—an animal need, barely held in check. His hands slid over my ass, up my waist, palms splayed across my ribs. My breasts were so much more sensitive now, the tips bright with every touch, so when he took one in his mouth I almost lost my pace.
"You’re going to make me come," I said, almost breathless, and he just grinned against my skin.
"That’s the plan," he replied, and I could feel him throb inside me, the pulse of him perfectly matched to my own.
I closed my eyes and let it happen, let the pleasure override everything else. When I finally came, it was like a circuit breaker tripped: every muscle locked, then melted, and for a few seconds the only thing in the world was the jagged, electric shock of him inside me and his arms locked tight around my ribs. I heard myself say his name, over and over, like a prayer or a dare.
He followed almost immediately, hips jerking up, jaw tight as he emptied himself in me. For a long minute we just breathed, clinging so hard it was like we meant to fuse into a single animal. He kissed my shoulder. My ear. My scalp, burying his face in my braid as if he couldn’t get close enough.
