Chapter 23: Widow
The cobblestone streets of Greenwich Village were too quiet. After the constant, earth-shaking thunder of artillery, the hum of a passing taxi felt alien, a distant insect noise. Dante walked, his stride deliberately even, each step sending a fresh, hot wire of pain from his left side up into his jaw. He clenched his teeth against it. The doctors had wanted him in the hospital for another week, at least. He’d signed the discharge papers against medical advice. The smell of antiseptic and despair was worse than the pain.
Four months. They hadn’t lost more men after the ridge. They’d fought, a brutal, grinding push through mud and fear. He’d taken a bullet in the meat of his thigh, another that had cracked a rib and torn through the muscle just above his hip. Two more had been grazing shots that felt like being branded with a tire iron. That was two weeks ago. The wounds were sealed, but the flesh beneath was a molten landscape of bruised bone and torn fiber. Every movement was a negotiation.
He and Bucky had kept their thing going. In stolen minutes behind supply sheds, in the silent, frozen dark of a forest during a night march, once, desperately, in a shelled-out farmhouse basement with the sound of patrols above them. It was never enough. It was everything.
They’d won. The word felt hollow, a political concept that had nothing to do with the men who hadn’t come home. Bucky had gone back to Brooklyn with Rogers and Reddit. Dante had given him a slip of paper with an address on Barrow Street, pressed into his palm during a handshake that lasted a second too long. No sentiment. Just the facts.
His first stop wasn’t Barrow Street.
He stood before a brownstone on West 10th, his heart a cold, heavy stone in his chest. He adjusted the wool of his service coat, hiding the wince. He climbed the steps, the sound of his boots too loud.
Vanessa Jericho opened the door before he could knock. She looked smaller than he remembered, drowned in a grey cardigan. Her dark eyes, so like Jericho’s, were red-rimmed but dry. She’d had the telegram months ago. The active grief was over. This was the living with it.
“Dante,” she said. Her voice was flat.
“Vanessa.”
She stepped back, letting him in. The apartment was warm, smells of toast and children. A radio played a low, static-y jazz tune in another room. Life, stubbornly continuing.
In the small living room, three pairs of eyes fixed on him. Violet, seven, hugged a tattered doll, studying him with a solemnity that hurt. Poet, four, a boy with his father’s wild curls, hid behind the arm of a sofa. Tristan, nine, stood protectively near his mother, his small jaw set, mimicking a posture he thought men should have.
“You remember Colonel Marcus,” Vanessa said to them.
“He brought the flag,” Tristan said, his voice accusing.
“I did,” Dante said, not moving further into the room. He knew his presence was a monument to their loss. He was the one who’d come back.
“Kids, go finish your cereal in the kitchen,” Vanessa said softly. They filed out, Violet glancing back once. When they were gone, the silence thickened.
“Sit, Dante. You look like hell.”
“I’m alright.”
“Bullshit. Sit down before you fall through my floor.”
He lowered himself onto the sofa, the movement stiff, controlled. He couldn’t hide the hitch in his breath as the pressure hit his side. Vanessa watched, her arms crossed.
“Jerry talked about you all the time,” she said, not looking at him. “His brilliant, tough-as-nails Colonel. How you were gonna get everyone home.” A bitter, soft sound escaped her. “Not everyone, I guess.”
“Vanessa, I—”
“Don’t.” She finally looked at him, and her eyes were brimming with a grief so profound it was like staring into a deep, cold well. “Don’t apologize. Don’t give me some line about how he was a hero. I know how he died. The letter said ‘shrapnel.’ That means he was blown apart, Dante. Was he? Was it quick?”
Dante held her gaze. He owed her the truth, even if it was shrapnel. “It was an artillery shell. An impact crater. He was… it was instantaneous. He didn’t feel anything.” It was mostly true. He’d seen the crater. There hadn’t been enough left to feel anything.
Vanessa nodded, a quick, jerky motion. She believed him, or she chose to. “Good. That’s something.” She walked to the window, looking out at the fire escape. “He loved you, you know. Not like… you know what I mean. He admired you. Thought you were the best man he’d ever served under.”
The words were a knife twist. “He was the best man I ever served with,” Dante said, the roughness in his voice not entirely from disuse.
She turned back. The anger he’d braced for wasn’t there. Just a vast, exhausted sadness. “What am I supposed to do now? The pension is a joke. Tristan asks for him every night. Poet doesn’t remember his voice anymore.”
Dante reached into his interior coat pocket, ignoring the fire in his side. He pulled out a folded envelope, thick. He placed it on the coffee table. “That’s back pay. His, and mine from the last four months. It’s in a joint account. Your name’s on it.”
Vanessa stared at the envelope like it was a live snake. “I don’t want your charity.”
“It’s not charity. He was my friend. You’re his family. This is what you do.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the position sending a jolt through his ribs. “I’m on Barrow Street. Two blocks from the station. You need anything—a faucet fixed, someone to talk to the landlord, someone to scare the shit out of a boy who treats Violet wrong—you call me. You understand? Anything.”
Her composure cracked then, just a hairline fracture. Her chin trembled. She didn’t touch the envelope. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can.” Because I came home and he didn’t. Because I have a piece of paper with my address on it in the pocket of a boy in Brooklyn, and Jericho will never have that again.
She finally nodded, wiping at her cheek with the back of her hand. “Okay. Okay, Dante.”
He stood up, the world tilting for a second before righting itself. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“Stay. Have some coffee.”
“Alright. I’ll stay.”
The coffee went cold before either of them noticed. Conversation came in pieces—fragmented memories of Jericho, small stories that trailed off into silence. They skirted around the weight sitting between them on the worn sofa, a presence heavier than both of them. Dante told her about the time Jericho saved his ass during a training exercise, and she laughed, a wet, choked sound that dissolved into quiet tears she didn’t bother to wipe away.
The kids were put to bed, the house settling into a profound quiet. Somewhere along the way, the cold coffee turned into whiskey, neat, the burn of it settling heavy and warm in Dante’s chest. It dulled the sharper edges of his pain. Vanessa sat closer than she had before, not by much, just enough that he could feel the heat of her leg near his.
Neither of them said anything about the shrinking distance. Grief hung thick in the air, a familiar fog they were both lost in. When their eyes met over the rims of their glasses, the look lingered a second too long. It was a silent acknowledgment: neither of them wanted to be the one left alone in it tonight.
Dante wasn’t thinking straight. He couldn’t, with the weight of the alcohol and the weight of the silence. Vanessa had always been a sweetheart, pretty in a gentle way Jericho had adored. But now, in the low lamplight, her stunning long black hair loose around her shoulders, her pretty green eyes glistening, he saw her differently. She had a very decent set of tits on her, full and soft under her thin blouse, and the curve of her ass as she’d stood to pour more whiskey had been frankly phenomenal.
He was bisexual, and when it came to women, she fit his preferred category entirely. The thought felt like a betrayal and an inevitability all at once.
She stood up briefly, her movements soft. She gently said, “Where did you get shot?”
Dante hadn’t told her that. “How’d you—” he started, his voice gravelly.
She cut him off, stepping closer. “The limp. You keep grabbing your side and your chest.” She was now practically inches away from him. Her scent, something like lavender and sleep, cut through the whiskey smell. “Let me see them.”
Her hand was on his chest before he could protest, her touch gentle but assured. He felt her fingers trace down his torso, over the cotton of his shirt to the place where the bullet had torn through. A shiver that had nothing to do with pain went through him. She lifted the hem of his shirt.
“Let me,” she murmured, and he didn’t stop her as she pulled the shirt up and over his head. The cool air hit his skin, raising goosebumps. Her eyes scanned the landscape of his torso—the purple-yellow bruise blossoming over his ribs, the angry red scar tissue of the entry and exit wounds on his side, the older, silvered scars from a life of violence.
She exhaled slowly, her breath warm on his skin. “Those aren’t horrible, at least. They’re clean.”
Dante nodded, unable to form words. Her gaze lifted from his wounds to his face. He knew that look well. It was a hollowed-out, hungry look, the kind that seeks to feel anything other than empty. God, but he didn’t have it in him to avoid or deny it. Not tonight. Not with her.
Without a word, she climbed onto his lap. The whiskey glass tumbled from her hand, thudding on the rug. She kissed him.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was sudden and desperate, a collision of heat and need. Her mouth opened under his, and he tasted whiskey and salt. He groaned into it, his hands coming up to grip her hips, his fingers digging into the soft, giving flesh of her ass through her skirt. The chair groaned under their combined weight.
The kiss grew heavier, wetter. She started grinding against the hard erection straining against his trousers, a slow, deliberate roll of her hips that made his vision blur. He couldn’t help the ragged moan that escaped his throat, swallowed by her mouth.
“Vanessa,” he breathed against her lips, a warning and a plea.
“Shut up,” she whispered back, her voice thick. “Just… shut up.”
He broke the kiss for two seconds, just long enough to grab the hem of her blouse and yank it over her head. He tossed it aside. Her bra was a simple white cotton thing. He unsnapped the front clasp with a practiced flick of his fingers and threw it on the floor beside his shirt.
Her tits were beautiful—full, pale, with nipples already hard and dark. He didn’t wait. He ducked his head and took one into his mouth, sucking hard, lashing the peak with his tongue. She cried out, her hands flying to his hair, gripping it tight as she arched her back, pressing herself deeper into his mouth.
“Yes,” she hissed. “God, yes.”
His other hand kneaded her other breast, his thumb rubbing rough circles over her nipple. She was writhing on his lap now, the friction against his cock almost painful. He switched to her other breast, giving it the same fierce attention, biting gently, making her gasp.
She kept grinding against him, a relentless, wet friction over the wool of his trousers. With ease, and without releasing her nipple from his mouth, he lifted her. He placed her on the low coffee table, laying her back amidst the abandoned glasses. The wood creaked in protest.
He started kissing down from her tits, his mouth a hot brand moving over the quivering flat of her stomach. His breath hitched once, a sharp spike of pain from his side that he swallowed. He reached the waistband of her skirt.
He pulled that and her underwear off in one swift, gentle motion, tossing the pale cotton into the shadowy corner. She was bare now, open to the lamplight. He proceeded kissing her, each inner thigh, his stubble scraping sensitive skin, making her twitch. He kissed right by her vagina, the heat of her hitting his lips. Not enough to give her what she needed yet.
He lifted his head, looking at her. Her eyes were wild, her chest heaving. He licked three of his own fingers, wetting them thoroughly. He held her gaze as he gently pushed them inside of her.
She was so fucking wet, slick and hot, her inner muscles clenching around the intrusion. “Oh, god,” she choked out.
He fucked her with them, a slow, deep pistoning motion, and then he lowered his mouth to her. Dante was a pro at head. He ate her out with a focused, brutal precision, his tongue flat and broad, then pointed and insistent, circling her clit before sucking it hard.
She was getting the best head of her life. Her heels dug into his shoulders, her thighs trembling. “Don’t stop,” she begged, her voice shattered. “Please, don’t fucking stop.”
He obliged. He fucked her with his fingers, crooking them at a certain angle to hit that sweet spot inside of her, and he kept eating her out, his tongue a relentless instrument. Her pleas dissolved into ragged, incoherent sounds. Her hips came off the table, chasing it.
She came hard, a silent, breathless scream before sound returned, milking his fingers, and she squirted, a warm gush over his chin and hand. He didn’t stop with his tongue, he let her ride it out to its full potential, until she was pushing his head away, oversensitive and shuddering.
Afterwards, as she was gasping and catching her breath, she looked at him, her eyes dark pools. “I need you to fuck me. Now.”
Dante kissed her, tasting herself on his lips. He lifted her up again, her body limp and pliant, and carried her to her bedroom while making out more, their tongues tangling desperately. They got to the room, the same bed she’d shared with Jericho.
He set her on the edge of the mattress. “How do you want it? What position do you like, beautiful?”
She looked at him, pure lust erasing the grief from her eyes for a moment. “Missionary and from the back. Do missionary first please. I want to see you. I want to feel you, scratch your back, pull your hair, choke me, all of it. Then from the back.” A fierce, almost challenging smile touched her lips. “Then I’ll ride you better than you’ve been ridden before.”
Dante was even more turned on. He laid her down, her black hair fanning across the pillow. He unbuttoned his pants and pulled them and his boxers down, freeing his large dick, already wet at the tip from her. She stared in disbelief for a moment.
“Jesus,” she said under her breath.
“I’ll start gentle,” he said, smiling a little.
“Please fuck me, Dante.”
He got on top of her, kissing along her body, her neck, her collarbone. She was moaning, her hands pulling his hair, her hips jerking up seeking contact. He ran his dick through her wetness, coating himself. She was soaking.
“Jesus Christ, you’re so wet,” he growled, and he pushed in.
She was tight, impossibly so, but slick, and she took him in a long, slow glide. She immediately found purchase on his back, her nails digging into the scars and old ink, causing him to drive in faster and harder. A jolt of pain flared from his healing wounds, white-hot and blurring his vision, but it was swallowed by the overwhelming sensation of being inside her.
They fucked in missionary first. He set a deep, punishing rhythm, each thrust knocking a gasp from her lungs. She wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles, pulling him deeper. “Harder,” she demanded, her voice guttural. “Fucking ruin me.”
He obliged, his hips snapping forward, the slap of skin on skin filling the quiet room. She scratched his back, raking her nails down until he knew she’d drawn blood. She fisted a hand in his hair and yanked, angling his mouth to hers for a biting kiss. Her other hand found his throat, her fingers pressing just enough to restrict his air, her eyes asking a question.
He nodded, a quick jerk of his chin, and her grip tightened. The edges of his sight hazed, pleasure and a sweet, encroaching darkness intertwining. He fucked her through it, his pace becoming erratic, primal. Her inner muscles began fluttering around him again, a frantic, clenching pulse.
“I’m gonna—”, she started, but the sentence died in a choked cry as her body arched, her back lifting off the bed. She came, her cunt gripping him like a vise, milking his dick. He kept moving, drawing her orgasm out, until she went boneless beneath him, her hand falling from his throat.
He was close, so close, the pressure coiling at the base of his spine. He pulled out, his dick gleaming in the dim light. “Turn over.”
She moved without hesitation, getting on her knees, presenting herself to him. The sight of her like that, her ass in the air, her face buried in the pillow that smelled like her dead husband, sent a brutal wave of heat through him. He positioned himself and pushed back in, deeper from this angle, and she cried out, a muffled sound of pure sensation.
He fucked her from the back, one hand gripping her hip, the other tangling in her hair. Each thrust was a claim, an obliteration of the silence and the memory that hung in the room. He was thinking of nothing—not the ridge, not Bucky’s mouth, not Jericho’s smile—just the animal drive of it, the sweat dripping down his spine, the raw sound of their bodies meeting.
“Don’t come inside me,” she panted into the pillow, the practical command a stark contrast to the obscene noise of their coupling.
“Trust me, I won’t,” he growled. His hand snaked from her hip to her throat, pulling her back against him, arching her spine into a deeper curve. The new angle made him sink into her impossibly further, a full, stretching penetration that punched a ragged scream from her lungs.
They were loving this moment, this brutal, sound-filled connection. When he released her throat, she dropped her face back into the pillow with a muffled sob that was pure release. Dante hooked a hand under her thigh, lifting it slightly, spreading her wider, and the shift made him groan. He was so deep now he could feel the frantic pulse of her cervix against the head of his cock with every drive.
He fucked her like that, with her leg up, his rhythm becoming measured and devastatingly precise. He was aiming for that spot, and he found it. Her noises shifted from screams to a continuous, pleading wail. “There, oh god, right there, please—”
He didn’t let up. He pistoned into her, the wet, slapping sounds of their joining obscenely loud in the quiet bedroom. He felt the telltale convulsions start deep inside her, the fluttering, rhythmic clenching that pulled at him. “Come on,” he demanded, his voice rough. “Let go. Do it.”
She shattered. Her second orgasm tore through her, a violent, bucking wave that made her entire body seize. She squirted again, a hot gush that soaked his balls and the sheets beneath them. He rode her through it, fucking her through the tremors until she went completely limp, her supported leg falling from his grip.
He pulled out just as his own climax ripped up his spine. He finished across the perfect arch of her lower back and ass, stripes of white on the sweat-slicked skin. He collapsed next to her on the ruined bed, the world swimming, his side screaming in protest. He was wrecked. Spent.
The silence that followed was profound, broken only by their ragged, syncing breaths. The room smelled of sex, sweat, and whiskey. Guilt, cold and slick, began to ooze into the spaces the adrenaline had vacated. He stared at the ceiling, at a hairline crack he hadn’t noticed before.
He felt his cock, resting against his thigh, twitch. It was softening, but the blood was stubborn, a persistent, low-level thrum. He felt it regaining its purpose.
She noticed too. She didn’t say a word. She just rolled onto her side, then swung a leg over his hips, facing him. Her eyes were dark, unreadable pools in the dim light. She reached between them, positioned him, and took him down in one perfect, slow, sinking drop.
He couldn’t help it. A loud, gut-deep moan was torn from him. The feeling of her sheathing him again, the tight, wet heat, was overwhelming.
A ghost of a smile touched her swollen lips. She loved it. She loved hearing him. “That’s it,” she said, her voice low and scraped raw. “Let me know how good it feels.”
She began to ride him. And she was right. She rode him better than he’d ever been ridden in his life. This wasn’t the frantic hunger from before; this was a skilled, devastating demonstration. She would slow to an agonizing, rolling grind, circling her hips so he felt every inch, then suddenly pick up the pace, throwing herself back onto him fast and hard.
The sounds were incredible. The wet slap of her body taking him, the creak of the bedsprings, the sharp smack of his palms on her ass when he grabbed her. Dante was vocal, beyond control. Guttural curses, choked praises. “Fuck… yes… just like that… you feel so goddamn good.”
She was a vision above him, her tits swaying, her head thrown back, a sheen of sweat making her skin glow. She controlled everything—the depth, the speed, the angle. She was milking him, and he was letting her.
Then she lifted off him completely, leaving him cold and aching in the open air. For a brief moment, she just looked at him, her chest heaving. Without a word, she turned around, presenting her back to him, and lowered herself again in reverse cowgirl.
Dante loved this position. It hit differently, deeper, and the view of her ass taking him was fucking sublime. She dropped down, taking him all the way, and he moaned again, his hands immediately going to her hips.
She started throwing it back desperately and hard, her movements losing their perfected control, becoming frantic and needy. They lasted a while like this, a sustained, driving rhythm. Dante’s hands were everywhere—gripping the fleshy swell of her ass, spreading her cheeks to watch himself disappear into her, delivering sharp, reddening slaps that made her cry out and clench around him. He wrapped her long black hair around his fist, pulling just enough to arch her back, praising her in a filthy, broken stream. “Such a good fuck… taking me so deep… perfect.”