Chapter 15

Only today, standing on the precipice of what should have been their fourth anniversary at an airport gate, did the finality of it truly sink in. For two solid months, Rhys had successfully scrubbed him from his life. Completely. So thoroughly that it was impossible to reconcile this cold stranger with the man who had desperately begged him to combine their households just a short while ago.

A profound, suffocating sorrow—far worse than the day he had collapsed onto a park bench in Central Park after their split—swept over him. The moment Dante imagined a future where the man who used to gently wipe away his tears was permanently erased, the world turned entirely pitch black.

Before he could prevent it, a hot tear escaped, tracking down his cheek and pooling at the corner of his lips. Only when the sharp taste of salt hit his tongue did he realize he was openly weeping. This was an absolute rock bottom. He could feel the passing travelers heading the opposite direction casting curious, lingering glances at him. A massive, heavily built grown man crying his eyes out in the middle of an international terminal. Quite a spectacle. Go ahead, he thought bitterly. Take a damn picture. It’s not every day you see a man fall apart.

He raised a heavy hand to brush away the wetness before he could look any more pathetic, but before his fingers could reach his face, a sudden, violent force clamped onto his arm and yanked him backward. Before his brain could register the physical trajectory, his entire body was spun cleanly around on its axis. He blinked through the moisture, and suddenly, he was facing back toward the lounge.

A gray sweatshirt dominated his vision, accompanied instantly by an intensely familiar, hauntingly beautiful aroma. A soft, delicate floral fragrance. The signature scent that always clung to Rhys’s skin.

Right, Dante thought abstractly, his brain short-circuiting. I always meant to ask him what perfume that was, but I forgot every single time.

Sifting through his chaotic thoughts, Dante lifted his head. Rhys was standing right there, looking down at him. Those dreamlike, gray-blue eyes were swirling with a faint, violet tremor near the center of his pupils, completely obscuring whatever complex storm of emotions he was harboring. His pale face remained as unreadable as marble.

Thoroughly bewildered, Dante glanced down at his left arm. Rhys was gripping his wrist with such immense, crushing force that the hand was actively beginning to go numb. He had noted it once before in their relationship, but the reality hit him anew: Rhys was incredibly strong. It was a raw, physical power that entirely contradicted his delicate features.

As Dante’s gaze bounced between his trapped wrist and Rhys’s face, Rhys finally broke the paralysis. He extended his free hand. Dante blinked, wondering what he was being offered, before realizing it was the plane ticket he had just abandoned. Written across the clean white backing were a string of numbers and sharp, black handwriting.

What is this?

Having instantly forgotten his own tears, Dante looked up at Rhys in total confusion. At that clueless expression, Rhys’s stoic facade finally fractured. A sharp, mocking sneer twisted the corner of his lips.

“What exactly am I supposed to do with this?” Rhys asked, his voice dripping with venomous sarcasm. “Do you want me to contact the flight attendant who wrote her phone number on it for you…? She seemed exactly your type, wasn’t she? After all, every single woman you’ve ever dated looked just like her.”

Dante’s brain stalled. He had absolutely no idea what his ex was talking about. Flight attendant? Number? At his completely vacant, uncomprehending stare, Rhys’s mouth twisted into a darker scowl. He violently shook the piece of paper in Dante’s face, demanding his attention.

“Don’t give me that clueless look,” Rhys snapped.

Dante’s mind was hovering on the verge of a total blackout. Rhys’s tone wasn’t merely cynical anymore; it was openly, aggressively sarcastic, sending shockwaves through Dante’s system. He cast his eyes down to inspect the back of the ticket, and sure enough, a neat phone number was scrawled next to a brief note: Call me. – Sierra.

The name sparked a sudden rush of memory. Sierra. The beautiful desk attendant with the brilliant smile and the striking, voluptuous figure. So that was what she had been scribbling with her colored pencil. She had slipped him her personal number. Dante had genuinely assumed she was mapping out standard airport instructions or boarding gate precautions. Finally piecing the puzzle together, Dante offered an embarrassed, sheepish look.

“…I swear I didn’t know she wrote her number down. She must have incredibly quick hands.”

“She wrote it right in front of your face, didn’t she?” Rhys hissed.

“I… I honestly thought she was writing down airport precautions,” Dante stammered. “I’ve never flown business class before, Rhys. I thought she was highlighting special rules I needed to watch out for.”

As if he couldn’t stomach enduring another pathetic excuse, Rhys let out a sharp exhale and aggressively leaned into Dante’s personal space. Dante stiffened instantly as the distance between them vanished without warning. They had shared countless intimate embraces over four years, yet after a mere two months of separation, the proximity made his pulse skyrocket exactly like it had when they first touched years ago.

Rhys’s piercing gaze locked onto Dante’s frozen cheek for a split second before trailing downward. A soft, warm breath brushed faintly against the rim of Dante’s ear, sending an electric tickle down his neck. The dizzying, concentrated floral scent enveloped him entirely, and then he felt a firm pressure slide against the back pocket of his jeans. Rhys had aggressively shoved the ticket back into his pocket.

“Take it,” Rhys whispered dangerously against his ear. “I don’t need it.”

The low whisper vibrated through Dante’s skull, and Rhys began to pull back. But the sudden departure of that intoxicating scent was more than Dante could bear; acting on pure instinct, he reached out and fist-fought a handful of Rhys’s sweatshirt, anchoring him in place. Rhys, attempting to step away, stopped and locked eyes with him again. For a fleeting moment, Dante swore the stormy gray of Rhys’s eyes warmed significantly.

“If you give this back to me,” Dante warned, his voice hardening as he forced his expression into the most dead-serious look he could muster, “I’m going to get on that plane too. Are you absolutely certain you’re okay with that? Because if I board, I’m going to bother you the entire flight.”

Rhys didn’t flinch. He answered with complete, icy tranquility. “Suit yourself.”

“I thought you couldn’t even stand the sight of my face,” Dante pushed.

Rhys’s expression shifted into a look that clearly communicated: That is entirely accurate. Then, he pointedly dropped his eyes to the hand Dante had tightly wrapped around his clothing.

“Let go,” Rhys commanded.

“Ah,” Dante murmured. He made a show of loosening his fingers, but then his eyes caught his own left wrist, which was still pinned in Rhys’s iron grip. The skin had gone completely white from the lack of circulation. It seems to me the person who needs to let go first isn’t me. “When you do,” he whispered.

He wiggled his trapped left hand slightly to emphasize the point. Watching Dante’s golden-brown eyes—still visibly damp from tears—curve into the soft hint of a smirk, Rhys slowly, deliberately uncoiled his fingers from Dante’s flesh. The moment the restraint vanished, Rhys turned sharply on his heel, striding away as if the physical confrontation had never occurred.

Watching Rhys’s retreating back melt back into the depths of the lounge, Dante lifted his left arm, rotating his wrist this way and that. Rhys had gripped him with terrifying intensity; clear, deep-red handprints were sharply etched into his skin, and the blood was only now rushing back into his pale fingers.

This is definitely going to bruise…

The vivid crimson marks tracing the exact contours of Rhys’s fingers showed no signs of fading. Dante inspected the brand wrapped around his thick wrist with a sense of pure fascination. Had Rhys’s hands always been this massive? He had never truly noticed during their standard displays of affection. Dante possessed a naturally heavy, muscular build with fingers significantly thicker than Rhys’s delicate skeletal structure, so whenever they had laced their fingers together, he had always subconsciously assumed his own hands were dominant.

Just how strong is he?

Dante’s skin was notoriously tough; his EMT colleagues routinely joked that his hide was made of literal leather because he rarely scarred or bruised from standard workspace injuries. Yet, Rhys had managed to leave deep, structural marks with a single grip.

Because Dante had always operating under the unconscious assumption that he was the physically superior partner, this realization birthed a bizarre, foreign sensation in his chest. As he stared at the bruising skin, the memory of Rhys’s dominating, frightening behavior earlier in the lounge replayed in his mind. The reality of Rhys being a man suddenly felt incredibly vivid and new all over again.

Dante honestly questioned his own sanity for having this epiphany after four years of dating a man, but looking back, he had always treated Rhys as something delicate and flower-like. Before he could ever register Rhys’s raw masculinity, that breathtaking, ethereal face would capture his vision, effectively dismantling any psychological resistance. That was likely the exact mechanism that had allowed a man who had spent his entire life operating as a strictly heterosexual Beta to effortlessly slip into a relationship with Rhys.

What about now?

Dante stared intently at his wrist as a dull, throbbing ache began to blossom, sinking deep into his thoughts. He didn’t find this aggressive, dominant side of Rhys burdensome or repulsive in the slightest. If anything, it deeply fascinated him.

Throughout their entire relationship, Rhys had never once left a hickey or a mark on Dante’s skin; this was the absolute first time his lover had physically branded his body. Dante had always assumed that leaving marks required a certain aggressive, carnal technique possessed only by highly experienced men—something entirely removed from a young man like Rhys, who generally preferred incredibly gentle, bland intimacy. Because of that, Dante had never voiced any complaints.

But looking at the angry red marks on his wrist, a sharp wave of desire hit him for the first time. Witnessing Rhys’s permanent physical trace left on his flesh felt exponentially better and more thrilling than he ever could have anticipated. A strange, intoxicating surge of excitement flooded his system, accompanied by a restless itch that felt like tiny, live currents of electricity surging through his veins.

No matter how radically the dynamic was shifting, his core feelings for Rhys remained completely unchanged. He still wanted him desperately; he still wanted to date him again. Even after witnessing a rude, venomous tone and an aggressive attitude that would have been entirely unimaginable two months ago, Dante’s heart hadn’t cooled an inch. This entity was wildly different from the version of Rhys he thought he knew, but Rhys was still undeniably Rhys.

Because, true to form, he had materialized out of nowhere during Dante’s absolute darkest, most pathetic moment.

Having entirely discard the crushing misery from moments prior, Dante’s mind pivoted into a brand-new line of logical deduction. Why on earth would an ex-boyfriend—who supposedly couldn’t stand the sight of him—abandon his isolated seat, march across an international terminal, and track down a man who was already voluntarily leaving him alone?

Rhys had spotted another person’s contact information scrawled across a ticket, and instead of trashing it or ignoring it, he had physically marched it back to Dante, completely losing his cool and hurling biting, sarcastic remarks. No matter how Dante analyzed the calculus, there was only one mathematical conclusion.

Of course… he still hasn’t forgotten me.

Tracing a finger along his sharp jawline, Dante’s innate optimism immediately steered his conviction in the most positive direction possible. Naturally. Rhys might be bristling like a threatened hedgehog right now, but there was an undeniable, blazing ember of lingering feelings buried deep inside his chest. If that was the reality, then Dante’s mission from this moment forward was singular and absolute: he had to fan that tiny, hidden ember in Rhys’s heart into a massive, uncontrollable forest fire.

Except…

How the hell did I even manage to seduce him in the first place?

He frantically scraped through the archives of his memory, but no viable romantic playbook materialized. Their historic first meeting had been a matter of pure, unadulterated coincidence, and every single romantic milestone that followed had been orchestrated and accelerated by Rhys, not Dante. Dante had only consciously realized he was in love a full month after they met, and by the time he had finally snapped out of his trance, he was already being swept along entirely at Rhys’s orchestrated pace.

The haunting thought that had plagued his mind during his Uber ride to the airport surfaced once more, demanding an answer.

Why had a man of Rhys Elliott’s caliber ever fallen in love with a man like Dante Bellini?

And how had the Dante of four years ago managed to charm a creature that untouchable?

As he turned toward the terminal gates, only beautiful, agonizing questions remained.

***