When Villains Rise (Anti-Heroes in Love, #2)

by Giana Darling

Loving him wasn’t the end of everything. It’s funny they always make it seem that way in the books and movies. Loving him was just the beginning.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to focus on the beauty of this man and not the trauma of my past. “Lottatrice mia,” Dante rasped between kisses. “Watch me worship this pretty pussy, hmm? I want you to see how the taste of you undoes me.”

He growled as he looked at me spread wide and bared for him. I thought he’d never looked like such a beast, ready to devour me whole. “There has never been another man for you,” he said fiercely, eyes flashing up to mine and filled with primal possession. “I am the only one to touch you this way, to bring you this pleasure. Forget the past, Elena, because I am the only man in your future.”

I’m trying to decide what to wear to meet your father figure.” “You’ve met Tore before.” “As your lawyer, not as your…” I hesitated, scrambling to define what this gorgeous man was to me and me to him. “As your partner.” He turned his head so that his hot breath wafted over my neck, his lips tickling the thin skin over my hammering pulse. “Partner? Mmm, I don’t think so. I like the sound of… my lover, my woman, innamorata mia, amora mia.”

“My outfit is part of my armor,” I told him even though it exposed a vulnerability. “I’ll be out in two minutes. Just give me time to change.” “You don’t understand this yet, but you do not need your armor all the time now. Not when you have me.” He lipped the edge of my jaw all the way up to my ear, where he spoke his next words on a purr. “I will be your sword.”

I was a man who only feared one thing, which I was learning was infinitely more dangerous than a man who feared nothing. I would not lose Elena. Not for anything. Not for my bloody kingdom and stacks of crisp bills. Not for my honor or my family, my Italian ideals. She was it. Mine. Forever.

There was an old Neapolitan saying that perfectly suited the situation. Chi vuole male a questo amore prima soffre e dopo muore. Whoever is against this love suffers and then dies.

Dante was home, so no matter what, I would never be homeless. I’d have his shelter, his protection, and his love to guide me through the worst of life and the worst of myself.

“It is a privilege, Elena, to know you intimately. To know what makes you hurt and what makes you blush. To know what your demons are so I can slay them for you when you don’t have the strength or watch you overcome your own nightmares because I love to watch my fighter conquer everything in her path. It is an honor to know you, and I won’t ever take that for granted.”

“You aren’t my lawyer anymore, Elena. Tu sei la mia regina.” You are my queen.

My fighter. Lottatrice mia. Even angry, I had to admire her. “If you’re at my side, Elena, those bullets people sling at me could end up in you. You want to risk your life to be with me, huh?” “I’m willing to take a life-altering risk for a life-altering reward,” she told me steadily, her flames cooling to ice-cold surety. “I don’t know what love means to you, but to me, it means loving someone no matter what baggage they come with for as long as they’ll let you love them and as hard as you possibly can. The only risk I fear is one where I lose you. You fell in love with a fighter, Dante. Let me fight with you.”

I’d never been a lucky man, but standing there with Elena in my arms in the only place that had ever really felt like home even with enemies all around us, I felt like a fucking god.

His smile was just a suggestion around his full lips, an implication and a secret all at once. It was intimate and small, not his usual full-bodied grin that he shared with everyone else. It was just for me. “Some people have hobbies, art, music, playing sport. Mine is learning you.”