When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love 2)

He liked to see me on the edge, needy and wanton for him.

When we finally reached Villa Rosa, he didn’t lead me inside.

Instead, when I got out of the car, he tugged me off balance and scooped me up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Dante,” I protested, hitting him in the back. “Let me go!”

He ignored me, striding around the house to the backyard and straight to the lemon grove. His face was almost severe with desire when he finally put me down at the edge of the trees between the fruit and the hanging laundry.

“I wanted to take you here yesterday. Lie you down and bury myself inside you until everything else faded away,” he told me as he studied the hanging clothes then pulled a white sheet from the line and ripped a long strip from the end of it.

Only the bright moon and the light spilling from the house limned his features in silver and gold, his eyes twin pools of black darker even than the night sky. He wound the fabric around his hands and snapped it taut as he approached me.

“Hands up, bella mia,” he ordered sinuously.

I didn’t hesitate.

I was still hypnotized by the pulse of lustful music between us, by the rhythm that had been set between our two bodies. I actually ached for him to touch me again.

Dante’s smile glinted menacingly in the low light as he crossed my wrists and tied them in a complicated knot to the wooden trellis that supported the trees sloping down the steep mountainside.

Briefly, anxiety flared through me. Christopher had tied me down a few times and it was almost impossible to forget those memories. But I resolved to replace them with stronger, positive ones just as Dante and I had done in Sorrento.

“Che coraggio,” he murmured for the second time that night as he stepped back to study me.

What courage.

Warmed through with his praise, already wet and pulsating, I demanded, “Touch me.”

“Like this?” he teased, stepping forward to run his hand down the middle of my chest, following the plunging neckline of the designer dress.

“Di più,” I ordered, glaring at him.

Harder.

He gently tweaked my nipples through the fabric. “Va bene cosi?”

Like this?

“No,” I ground out, arching my back to get closer. “More, Dante.”

“You want me to fuck you hard, my Lena?” he asked darkly, twisting my nipples tight between his knuckles until I hissed. “Because after tonight, I need to fuck you until you feel me in every inch of your skin.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Do it.”

“In Italian,” he coaxed, letting go off my breasts.

“Scopami, per favore.”

Fuck me, please.

His grin flashed in the moonlight. A moment later, both hands found the neckline of my dress, fingers curling into the fabric and he ripped it straight down the middle. I gasped as the fabric capitulated to his strength, tearing cleanly all the way done to the hem until it gaped open on either side of me.

“Ottimo,” he growled, palming my naked breasts, rolling the nipple against his palms.

Better.

It was so much better.

My head fell back between my shoulders as he stepped closer to take one of my hard peaks into his mouth to suck and nip at with his teeth. The contrast of the pleasure and pain made my breath stutter.

He held one breast to his mouth as he worked it while his other hand went straight to my sex. His growl vibrated through my nipple when his fingers slid into the pool of wet at my center.

“So drenched for me,” he groaned.

My shiver had nothing to do with the cool winter night and everything to do with the way he traced every fold and dip in my pussy like a cartographer determined to map out my pleasure.

“You know, we didn’t have dessert.”

I watched with heavy lids as he plucked a heavy lemon from the tree and pried it open using just his thumbs. The juice ran down his wrist. He raised his arms to lick up the rivulet of sweet liquid and hummed.

“Do you want some, too?” he asked innocently, but Dante was entirely indecent, utterly wicked.

I’d never known lemons could be erotic until I nodded breathlessly and he brought a morsel of the yellow flesh to my mouth. The Italian fruit was so sweet, you could eat the rind, and I closed my eyes as he fed it to me, little piece by little piece.

“Now, me,” he stated, squeezing the other half of the lemon between my breasts.

The cool liquid made my flesh pebble as it travelled down my trembling belly to my groin trailed and down one inner thigh.

Dante hummed as he got to work, his tongue hot and lashing against my flesh as he licked me clean, tweaking my nipples as he worked. When he dropped to his knees in the grass and collected my thighs to put them over his strong shoulders, I let myself go limp, supported entirely by my tied hands and his broad back.