His own features were coated in shadow, his beauty stark and forceful in the low light. It took my breath away, the contrast between the ferocity of the body poised just over mine and the gentle way he cupped my chin. His night dark eyes swallowed me up as he looked into me, through me, behind every shield I’d painstakingly constructed.
“Coraggio, lottatrice mia,” he coaxed softly.
Courage, my fighter.
“Let me show you all the ways a man can appreciate a woman,” he continued, running his nose along my cheek to my ear, where he took the lobe quickly between his teeth in a sharp nip that made me gasp. “Let me teach you all the ways you can appreciate me.”
Helplessly, I tipped my head back against the books to give him better access to my neck, my fingers trembling uselessly at my sides.
Dio mio, I wanted him with an acuteness I hadn’t felt in years.
No, that was a lie I couldn’t begin to swallow.
I’d never felt like this. This hammering, all-encompassing fervor that struck through me with each beat of my heart like a lightning strike. I wanted to prostrate myself for this beast of a man and witness all the ways he could bring my body back to life.
He kissed the hollow of my throat, just a flutter of silken lips against warm skin, yet it made me want to cry. When was the last time someone had touched me with such reverence?
Never?
But it was more than sexual. That simple kiss laid roots through my flesh and bones, deep into the very center of my chest, where they wrapped intractably around my fragile heart.
The kiss was kind.
That was it. That simple and that profound for me.
Dante was showing me kindness, the depths of which I hadn’t experienced much of in my life.
It was a blow to the already fractured walls protecting my heart, body, and mind from intruders, and it was the last one I could stand to take. With a sound that was half growl, half shriek, I pushed Dante away with both hands on his steel chest.
He moved away more as a result of my intent than my strength. I noticed he was breathing hard, that there was a sizable tent at the groin of his black pants I didn’t allow myself to focus on for more than a nanosecond.
“Elena,” he said, just the one word, just my name, but in it a wealth of promises, an invitation in.
Come to the underworld with me, it seemed to say. Come and play with me in the shadows where you belong.
But I didn’t belong there.
I didn’t belong anywhere, really, but certainly not on the dark side of life with a man on trial for murder, a man with blood on his hands and sin stained through his soul.
My head was shaking again, back and forth almost manically as I beat a hasty, backward retreat to the office door.
“I won’t go out with Gideone di Carlo if he calls,” I promised weakly.
“I forbid it,” he barked, face darkening immediately, body tensing to move toward me again.
I held my hands up between us as I moved to flee. “I won’t. But this can’t happen. This... this just cannot happen. Don’t push me on this, Dante. I’ll leave. I’ll ask to be off your case.”
“Elena,” he protested, and I hated the way he said it with the lyrical Italian accent as if it was exotic and beautiful. As if I was.
“No,” I said, locking down my battered defenses as I wrapped my hand around the door handle and opened it behind me. “I mean it. Forget this ever happened.”
“What if I cannot?” he defied, crossing his arms and bracing his feet apart like a general preparing for battle.
Good Lord, let him give up on me before it came to that. I was strong, and I was resilient, but I was not prepared to go to war with a man like him when the prize could mean more than my body.
“Per favore,” I asked softly, remembering the way he had reacted to the word in my mouth once before. “Please, Dante.”
And then before he could respond, I spun on my heel, and I ran like the devil was at my back. I didn’t stop until I was in the bedroom he’d given me, but even that didn’t seem safe enough, so I locked myself in the en suite and braced myself on the sink, breathing hard as I stared at my haunted eyes in the mirror.
My pale olive gold skin was flushed, my pupils dilated, my hair tousled as if from a lover’s hands. I looked well fucked, and he’d only kissed me on the neck, nipped my earlobe in those strong teeth.
What would he do to me if given the chance?
His demeanor held an unmistakable dominance, but from the first time since Christopher, I felt curious about it, almost entranced by it. Dante was dangerous, violence dressed in a thousand-dollar suit, but beneath it all, he was also the kind of man who wept at a friend’s hospital bedside and made pasta with a girl who called him uncle.