ADELINE'S POV
"What are you doing here?" I ask him with a raise of my brow, folding my arms across my chest. He scans my body from head to toe, but not in a sexual way. He's looking at me like he wants to make sure I am healthy. Like he wants to make sure I have not a single bruise on m skin, but his stare sends heat straight to my stomach. Something I thought I would never feel again.
"I thought you made it very clear to me that helping me reach my goals is out of the question." He takes a step closer to me and I don't budge. I keep staring at him with my hands folded across my chesty, betraying no emotions on my face. I'm angry with him and I hope he can see it.
"What's your big plan Adeline? Even if I decided to help you, how would you go about it?" He asks me.
"You think this is a joke to me?" I question him with an irritated edge to my tone.
"I have never underestimated your goals, Adeline. I just want to know where your head is at. Give me a good reason why I should let you walk into this when you could get killed and then it will all be for nothing anyways."
"Because I am nothing without it, Dante! I know you want me to continue living my life but I hate to break it to you. I can't just go back to being a therapist who was oblivious to the world around her. That girl is gone and she is not coming back!" I didn't even realize that I had been walking closer to him and now we're mere inches apart as I look up at him, staring at both his eyes and remembering just how beautiful his heterochromia is.
"I'm sorry." He suddenly blurts out, completely out of topic and catching me off guard. My mouth clamps shut as I involuntarily take a step back. My heart pounds in my chest as he takes another step forwards to clear the distance.
"For not telling you about all of this beforehand. I should have known you were strong enough to handle it. I'm sorry for everything you went through Adeline. Nothing can make it better." He says sincerely and there is an uncomfortable silence and tension in the room as we look at each other.
"I hated you." I blurt out and his eyes fall.
"I blamed you." I add and it looks like his heart is being broken into a million pieces from self-guilt.
"But not anymore. I am past that Dante. With everything that has happened, I just have no place in my heart right now to hate you. You were a big part of my life Dante. You showed me what it felt like to be loved. I can't hate you even if I tried and I need you to know that it wasn't your fault. I'm here now. You saved me." I say as the tension in the room is immediately replaced with raging emotions.
For the first time since I got back from erotica, since I was exposed to the real world again, I really take my time to look at Dante and all I see is the man that I fell in love with. The man that I cannot unlove and for the first time I see that same man cry and be completely vulnerable with me. I take slow but sure steps towards him and graze his fingers with mine.
A sense of love and comfort and electricity shoots up my spine and I feel things that I haven't felt in a long time. Things that only Dante can make me feel and I know for certain that he is my home. No one else, him.
He shakes his head and then quickly pulls me in for a hug and I let him, hugging him back like my life depended on it.
"I missed you so much. I thought we had lost you forever." He says as he holds on tight to me and I take my time to savor his touch, to feel him on every single fiber of my being. My soul craves his. My body craves his and my heart craves his. I was scared about how I would react to Dante. If I could be able to let him touch me again.
I was scared he would be disgusted by me and I was scared I would be scared of ever getting intimate with anyone ever again but I cannot be that way with Dante. I know he would never hurt me and surprisingly, I feel comfort and peace next to him and I did not realize how badly I needed him to hold me in his arms like this.
"I missed you too." I say and without another word, I rise to my tip toes and slam my lips onto his. He is taken off guard at first but he relaxes a few seconds later and kisses me aback desperately, hopefully, in a way I have never been kissed before and I know for sure that his lips were made for mine. I know for sure that we are two halves of the same heart. I know that our souls were made of the same material and I know that I don't ever want to be apart from him again.
I kiss him harder and hear a groan escape is throat. Heat flows to my stomach and in between my legs and after such a long time it feels like this is the first time, I am feeling anything remotely close to this and I do not want it to end. I want him to hold me forefver like this and I want him to kiss me forever.
But I also know one thing, no matter how turned on I am and no matter how badly I want to feel him inside me, I am not ready to take that step with him again. I am not ready to have sex again and I can tell he understands that because he doesn't try to take what we're doing further. He doesn't try to rush me into anything.
I break the kiss and look up at him as we both breathe heavily, our chests rising and falling with every breath that we take, eyes locked on each other as arousal seeps through every atom in the room.
"I want to start slow…" I start saying to change to change the topic. "First you train me and then we recruit people." I say with conviction. I have thought this through. It's all I have been able to think about since I got back.
"I know it will take time. I have training but it's only the basics. I just want to be strong enough to be able to defend myself." I say and Dante nods his head as he walks towards me.
"Fine but we do it my way. You listen to me Adeline and you do exactly what I say to the letter. This is unchartered territory Adeline. It's dangerous and trust that we already have a target on our heads after what we pulled with erotica. We have to be careful." Dante says and I furrow my brows.
"We have a target on our heads?" I ask him.
"Erotica wasn't privately owned. So many other people benefited from it. People that are angry with us for ruining their business." Dantre explains.
"People that will be dead soon." I say strongly.
"If you're doing this, then I am too." Liam suddenly walks back into the room.
"Liam…" I start protesting but he raises his hand up and stops me.
"I'm doing this Adeline." He states.
"What about your job? You love being a lawyer." I say with sadness on my face.
"Things change and I have realized that some of the people I have defended in court turned out to be assholes. I'm ready to turn on a new page." He says.
"And so am I…" I snap my head towards Naomi's voice as she walks into the room. My heart falls to my stomach and I laugh nervously as I start shaking my head.
"What are you doing Naomi. You don't want this." I say.
"It's not just you these people messed with Adeline. They messed with me too and just like you, I cannot sit by and do nothing with the knowledge that people like Veronica and Adrian are still out there. I want to help in any way I can."
As I am about to say something else, Colton walks into the room and my heart stops beating. My words never leave my tongue and my breathe hitches in my throat. Seeing him makes me remember what Veronica made him do to me. It makes me remember what Veronica did to his sister.
I don't hate Colton anymore for being the one that brought me to erotica. I want to believe that amidst all the chaos and pain, Colton and I became friends, but I haven't talked to him since I left erotica and I am not sure how.
"I think we should give them some space." Dante says and walks out of the room with Liam and Naomi, cutting our conversation short. Colton and I stare at each other, neither of us daring to break the silence.
He said he was going to kill himself after having spoken to me and that is also one of the reasons why I have been avoiding him. I don't want him to die. I know what he witnessed his sister go through was unbearable but if talking to me is the last thing he wishes to do before he kills himself, then I was ready to ignore him for as long as I could if that meant he would get to live another day.