When Heroes Fall (Anti-Heroes in Love Duet #1)

by Giana Darling

“Will you hit me if I say yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said with a wink, “then hit me. I like it rough.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I said, giving in to my laughter but sobering slightly when I caught the look he was giving me. “What? Do I stil...

“I’ve never been so proud to make another person laugh,” he...

“Don’t say I should do it m...

“No, the rarity of it makes it more beautiful. I’m becoming rather pos...

“One day, Elena,” he practically purred, the sound a rough vibration that hummed through me. “I am going to kiss you until you melt, and then I am going to lick up every inch of you.”

I canted my chin into the air and challenged, “Don’t hold your breath.”

“No, lottatrice,” he murmured as he angled his nose over the shell of my right ear. “I’ll hold yours when I finally fuck you. Eat it off your tongue when I kiss you as you beg me for more.”

“You’re everything fire, and I’m solid ice,”

“Si,” he agreed gruffly. “That’s why I know I’m the one who will finally make you melt.”

“I’m already risking my career by just staying here.”

“So, make the risk worth something.”

“I’m not a gambler.”

“No, but I am, and I rar...

“Let me show you passion, Elena. Let me teach you how to love again.”

For one breath, I was paralyzed entirely by the fear of what he was hinting at.

Love.

There was no way I could love a man like him, a mafioso, a criminal like the kind who had played the v...

It was impo...

But when my heart started to beat again, it did so with a bone-rattling bang like an engine backfirin...

I’d promised myself I would never...

“The contents of my heart are co...

for one moment, I thought if anyone could understand what was written there, it would be this man with the black eyes and shockingly kind heart.

“Not all love is romantic,”

“I don’t think you’ve had enough of it to know that, but I’m offering the love of a friend and the love of my body. The love of a man who can see you are not hateful. You are not villainous. You are misunderstood. And Elena, you don’t realize this yet, but ...

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I insisted. “You don’t know half of the...

“And you don’t know mine,” he agreed. “But we are more than our flaws and our mistakes. Who told you that you were hard to love? G...

“I don’t want to be loved,” ...

“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 lin...

But all I could do as thoughts swirled into one furious tornado of sensation in my head was curl my hands into his silky cott...

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 thi...

It was like nothing I’d ever experi...

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 ...

At that moment, every single atom in my body w...

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 mean...

“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.”

“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.”

“Stop it, Dante,” I said firmly, shooting him my best schoolmarm glare. “Forget this happened. It was a momentary lapse in judgment.”

He looked like an invitation to sin on an altar, the worst decision a woman would ever make, but the wicked gleam in his eyes promised he would make it worth her while.

“I’ll try my best to make sure your judgment lapses again,” he called as I turned on my heel and started for the elevator. “Frequently.”

Whatever you and I are made of, it’s the same. You don’t have to be good with me, right or true in any sense, but especially the conventional. You can be your worst self with me, because Elena, it’s the contradictory nature of your soul that intoxicates me.”

Dio mio, how was any woman supposed to resist such stark and brilliantly cut honesty from a man? He offered his sincerity to me like a jewel, this priceless treasure I wanted to lock away inside me forever.

Being able to be there for you is a privilege I have the feeling you don’t afford to many people.”

“There are many things I can and will make you feel,” he promised darkly. “Now that I’ve had you, I won’t let you go until I’ve had my fill, and I have a feeling that will take a very long time.”

“Buona giornata,”

“You wanted me to find you like this,” I murmured against her neck, teeth plucking at her skin sharply so she hissed. “You played like the piper to beckon me here. Were you hoping I would touch you like this? Did you fantasize about this moment?”