Page 138 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

With his ink dark eyes pinned on me, it was impossible to take him for anything less than the predator he was.

“Your loud thinking is disturbing my peace,” he had the audacity to tell me with one of those Italianate shrugs that was barely a twitch of one shoulder. “If you cannot sleep, Elena, perhaps I can find something else to occupy your busy mind.”

I’d fallen into an emotionally exhausted slumber almost as soon as I’d buckled into my seat to take off, and I’d only just woken up to the calamitous riot of my thoughts. Trust Dante to know I was awake and brooding even while he was busy conducting business on his phone.

I leveled him with a haughty look, but inside my chest, something like joy bubbled up. “Excuse me for disturbing your peace. You’re right. It’s completely unacceptable that I’m stewing over the fact I just effectively destroyed my life in New York to chase after a runaway felon fleeing to a country I abhor. How selfish of me.”

There was the faintest twitch in his full mouth, but otherwise, he only continued to give me that thousand-yard stare over steepled fingers. “Frankie?”

“Yeah, Boss,” his second-in-command called from the rear of the main cabin where he was doing something on two computer monitors.

“Get out,” Dante ordered.

Without another word, Frankie powered down his application and got up. He shot me a sly wink before turning on his heel and disappearing into the back room.

Suddenly, my mouth was entirely parched.

I watched wide-eyed as Dante uncoiled that massive frame from his seat, straightened his cuff links idly, then moved across the space between us to loom over me. I could see the bandage taped beneath his left collarbone through the white shirt. Frankie had stitched up the bullet wound, but the sight of it scoured through me. He’d taken that bullet for me. Put his entire life at riskfor me. That such a powerful man would gamble his kingdom and livelihood for little old me made me feel nothing short of a queen.

His eyes pinned to mine, he bent his torso to brace both hands on my armrests, effectively caging me into my seat.

My heart raced with a curious mixture of fear and excitement.

It was Dante’s unique charm that convinced you he might as easily kiss you as kill you.

“Perhaps it would help if I reminded you why it is you gave up everything you know to be with me,” he purred in that rich, dark voice I wanted to eat off his tongue like dark chocolate.

I was aroused; there was no denying it. A second pulse beat between my thighs, growing more and more insistent. My nipples were pebbled beneath my silk camisole despite the heavy cashmere cardigan I wore over it. The airplane air was cool, but every inch of my flesh itched with heat.

Yet I felt nervous, awkward, and almost irritated.

I wanted to play this game of seduction, but how in the world did I compete with the raw sexual magnetism of this man?

Ifeltwhen I had spent so many years quelling every emotion.

I trusted that, the feeling.

Even if I was wary of where it would take me.

So, I sucked in a bracing breath and raised my hands to slide my fingers around his warm neck into the short hairs at the back of his head.

“Show me,” I told him, barely above a whisper. “But I don’t need reminding. I could never forget why I left it all behind. I could never forget you.”

A growl worked through his throat as he dipped down to capture my mouth in a savage kiss. It was all tongue and teeth, a dance of ownership. I didn’t back down to his possession, desperate to show him how much I wanted to possess every inch of him too.

“Kissing you is the sweetest agony,” he murmured against my damp lips as one big hand moved to my throat. The feel of him collaring me that way should have been deplorable. Instead, it felt like the most exquisite necklace, one I wanted to wear with pride forevermore. “I never want to stop kissing you, at the same time it makes me hungry for more.”

“Don’t stop,” I implored him, fisting my hands in his shirt collar so I could tug him harder against my mouth. “Kiss me.”

“Oh, I intend to spend the next hour doing just that,” he promised darkly even as he pulled away from me.

A noise of protest rose unbidden in my throat. He chuckled at me as he dropped to his knees before my seat and moved close, forcing my thighs wide apart to accommodate his bulk. A little shiver of discomfort tangled with desire moved through me.

Instinctively, my hands moved to stop him as he reached for my cashmere lounge pants.

He quirked an eyebrow at me, his expression entirely unamused. “Elena, do not try to keep me from your beautifulfiga.”

My beautiful pussy.