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

Delilah

It was our third day of exploring the city. We’d eaten gelato again, played a bit of soccer with the locals, and fallen into this weird friendship.

It’d been days of him stopping by to see if I needed food or wanted to work out. I always answered no to that one. Then, he would offer a massage after I got home from work and we’d plan the next day to explore. Maybe this was healing, because I couldn’t stop smiling or laughing or floating, quite frankly, around the whole island.

I had talked with my mom that very morning, and she told me I sounded happier than she’d heard in a long time. Sure, I kept out the part about me sleeping with Dante, but I told her it was nice to have a friend to explore the island with.

Friend.

It still tasted a little sour in my mouth, but I would fake it ‘til I made it.

And he’d been great. He even had me take out my list and add things to it that I’d read about. I wanted to see the fort. We went. I wanted to eat more gelato, so we did. I wanted to get drunk on mojitos at the bar. He rolled his eyes at that one and said he’d think about it.

My list was helping me heal.

Helping me be happy.

Or maybe helping me fall in love.

The man I laid down with on the grass after going through San Juan’s fort was the guy I was supposed to be getting over. He was the one I couldn’t lose again, not after what I went through with the miscarriage. I knew it, and still each day, I went exploring with him. It wasn’t something that I’d forgotten. It was just something I avoided.

I had him as a friend now.

That would be good enough.

It had to be.

“You can’t be seriously contemplating a date with that man.” He pointed to my phone screen.

I dove back into completing number five again, even though Dante avoided it. I couldn’t work around it forever. Izzy had to be getting out soon, and that meant we would be back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Dante and I had just walked through the fort and gotten gelato. I was sure it was the best tasting thing here next to the mojitos and mofongo. We laid on the grass in a big field and watched kites fly above us.

“What is the alternative, Dante? I can’t … You’re the only guy who makes me feel anything. That’s like some twisted trauma I’m holding on to.” I’d become a freaking open book with the guy over the past week. He massaged my back, he brought me my favorite foods, and he stayed up late talking with me until I told him to get back over to his room before he fell asleep in my bed.

If that happens, I won’t sleep and neither will you, he’d responded, and I’d practically spread my legs for him right there.

Still, we’d kept everything PG like we thought was best.

“You’re kidding me, right?” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow, staring at me. “It’s just that the men you get with are fucking shit shows.”

“You haven’t met any of them.”

“Well, I know Allan didn’t do his job with you right. And I still need the number of that guy who wanted to fuck Izzy instead of you.”

“You went on a date with Izzy too,” I tossed back, and he instantly recoiled.

“I already told you I would never have slept with her. Not when I wanted you. Damn, Lilah. I’d been training overseas and was doing so much shit for the family that I …”

“You don’t have to share it with me.”

“I can’t. It’ll go to the grave with me, but my mind wasn’t always as settled as it is now. It took a lot of time and healing to get where I am.”

I probably shouldn’t have, but I grabbed his hand in the grass and turned to look at him. “And where you are is amazing. I should probably still be mad at you and Izzy, but I’m not. You’re both doing a lot. And I know your hearts. Or at least, I think I do …”

“You know it better than probably anybody,” he murmured.

We’d spent all these moments in this beautiful place together, and as the kites flew over us in that field, I couldn’t have stopped what happened next if I’d tried. I don’t know if his lips met mine or my lips met his, but we fell into one another to steal each other’s hearts, if only for a second.

I got lost in the way he tasted, the way he coaxed my tongue to submit to his, and the way he pulled me up on his body to straddle him in that grass. I felt all of him below me, and I didn’t know if I could stop myself.

I gripped his jaw as I consumed him, and his hands ran over my back and ass.

Had his phone not rang, I think we both would have fucked each other in broad daylight right there.

I straightened and glanced at it lying next to us. The screen showed the county jail calling, and it was like a bucket of ice thrown on me. “It’s Izzy.”

“Lilah—”

“You should answer,” I said, climbing off him, not sure what I was feeling but knowing we were too intertwined to take what we were doing any further.

He sighed and took the call, getting up from the grass and walking away to discuss whatever he needed to with her. When he stalked back, I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out, “It’s crazy that she hasn’t called me even once.”

“She wants to talk to you after, I know she does.”

“Are you saying that, or is she?”

“She’s hung up on the case, Lilah.”

“She calls you a lot, right?” My question sounded like an accusation, even if I hadn’t meant it to.

“I’m her boss. She’d better call me if she has information. I—”

“Calling her family once in a while might be nice too.”

“She can’t talk to you in there, Lilah. It would jeopardize—”

“You don’t need to explain, Dante. She’s my twin. She can explain once she’s out.”

He sighed and pointed toward our driver. “Sun’s going to set.”

“Then I should be getting ready for my date.”

He groaned but didn’t try to stop me again. Izzy’s phone call had created the wedge we both needed to realize this was as far as our relationship went.

And on the ride back to the hotel, he took another call from a woman in another country who I could hear begging to come see him or fly him out to see her.

It reminded me that Dante was a man of the world and I was a woman in her own Eat Pray Love fairy tale. I needed to conquer number five more than ever.

If I couldn’t, my whole time here would be ruined.

I mumbled a thank-you to him and slammed my door before he could say anything else. I was happy I’d kept the dating app, even though I hadn’t responded to any of the messages until last night. That was when I’d decided Troy might be able to at least get me out of the hotel to go have a few drinks at a bar.

I could get drunk on mojitos and explore guys tonight. It was a win-win.

I dressed in the yellow two-piece outfit I’d worn out with Dante just the other day. His eyes had been glued to me from the moment I’d put it on, and it made me feel attractive.

When I opened my hotel door, Dante stood there in the hallway. His eyes ate up my whole body as he looked me up and down, burning every part of my exposed skin with the heat we shared between us. “Fuck, Delilah, not that dress.”

“Jesus, Dante. Why are you outside my door?” I let it slam shut behind me.

“I should have burned that thing the first time you wore it,” he grated out, his eyes still stuck on the material.

“You seemed to like it. You stared at it then like you’re doing now.”

Those piercing jade eyes sliced up my body to meet my gaze, and they burned bright with emotion. “I like it enough to know I’m going to ruin it later. And if your date touches my friend in it, I’ll probably ruin him too.”

I breathed in and out, chewed on my cheek, and then bit my lip as our standoff in that hallway went down. “If we’re friends, we won’t ruin each other’s things. I didn’t ruin your call with that woman on the way back to the hotel tonight, did I?”

“Did you want to, Lamb?” he asked and tipped his head.

He caught me combing my hand through my hair angrily as I said, “No, of course not.”

He smiled. “Go on your date. Bring him back to meet me, huh? Let’s see if he can make you forget the way your pussy feels with my cock in it.”

My jaw dropped at his words, and he brushed past me as if he could talk like that and get away with it.

I should have smacked him across the face, but he was gone before I picked my jaw up off the floor.

I stewed all the way down to the lobby and stomped to the stupid black SUV with Leonardo in it.

Of course Dante had set up my ride.

My date was tall with dark hair and dark eyes and had a way of smooth-talking that didn’t exactly feel slimy. Not that I was paying that much attention.

Instead, I was downing my drinks and glaring at my phone, willing Dante to text me to say he was watching me through Leonardo. I even danced to a couple of songs with Troy in the hopes that it would push Dante to text.

When the third song turned fast and pushed the bass and tempo to new levels, I rolled my hips into Troy’s and felt his hands slide over my midsection.

I held my phone in my hand the whole time I was out on that dance floor, and when it vibrated, I practically preened because I was being an immature teenager still wanting her first crush to get jealous over her.

I excused myself to hurry to the bathroom and see what the text said.

Dante: I’m coming to get you. Tell me the name of the bar.

Jesus, typing to him after I’d had four mojitos wasn’t the easiest.

Me: I’m having a good time. Let your friend have a good time with her date.

Dante: Your date is a handsy fuckboy. What bar?

Me: Like you can’t get the name from Leonardo

Dante: Fuckers won’t give it to me. I even called Cade. Don’t make me go to every one to find you.

Me: Troy and I are coming back to the hotel soon. Go to bed, friend. I’ll be doing number five.

Me: Lol doooing … get it?

I was going to regret drinking and texting in the morning.

Dante: How many drinks have you had?

Me: Two or three … or …

Me: Seven brings heaven, right?

Dante: You bring him back here and I’ll remove every part of his body he’s placed on you.

Me: Not very military of you.

Dante: I’m not military anymore. I’m an Armanelli. Get your ass back to the hotel. Now. Or I’ll find you and drag you back myself.

He couldn’t tell me what to do. But suddenly, Leonardo was knocking on the bathroom door and shaking his head at me. “We have to go. I can’t lose my job over this.”

And the fact that Dante had threatened his job made me want to teach him a lesson.

Troy hopped in the car with us and Leonardo shook his head the whole way to the hotel. We rounded it to go straight for the resort’s lit up pools.

I was getting over Dante tonight. I shucked off my skirt and smiled at Troy as I pulled him into the pool half naked with me. He’d make me feel good. How could he not with the ocean breeze and the glowing pool in the middle of a beautiful island? I was drunk on mojitos and trying to find paradise without the man I thought was paradise.

Troy was supposed to be making me feel something in this pool. The water lapped around us, and the night air was damp and warm. I should have been loving his lips on mine, his hands roving over my body.

Instead, I wanted to cringe away.

Dinner had been nice, dessert had been nice, dancing had been nice, and his hard dick against my stomach felt nice too.

Except my mind drifted to Dante’s hands on my back, how he worked all the right spots, how he knew just which part of me needed attention.

I moaned at the thought, and Troy took it as encouragement. “God, I want to fuck you in this pool,” he groaned and pushed his dick harder into my stomach. It wasn’t even that big.

I shouldn’t have been comparing, but as it turned out, I wouldn’t be checking much more than getting drunk off my Eat Pray Love list tonight.

I let our kiss linger and tried a last-ditch effort to hold on to his hair as I deepened it.

The sound of the waves just feet away from the infinity pool were relaxing, and the smell of sea salt and tobacco loosened me up, but—

I froze at the smell.

Tobacco. Not just the type from cigarettes either. I’d know that cigar smell anywhere.

He’d only smoked it one time around me, but I’d fallen asleep to that smell, I’d reveled in it and cataloged it as a comfort.

I jerked away from Troy and sobered up fast, not even sure what I was thinking in the first place with the lesson I’d wanted to teach Dante. He wouldn’t be okay with this.

Not even if I were only his friend. Or simply his best friend’s little sister.

I was breaking hotel rules, I was sure. I was making out with a stranger in the middle of the night. I was being reckless. Stupid. And drunk.

The alcohol tasted sour in my mouth as I searched for him. My eyes flew everywhere, only to find his dark silhouette lounging comfortably on a small white hotel chair near some shrubbery. He seemed to take up the whole area, to swallow the chair, and his legs in just swim trunks spread out to own the space around him. When he lifted the cigar’s glowing cherry, it illuminated his tattooed chest and how his lips sucked on the other end, his cheeks hollowed, and his brows lowered.

Our gazes caught in the darkness, and he took a long drag as he stared like he was trying to curb the emotion he felt. Like the cigar might soothe him a little.

His green eyes burned bright, though, and the emotion didn’t dim at all.

I bit my lip and murmured to my date, my eyes still on Dante. “So, I don’t think this is going any further tonight.”

“What?” Disbelief sounded from Troy’s mouth, like I was being a cock-tease. A Tinder hookup gone wrong wasn’t that hard to understand, though. Things like this happened all the time. He glanced behind him to see the dark figure and scoffed. “Is it because of that creep watching us? So what? Let’s give him a show.”

Troy grabbed my waist, a little rougher than I anticipated. I tried my best not to make a scene as I shoved his arm. If I did, I had a feeling Dante would break it.

“Look, I know I probably led you on—” I gripped Troy’s arm and glared at him to get my point across.

“Led me on?” His eyes widened and then narrowed in malice. His hand on my waist tightened.

I glanced at the chair where Dante had been, but the glowing red cherry was gone. No sign of him anywhere.

“Led me on, Delilah?” he sneered this time. “You practically spread your legs—”

“Careful.” Low and vicious in warning, Dante’s voice was right beside us. “You’re talking to the one person in the world I refuse to have hurt.”

“Dante, it’s fine.” I turned to see him close to us in the water. His muscles glowed against the light, his abs rippled, his neck flexed. I gulped as I saw how the veins wormed over his forearm like they were struggling to contain the strength that lay beneath them.

His green eyes didn’t even flick my way. They were on the guy’s arm where he still held me.

Troy didn’t take the hint. “Look, asshole, you’ve been watching us like a creep for the past five minutes. You want a show and I’ll give you one. I just need a minute with her to get her on the same page as—”

He must have seen the way Troy’s elbow bent to pull me in because suddenly I was free, water was splashing, Troy cried out, and then there was silence.

Silence except for the waves in the distance.

I squinted and found that Dante held that man’s arm in a very awkward position and small bubbles floated up to the surface of the water.

“Dante—”

“How long do you think he was holding you against your will?” he asked just loud enough for me to hear.

“You’re drowning him,” I stammered as I glanced around to see if anyone was going to stop him. The only person I saw was Leonardo, who stood completely stoic except for a hand that went to a button. Suddenly, all the lights around us, already dim, went out.

Well, that would be aiding and abetting in court, I was sure. “You can’t—”

“I can do whatever I want.” His words were pointed and meant to make me see the man I was really dealing with. An Armanelli.

A wolf.

A vicious protector.

“When a man pushes himself on a woman, more specifically my woman, I intend to teach him manners or have him die learning.”

“Dante …” I murmured as I stared at the bubbles getting smaller and smaller. “He’s learned.”

His jaw worked for seconds that felt like hours. The tendons in his neck strained like they couldn’t hold the fury in this man’s head much longer. Then he took a long, deep breath. His eyes closed, and his whole body—except that hand holding Troy—relaxed. Then he said, “Only for you, Lamb,” before yanking Troy up by his elbow.

Choking and gasping, Troy floundered as Dante shoved him away.

Troy didn’t even try to fight as he used the momentum of the push to scramble away from us. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Jesus, you could have killed me. I—”

“If you see her on a dating app again, swipe the other way, Troy. Or I will find you, and I will kill you.”

The dim lights turned back on, and Leonardo, suave as he was, told Troy to have a good night as he rushed past, leaving his towel behind.

“Now …” Dante inhaled air deeply and slowly let it out while water droplets cascaded down his chest. He took his time wiping some of the water from his face before stalking toward me. “Let me check you.”

“Check me?” I sputtered and started to back up. I couldn’t have Dante near me all wet and slick and half naked if I wanted to keep my options open, if I wanted to stick to the plan. Plus, he’d nearly just killed a man.

He smiled as he approached and I retreated. His teeth glowed, and his eyes sparkled in the night like he was enjoying every second of this.

“Want to run and see if I can catch you, Lamb?” His eyebrow quirked.

My heart jumped, and my adrenaline spiked. I’d actually enjoy the chase. Still, I shook my head no. “You don’t need to check me.”

He pursed his lips. “A man’s hands were just on you, Lilah. Without your consent, might I add.”

“Well, I consented at first,” I pointed out. I was nearing the stairs of the pool, but with each of my steps, he took two. He closed the distance between us, and I wasn’t sure what was about to happen when he met me chest to chest.

“Don’t you ever justify or minimize a man putting his hands on what’s mine without your consent.” Then his hands were on my waist, running over it as his eyes checked for whether or not Troy had left marks. He hadn’t. Dante had gotten there too fast, and even if he hadn’t, I would have kicked Troy hard enough in the balls to run.

“Yours?” I questioned.

“Yes, Lilah. I don’t know why we’ve been ignoring the inevitable. You’re my lamb. I’m your wolf. It’s about time I stop letting others play with my food.”

“Food? Really?”

“Well, I’m going to eat that pussy, aren’t I?”

I shook my head. “You said you’d help me check off the seven boxes. I can’t find the right guys to have fun with if—”

“I’m the right guy to have fun with, Lilah.” Then his hands were on my hips, lifting me onto the first step of the pool. He spread my legs so he could kneel in between, so that our bodies were aligned. His cold chest pressed against my breasts, his breath cascaded against my lips, and his pierced cock, even through the fabric of my panties and his swim trunks, pushed against my pussy. “Let me make you feel good, huh? You and I both know I’m the only one who can.”

I bit my lip to keep from agreeing with him and shook my head.

He chuckled into my neck, and I shivered at the vibration. “You want me to show you, Lamb? You didn’t moan for Allan the way you moan for me. And it took Troy about a minute for you to write him off. That kiss was going nowhere. You and I both know it.”

“You can’t keep making me feel good, Dante,” I whispered, but already my hips wiggled closer to him, and my hands found their way to his back.

He smirked like he knew he had me, like he knew my cunt submitted to him every time he got near it. “But I can make you feel good right here, right now, on this island. You want to satisfy some kink and explore some fantasies with guys, we got water play right here.”

His arm wrapped around my waist so he could grind his cock into me, and I moaned.

Then, his strong, calloused hand, cold and wet from the water, slid up my thigh. With both of my feet on the second step, the water lapped right below my ass, and Dante spread his cold touch over my hot skin, causing my core to clench, my pussy to tighten, and my insides to scream for him to touch me anywhere and everywhere at the same time.

We both watched as he leaned away from me so the cool air drifted over my wet skin. My nipples pebbled as his hand moved to my slit, neither of us saying a thing. My breathing came too fast, my mind suddenly focused on how the water moved back and forth under my ass, just barely touching my entrance.

When his thumb got close enough, he dropped it into the water and then slid it under my bathing suit to rub against my clit. “Jesus,” I hissed as I bucked on the step, but his opposite hand went to my other thigh to hold me there as he rolled my clit to a cooler temperature.

He smiled as my elbows flew back onto the wall of the pool and I used the leverage to relax into his touch. “Want me to warm you up now, Lilah?”

There was no hesitation anymore. I’d have to find a way back from Dante tomorrow or the next day or whenever he decided to let me go. For now, my body was his—and it submitted to him always.

The risk came with a great reward, anyway. My mind’s frustrations of the day, my worries, my anxieties, the way I drifted toward pain … they all seemed to disappear. I was doing what I wanted finally and not what anyone else expected me to do. This was it. This was what embracing life was. “Please, Dante.”

He lowered his head but kept his vivid green eyes on me. We watched one another as he pushed my panty bottom to the side and his tongue dragged low enough to dip in the water, bringing the chill up between my folds. I shivered, my head fell back, and I moaned as his tongue went deep. He took his time before moving his hand from my clit to my hips so he could suck my bundle of nerves instead.

His hands held me there while he took me to the brink of orgasm fast, nipping at me and then sucking me better, like he knew exactly what I needed.

“I’m so close, Dante,” I whispered and wrapped one of my legs around his neck. My breathing had gotten louder as my muscles tightened everywhere, and my vision had tunneled.

But a gasp and a light turning on a couple of stories up in our hotel building had me freezing. Dante raised his head to smile at me. “You nervous someone’s going to catch you, Lamb?”

I lowered my leg from his neck and bit my lip before moving my arm from behind me to comb it through my wet hair. “We should probably go back to the room.”

Instead of agreeing, he tilted his head like he was questioning me. “Exploring your kinks also means the ones that make you nervous too.”

“Dante, this is illegal,” I pointed out.

He raised himself up and pulled my ass from the step so he could push two of his fingers inside me. My pussy practically sucked them in with how wet and wanting it was. “Not illegal when half of this hotel is mine. I do what I want in my pool.”

“Oh, fuck.” I dragged out the word because my hips were already rolling on his hand, my body a complete whore for this man.

“Little Lilah, I wonder how good a girl you’d be if we made someone really watch me get you off. And maybe we need to teach other lessons tonight too.”

I tried to keep from moaning and coming all over the man’s hand. I wasn’t listening to anything he said, I just nodded, hoping his thumb would find its way back to my clit.

“Leonardo, come over here,” Dante said loudly, and I practically jerked back onto the steps, but his hand followed me and pinched my clit into submission.

“What are you doing?” I said through clenched teeth, though it came out half moan.

“You want a safe word before we go further, Lamb? Because when we’re exploring kinks, I’m in charge. You submit until you can’t anymore.”