Page 64 of Girl Anonymous

His eyes flared and she saw it happen. At last he slipped the leash he’d set on himself. He set a pace that demanded and gave. At once he brought her back to the precipice, to that point of almost climax. As her body reached and yearned, tears slipped out of her eyes and into her hair.

He bared his teeth as if he suffered in agony, making him more of a beast, and the sight of this man driven out of control forherwas all she needed. Her climax engulfed her in flames and ice, in color and heat, in the fear she’d been unalterably changed and the conviction that he was right; fate had led them here, to this moment, and nothing could ever be as glorious again.

Except, with Dante, the glory would be theirs for as long as they lived, and beyond.

* * *

Afterward, in the shower, Dante said, “I love the color of your hair. The real color.” He ran his fingers through the short strands. “Dark red, like the bottle and in the right light, it glows. When you feel safe, will you grow it out for me?”

She liked the way he phrased it, comprehending that she kept it short so if she had to fight, her opponent had little chance to grab her hair and use it to control her.

And he said,When you feel safe. It was an unspoken promise that better days would come for them both; they would see to it. “Yes. When I feel safe, I’ll grow it out for you.”

CHAPTER 30

In the wee hours of the morning, Maarja half woke as Dante spooned her, his cock stirring against her bottom, his hand cupping her breast.

She moaned, not in ecstasy but because she’d really like to sleep some more. Between a hard day’s work moving art, being scared and threatened, screwing the lid on Dante’s bottle, running over half of Gothic in the dark, and being claimed on the bed and on the bathroom counter après shower—that marble had been cold—she was still tired.

He massaged her shoulders and back, pressed his arms under her belly and lifted her to her knees, stroked oil between her legs and buttocks, rubbed himself against her like a great cat marking his territory, and she moaned in a different tone.

What did she know? Maybe all men were like this, wanting and needing and coaxing and pleasuring. Her friends’ reports didn’t agree with that theory, and she enjoyed a moment of feeling special, a desire magnet, the woman that tugged at the powerful Dante Arundel and subdued the beast.

Yeah. Femme fatale, that was her.

She was enjoying that thought, and the pleasure of his touch, when—

The bedside hotel phone rang.

She jumped.

He swore viciously, thrust the covers aside like a man driven by a force outside himself, fumbled with the receiver, and finally answered. “It’s four thirty in the morning, and I’m about to get laid.What?” His voice crackled with irritation.

Maarja slid onto her belly, closed her eyes, wishing last night had never happened, wishing it could all happen again, wishing he wasn’t so sure of himself he had to tell some contact in his book he was about to get laid. She might have told him no. She might have!

“Fuck!” Dante threw the phone across the room. He leaned over her, stroked her hip, and in a totally calm tone, said, “Come on, Maarja. Life is a bitch, and the bitch just had puppies.”

She didn’t sit up. “What happened?”

“My cousin Connor has been executed.”

CHAPTER 31

Maarja didn’t know what to say.I’m sorry that bully relative of yours is deadseemed inappropriate. “Connor? Your cousin Connor? Why him?” seemed safer.

“I’ve disappeared off their radar. They know this will flush me out of hiding.”

“They’ll kill a man to bring you to the surface?”

“He’s a minor player, but he’s my minor player.” Subtext: once Dante claimed you as his, you were his forever.

She slid from beneath the sheets. “Let’s do it.”

He gave a laugh. “I should have known you’d be prepared.”

She pulled a hotel robe off the hook. “I’m not the one who did whatever happened, if that’s what you mean.”

“I know that. But I didn’t order the hit, so who did?”

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