Page 144 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

I stared at his hand over mine on the gun and wondered why the sight was so powerful. “I’ll learn if it will make you feel better. But you should know, I never settle for mediocrity. If I’m going to learn to shoot, I’ll probably become a better shot than you.”

I knew he’d laugh, but the sound still impacted me just the same. It moved me like piano music, like fine Italian wine. I wished I could record it and listen to the sound whenever we were apart.

“I look forward to seeing you try,” he said with a wink before pulling back to hand me a small black holster from the bag at his feet. “This is a thigh holster.” I swallowed thickly when he moved to his knees in front of me again and ran his rough fingers up my calf to my thigh. He held my eyes as he wrapped the contraption around my right leg. “Wear this here whenever we are outside the villa,si? I had meant to give them to you back in New York. You are lucky I am a sentimental man and brought them with me now.”

I nodded, struck mute by the unexpected eroticism of Dante rucking up my skirt to fit the gun in the holster. He lingered, gaze as hot as his fingertips on my delicate skin.

“Still have the taste of you on my tongue,” he murmured just for me. “It’s not enough. When we get to safety, I plan to lay you out on the bed and feast for hours. Could you handle that, Elena?”

I shuddered.

His lips curled sensuously as one hand gripped my thigh above my knee in a hard squeeze that shot sensation to my core. “It doesn’t matter if you can’t. I’ll tie you to the posts and eat my fill.”

My mouth opened at the force of my quickened breath. “Dante…”

He arched a brow in challenge, knowing I wanted to protest even though the idea made me hot and tingly all over. “Si, lottatice?”

“I don’t think I would like to be tied up,” I breathed, but the words were more of a question than conviction.

“I disagree,” he said easily, dropping a kiss to my knee that burned like a lit cigarette. “But I would never make you do anything you did not want. Do you understand that?”

Jerkily, I nodded. “It’s not you I’m afraid of really. I don’t…trust myself with how much I want you.”

He cocked his head, confusion creasing his broad forehead. I couldn’t curb the impulse to hesitantly reach out to run a finger over the indentation there. “I wonder if you trust yourself at all sometimes.Non ti preoccupare, do not worry, I will teach you to trust yourself as I trust you.”

“You want to get a concussion before we even land?” Frankie called as the plane noticeably swooped lower in descent. “Sit your big ass down, Boss.”

Dante shot him a look over his shoulder. When he looked back at me, his eyes were hot and solemn. “In New York, you were my champion, hmm? My lawyer and my advocate striving to keep me safe. Well, Napoli ismycourtroom. Put down your weapons, relax your shields. For once in your life, you do not have to fight all your own battles. I will fight for you. Here and now, I will be your champion. Do you trust me?”

Was trust the same thing as love?

Because I loved him.

Lord knew I loved this man with the olive-black eyes and golden heart better than I’d loved anything else in my life.

But trust? I hadn’t trusted anyone new in so long, I wondered if I even had the capacity for it anymore.

I sucked in a deep breath through my teeth and nodded slowly. “I trust you.Io sono con te.”

I am with you, I said, echoing the words he’d spoken to me during that horrific car chase on Staten Island. And I was. For better or worse, I was with Dante Salvatore, mafioso and wanted fugitive.

Now, I just had to discover what that mademe.

“Bene.” His face broke into that broad, magnificent grin that stole the breath from my lungs.

Satisfied, he got back into his seat, attached his seat belt, and turned to speak in low Italian with Frankie.

I tuned them out, staring down at my thighs where the strap of the holster was barely discernible through the fabric. The cold metal of the gun was warming slightly against my flesh. It should have made me nervous to have a concealed weapon on my person. It was illegal in the States, and I’d never in my life had a weapon stronger than pepper spray on my person.

But the weight of it felt good.

I was heading into the lion’s den, and I needed all the weapons I could get. Not just to defend me, but to defend Dante, even to defend Frankie and the rest of the ragtag team of criminals in Dante’s crew who had become something like family to me over the past few months.

Dante’s love had razed me to the very ground of my soul, demolishing all my preconceived notions of right and wrong, even of my own identity and desires. I was going to step off this plane a new woman, and for the first time in my life, I was excited by my lack of foresight and structure.

So, when the plane landed smoothly on a private runway outside of Naples, I took Dante’s offered hand with a wide smile that made him blink.

I was still smiling when the attendant opened the door, and I stepped into the blinding sun of a midmorning winter’s day in my hometown. It was that very same sun that blinded me for just a moment.