Page 98 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

Dante was there standing on the asphalt by the elevator dressed in his requisite black, his hair noticeably disheveled, his entire body tensed like a beautifully carved sculpture in the underground shadows.

As soon as I drove down the ramp into the space, he was powering across the concrete toward me.

As soon as I parked, I climbed from the car, not even bothering to close the butterfly door after me.

My feet hit the ground, and I was off like a shot, tearing across the space between us in my towering heels, each step as sure as if I was flat-footed.

I didn’t stop. I didn’t even slow down as I neared him.

I just hurtled myself into the marbled arms that opened instantly to catch me and haul me tight into his solid body. Instinctively, my legs locked around his waist, my arms around his neck. I burrowed my face in the junction of his strong neck and shoulder, my lips pressed to his pulse beneath his skin. Vaguely, I was aware of him squeezing me tight, of his orders to Adriano and whoever else was with us in the garage toleave.

Only vaguely, because my lips on his skin were not enough. So I used my tongue to lap at his jugular, and when that didn’t satisfy the yawning abyss of desire cracking through my core like a crater, I sank my teeth into the muscle and sucked hard at the column. The bright and warm salt taste of him scoured through me, going straight to my head, fogging it with the heady idea that this skin was mine to touch and taste.

A groan vibrated through his throat onto my tongue, his hands spasming on my bottom as he held me tight to him.

Distantly, I knew people were still leaving, turning to face us as they entered the elevator before the doors closed.

I didn’t care.

When Dante wrapped my hair slowly, firmly around his wide palm, I could only pant as he pulled my head back so I was forced to look at him. His dark features were carved out of stone, harsh with possession and stark desire. There was no question in that gaze, but he didn’t need one.

There was only possession, the same feeling echoed in the drumbeat of my heart pounding between my ears.

A mad desire to beg and plead for his touch scorched through my blood, but before I could succumb to the flames, Dante was taking control, pinning my head in place with that hand in my hair so he could plunder my mouth.

The first hot swipe of his tongue parting my lips, thrusting into my mouth like it belonged there, sent everything I’d ever known about sex and desire tumbling from my head.

There was no history of abuse.

No nerves about how my newly recovered body might react to such passion.

There was only Dante Salvatore.

And me.

Not Elena Moore or Elena Lombardi. Not lawyer or sister, bitch or loner.

Just a man and woman tangled together in the most fervent kiss I ever could have imagined.

I couldn’t be close enough, and I couldn’t pretend I was okay with that. My hands pulled hard at the short strands of his inky hair, clutching him harder to my mouth, parting it wider for the hot expertise of his tongue. My legs flexed around him, hips shimmying as I rocked instinctively against the steel ridge behind his trousers.

We panted, his breath my breath as he ate it off my tongue the way he’d once promised to.

“I need,” I tried to tell him as he captured my lower lip and dragged it sensuously through his teeth.

“Hush,” he ordered me, hands flexing hard on my ass before one ran down the crease of my buttock and thigh to dive beneath the edge of my rucked-up skirt. The rough pads of his fingers caught on the thin silk of my stocking as they trailed up to the bare skin of my cheek. “I’ll give you everything you need.”

I didn’t doubt him, but the desperation coursing through me was new and all-consuming. I couldn’t seem to get a handle on the sheer extremity of it. My thoughts lost to its magnitude the second they tried to form.

Dante started to move, his mouth still fused to mine, back toward the car. I gasped as he lowered me slowly, the muscles in his chest flexing against me as my back hit the still-hot hood of the Ferrari. The second I was down, I pulled at the buttons of his shirt, needing to feel the strength of his quilted muscles under my hands, needing to reassure myself with his strength. When my fingers fumbled for the second time, Dante cursed savagely and reared back just long enough to rip the shirt open, buttons popping and scattering across the hood and the ground.

“Yes,” I hissed, wet flooding my sex at his display of ferocity.

Leaving it open and hanging from his shoulders, he covered my body again. Impatiently, I claimed his mouth, loving the rough abrasion of stubble on my cheek, the contrasting plushness of his too-red lips.

“I’ve never wanted someone so badly it felt like I would die if I couldn’t take them,” he growled as he pushed my blazer off my shoulders then rucked up my blouse over my breasts before pulling down the cups of my bra to attack my furled nipples with his teeth and tongue.

I hissed and gasped and moaned, making noises I’d always assumed only came from fake scenes in bad pornography. But I couldn’t stop myself, didn’t want to, and didn’t care. Nothing mattered but taking this beast of a man inside me, feeling him fill me up. I wanted to know how the new connections in my body would react to such a punishing invasion.