Page 76 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

“I trust him.” And I did. Beau would never do anything to harm me, and I could count the people I trusted on one hand, so that was saying something.

“You need me, you call me,si?” Dante demanded, still scowling. “I don’t like this. You should tell me what it is you are having done so I can be prepared to care for you.”

A hard bark of laughter erupted from me, my mortification from last night obliterated by the dark edge of my humor and prideful solitude. “I don’t need looking after, and I can hardly picture you as a nursemaid. Don’t worry about me, Dante. I’ll be fine. I always am. Now, I have to rush, but have a nice day.”

I glided out of the room before he could protest, catching his muffled, “Only she would wear heels to surgery,” then a shouted, “In boca al lupa!” before I got in the elevator.

Good luck. Literally translated as “into the wolf’s mouth.”

Exactly where I currently felt myself, clasped between Dante’s unshakeable teeth, unable and gradually more and more unwilling to get free.

It took me a moment to decide if I was grateful or irritated that he hadn’t pushed me about watching him masturbate, but I eventually settled on grateful. I had more important things to focus on, even if my mind slipped back to those scandalous images like a hard grip on wet soap. As the cab crawled through morning traffic toward my destination, my nerves began to corrode any other thought in my head.

I was a nervous wreck by the time we pulled up to the curb, my palms sweating profusely as I paid the fare and entered Monica’s building. By the time I got to her floor, my forehead was cold with anxious perspiration, and when Monica came out to greet me, she frowned.

“Nervous?” she asked gently, taking my hand to lead me to the private waiting room. “There is no reason to be, Elena. I’ve done these procedures hundreds of times. After all, I’m the best in the city.”

I laughed weakly as she meant me to, following her into the room and sitting in the deep suede chair waiting for me. “I don’t mean to doubt you. I’m not nervous about the surgery, really. Just what it means for afterward.”

“Ah,” she noted, nodding sagely as she collected my chart. “I understand that. Do you have an appointment to talk to Dr. Marsden following your recovery?”

I nodded even though I didn’t think my therapist was equipped to help me deal with decades of sexual trauma and scarring.

“You’re strong and brave, Elena. I see very good and passionate things in your future,” she said with a wide smile. “I’ll have the nurse come in and explain things to you. Please change into this gown and robe. I’ll see you in the OR.”

Brave.

The word echoed in my head, a reminder of Dante’s benediction for me to be brave with him.

Coraggio.

I smiled tightly at my doctor and my friend as she left and tried to breathe deeply.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about Dante and his indecent proposition.

If this operation worked, I would be able to experience pleasure like I had never had before, not even with Daniel, who I knew logically had been a good and generous lover.

If Dante could light my icy flesh on fire with just the touch of his lips to my pulse point, how would he make me feel with those lips on other parts of my body?

I thought about it all through the check in with the nurse and then as I followed her down the hallway to the operating room.

I came to the inevitable conclusion that Dante would be a gregarious lover, throwing himself into my pleasure the way he seemed to throw himself with singular intensity into everything he did, but that didn’t mitigate the risks.

The fact that I could lose my job.

Though just living with him could do that, the devil on my shoulder whispered. So shouldn’t I make the risk worthwhile and get something more out of it?

No, it was the other threat, the one I hadn’t been able to ignore that night in Dante’s office pressed to the shelf of books by his hand on my throat and his big body at my front.

The threat to my heart.

After the tragedy of Christopher and Daniel, I didn’t have anything more in me to give. I’d felt so much all my life I’d resolved to feel nothing at all. For years, I’d kept my heart black, my lips red, and my personality ice cold.

I didn’t need anyone to be fulfilled, and I didn’t trust anyone to try.

So, it was ridiculous to consider changing any of that for a man like Dante.

A man on trial for murder who could spend the next twenty-five years to life behind bars if I didn’t do my job to the full extent of my capabilities.