Page 78 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

The smile that overtook my face was as lethal as a weapon. “I think it’s time to shake things up a little. These motherfuckers think this is their world just because they were born on American soil. Let’s show them what it’s like to die in ours.”

She was sleeping when I finally got the time to check in on her. I almost laughed at the image she made in the mammoth pale gray bed with a black silk face mask over her eyes and black foam plugs in her ears. Only Elena Lombardi would look like she was preparing for war just to take a simple nap.

But there was no denying she looked exquisite in slumber, her classic features softer in repose, her mouth pink without the usual lipstick. I found I wanted to lean down to savor it with my own, exploring the small white teeth beneath those bow-shaped lips, sliding my tongue alongside hers to taste her dreams.

I wondered with a fierce surge of possession that nearly stole my breath if she was dreaming ofme. There was no doubting the powerful arousal she had felt watching me jack off in my office last night. It was there in the flush I could detect even though she was tucked in the shadows of the hallway, in the way her mouth bloomed open like a rose ready to be pollinated, her breath a harsh pant. She had been fucking captivated by me and by her reaction to me, almost scared and awed of the crackling chemistry between us.

It was heady as fuck to know I could have that effect on a woman who had clearly never harnessed the power of her sexuality. My usual ironclad control was tenuous at best now, knowing that beneath that gorgeous, cultivated class lay the heart of a wanton, desperate for a man to show her how to navigate the world of pleasure and hedonism.

I ached to wake her up just to see those wintry ocean gray eyes flare back at me, to test the edge of her tongue against mine and know whether it was as sharp as her words or soft like the tender heart she was so careful to guard.

I wanted her, and I would have her, but Elena required a contrarian mix of forcefulness and care, my seduction a tightrope walk that could fail with even the slightest provocation. And I was more and more unwilling to fail.

I moved closer to her bedside in order to move a thick lock of deeply red hair out of her face, rubbing the silken strands between my fingers as I did so. I leaned over to press a slight kiss to the surprisingly small shell of her ear, unable to resist.

When I pulled away, the papers on the nightstand caught my eye.

I was a curious man.

And a criminal.

It wasn’t in my nature to refuse myself much, and I found I didn’t even try as I reached out for the folded pages and opened them to read. I wanted to know what Elena had been in the hospital for. As her host, I felt it was my prerogative to know so I could take the best care of her. As a capo, I felt it was my right to know anything that happened under my roof to someone in my circle.

I was not prepared for what lay in the neatly printed words.

Anorgasmia.

Cysts, fibroids, infertility.

I couldn’t take my eyes from the page even though I knew I was crossing a line Elena would never have given me access to herself.

Madonna santa, it was difficult to comprehend the life this woman had lived in her short twenty-seven years.

A scumbag father constantly in debt to the mafia, the poverty that plagued so many Napolitano families, every single one of her siblings taking off to greener pastures while she remained in the hellhole of her youth.

Then the new world, a boyfriend she respected, a job she worked hard for.

Only for the boyfriend to leave her for her fucking sister. Only for some asshole mafioso to threaten her job by forcing her to move in with him because it suited his needs.

And this.

Issues with infertility and even the simple ability to orgasm.

Tore always used to tell me not to judge someone before I knew what they’d been through to get to that point. Survivors came in all shapes and sizes, and not all of them came out on the other side of their trauma shiny and bright with hope and renewed optimism.

Some of them ended up like Elena, fractured and glued back together through sheer resolve and tenacity of spirit.

Was it any wonder the world thought this woman was a bitch?

With all she’d been through, it was a miracle she ever smiled.

I thought about the night with Aurora, when Elena had transformed before my eyes. It was like watching a bear emerging from hibernation, foul-tempered and faintly aggressive with the outside world, turn to her cub and suddenly become all warmth and love.

The smile she’d given Aurora, the way she’d made her feel strong just by bestowing a playful nickname.

That was the night I discovered the true, tender underbelly of my fighter and decided, irrevocably, that I needed to have her.

Not just have her to own her, because a woman like Elena couldn’t be owned and that was part of her powerful charm.