Page 160 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet
Frankie shrugged. “If Elena doesn’t keep you in bed.”
A blush fired up my cheeks as Dante and Tore laughed, but I forced myself to relax when Dante tucked his arm in mine.
“Ignore Frankie,” he ordered loudly so the man could hear him.
I tipped my chin up. “I usually do.”
He and some of the men lined up to meet us laughed again. It made something in my chest loosen to make them chuckle.
“Come meet our Italian family,” Dante told me as he led us to the left side of the line. “First, my cousin and our Italian right-hand man, Damiano Vitale.”
A huge man with gorgeous dark skin glistening under the sun like ebony stepped out of line to greet me. He smelled warm and musky as he bent to give me the customary kisses and when he stepped back, his white smile was one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen.
“Hello,” he said in lyrical Italian, the hint of a different accent in his speech. “I’ve heard much about the fierce lawyer Cosima forced to represent our Dante. The rumors of your beauty don’t do you justice.”
“Stop hitting on my woman, Damiano,” Dante muttered darkly. “You have enough women.”
“Three mistresses is hardly too many,” he argued with a wink to me.
I smiled at him because his roguish charm reminded me of Dante. “As long as they are all aware of the situation and they’ve consented to it, I don’t see a problem.”
Damiano’s eyebrows cut into his smooth forehead before he laughed robustly. “Dante, you didn’t tell me you have such a progressive Italian woman. Maybe I will steal her away.”
Dante made a low sound in his throat that could have been mistaken for a growl as he slid a strong arm around my hip and tugged me right into his side. “Attento, Dami.”
Careful, Dami.
A little shiver zipped up my spine at his show of possessiveness. I never would have guessed that Dante’s animalistic displays could be so sexy, his protectiveness and over-the-top possessiveness, his growled threats and displays of violence, his rigorous fucking…it was all out of the realm of my experience, yet I found myself wholly entranced by the dark magnetism of it.
I placed a hand on Dante’s chest and beamed at Damiano. “He gets a little grumpy when he’s tired.”
The black man laughed again with tears in the corners of his eyes. My man only shot me a cool glance, eyebrow raised.
“If I’m tired,bella mia, it is only because you kept me up most of the plane ride.” He gave a beleaguered shrug at his cousin. “She can’t get enough.”
“Dante!” I snapped, but there was laughter bubbling up my throat instead of the usual shame.
“A woman who keeps you busy,” Dami said with a wicked grin. “I approve. I think you and I will be good friends, Elena.”
“I hope so,” I said genuinely.
Adriano, Chen, Marco, Jacopo, and Frankie had taught me not to judge mafioso the way I had as a girl.
Speaking of which, I gasped when I saw the man next in line, an all too familiar face from my childhood.
“Nico,” I greeted with a wide smile. “It’s been years.”
“They’ve been good to you,” he said with that big, boyish smile on his brutish face. When I kissed him on both cheeks, he smelled just the same, motor oil and licorice. “I am happy to see you again.”
“Me too.” And I meant it. “Are you married now?”
“Cosima wouldn’t do me the honor, so I never settled down,” he said with a chuckle before sobering. “Don’t tell her husband that.”
Dante and I laughed. “No, I would never. Find me later. I would love to talk.”
He nodded, but before we could move on, he reached out to touch me. Dante caught his wrist with a firm look. Nico cleared his throat and nodded awkwardly, shifting his weight on his big feet before looking up at me through his lashes.
“I’m glad you’re well,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you all got out of here okay.”
