Page 88 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

One month of constant contact and I was in danger of throwing away everything I knew just for one single kiss.

“Let me love you anyway,” he suggested.

And then he was moving.

They say there is a thin line between love and hate. The moment Dante Salvatore twisted his hand in my hair and yanked me in for a savage kiss, I knew he had just pushed me over that invisible line into something infinitely more dangerous than hate.

But all I could do as thoughts swirled into one furious tornado of sensation in my head was curl my hands into his silky cotton shirt and hang on for dear life.

The kiss tasted like the smoke, but not because of my anger. It tasted like the ashes of my once solid self-control. Because I knew this wouldn’t be the last time we kissed.

It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.

The way his mouth sealed over mine like a stamp of possession, his tongue parting my lips as if it was his right to claim this kiss and he’d already been patient for too long. The scent of him, bright as a citrus grove with an undertow of masculine musk was in my nose, the sound of his low, throaty growl vibrating from his tongue across mine. When he brought the long, impossibly hard length of his body flush against me, I couldn’t breathe from the feel of the hot erection pressed to my belly.

At that moment, every single atom in my body was owned by him.

One kiss.

For one kiss, I risked it all.

My career, my family, my freedom.

And my life.

But,Dio mio, I’d do it again and again if it meant feeling like this.

So alive I burned.

Only the sharp vibration of Dante’s phone on the patio table cut through the smoke and reminded me of myself.

Of my rules.

I tore my lips from his, my chest heaving with the effort, and pressed myself tight to the door as if doing so made me less conspicuous to that dark and hungry gaze.

“This is on pause,” he growled, his thumb stroking possessively over my thudding pulse point as if each beat spoke his name. “Now that I’ve had that red mouth, I’ll need it again.”

I just blinked at him as I tried to regulate my body, harness its wild impulses with the cool rationality of my mind. It took longer than it should have, than it ever had before, but finally, I found my voice.

“My meeting,” I reminded him weakly, shoving him back with two hands to his chest, trying not to luxuriate in the feel of his steel muscles beneath the soft fabric I’d left irreparably wrinkled. “I’ll be late.”

He let me push him away, putting his hands in his pockets as he followed me into the living room instead of answering his cell phone. I watched as he crossed to the desk while I collected my coat and purse, narrowing my eyes as he suddenly sent something flying across the room at me.

Instinctively, my hand reared up to catch the object. When I brought it down and uncurled my fingers, a bright red key fob with a silver horse rearing on it in silhouette stared back at me.

I gaped at him. “What is this?”

“Any Italian girl worth her salt knows what that is.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “But why did you just give me the key to your Ferrari?”

His grin was spectacularly wicked, and I realized with some degree of awe and concern that Dante didn’t have to have me pressed up against the wall to continue his seduction of me. “Addie told me you’ve been eyeing her. Why don’t you take her for that drive to Staten Island?”

My fingers curled around the key. Even though I didn’t want it to mean something that he trusted me to drive his million-dollar car, my heart panged like a plucked instrument in my chest.

“Thank you,” I muttered, my focus on putting my coat on so I wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of his megawatt grin.

“That sounds almost as good as please,” he told me in that smoky voice that made me high. “Not quite as good as your laughter, though.”