Amara glanced at him. Dante drove the same way he did everything else – confidently, with ease, like he’d been born to it. She had been on the passenger side of his car a grand total of two times and she already loved being chauffeured by him.
“Yes,” she answered him, keeping her eyes on his profile. God, he was a stunning specimen of the male variety – strong nose, high cheekbones, defined jawline, proportioned full lips, that vein that went down the side of his neck and into his collar, and those dark, fathomless eyes she had called pretty as a kid. She was intensely, insanely attracted to the physicality of him, but Amara knew she would have loved him even if he had been disfigured and ugly. It was who he was on the inside, who he was with her, that made her soft for him.
“We just talked about how to navigate sex,” she said, partly answering him.
She saw him cast a glance at her from the corner of his eyes, his jaw clenching. “I didn’t know you were sleeping with anyone,” he said casually. Too casually. “Anyone I know?”
He’d probably break the fictional guy’s bones. God, he was easy to rile.
Although he had never really made a move on her, Dante was possessive of her, but in a weird way. It had started out as protectiveness of her after her abduction, and somewhere down the line, possessiveness seeped in. He didn’t mind that she had a very hot guy best friend. In fact, he loved her friendship with Vin and her nascent bond with Tristan. But he watched with dark eyes that burned when they were alone, stamping her entire being just with a look. When anyone was around, he somehow toned that look down, hiding it with the charm that had become second skin to him. But she knew. He had already branded her heart deep.
Amara rolled her eyes. “I’m not. But eventually, I probably will.”
His hands tightened on the wheel, that vein at the side popping. “Any candidates?” he asked, his voice a little rough.
Amara looked down at her hands, seeing the scars on her wrists she usually hid with bracelets.
“You.”
Her word shot through the tension in the car like a bullet, notching it higher and higher, until she could feel blood rushing to her face, unable to look at him.
He swerved the car to the shoulder suddenly, making her look up and grab the door handle to keep from falling to the side, her eyes taking in the little dirt road he pulled into.
“What-” before she could voice her question, she was out of her seat, straddling a very hot Dante Maroni, his hands spearing into her hair, his mouth crashing on hers.
His mouth crashed on hers, and the tension that had built between them through the years snapped, the recoil of it exploding her senses.
She shivered from the suddenness of it, feeling, truly feeling, him under her, one of his hands holding the back of her head, the other sliding down to the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. She gripped his hair, pulling him closer still, her breasts crushed against his shoulders, her core burning, unashamed of the pleasure just the kiss brought her.
She deserved this pleasure. She shouldn’t have to be ashamed of her body for wanting it. Even as she knew this logically, she fought the curl of shame that beckoned her, telling her anything pleasurable after everything her body had been through was wrong, that her desire for any man to penetrate her was wrong.
No, no, it wasn’t wr
ong. Her wanting this man wasn’t wrong. Her wanting to have sex and feel pleasure wasn’t wrong.
He groaned against her mouth, his tongue flicking at her closed lips, parting them, swooping in to lick at her tongue, and she felt it between her legs, right where his bulge was pressing into her. Slanting her face to the side with his hand in her hair, he deepened the kiss.
Her heart pounded, tasting him.
He pulled back to catch his breath, his eyes pools of darkness that made her feel safe, his lips wet from her mouth.
“You’re the beat to my heart, Amara,” he whispered against her mouth, pressing his forehead to hers, and something that had been wilted inside Amara unfurled, opening, soaking, blooming in the emotion she could see in his eyes.
She was the beat to his heart and he was the beat to hers, both of them pulsing together.
Maybe, they were both the same beats.
Maybe, theirs was the same heart.
Kissing Dante had become one of Amara’s favorite things. It wasn’t boring at all like her ten-year-old self had thought. No. Kissing him was heaven. Kissing him was sin. It was everything in between, and she was addicted.
Some days, they’d go for a walk in the woods and he’d press her up against a tree, slanting his lips over hers. Some days, he’d pick her up from her appointments and they’d pull into the same dirt road, making out for hours in his car. Some days, she’d sneak over to his house, feeling his mouth dance with hers in perfect rhythm.
They kissed a lot, but Dante never, not once took it further. His hands stayed above her waist, his lips above her neck, and even though she felt him get hard every time, she never, not once, felt unsafe with him.
They also did a lot of non-kissing things. Some mornings, Amara got up at the crack of dawn and climbed up to his studio, watching him work on his sculptures while listening to books with him. Audiobooks weren’t really her thing, but she enjoyed the time she spent listening to them with him. While his tastes were wide, Amara loved romance. One time, she had him play a romantic novel and the narrator reading the steamy parts left them both pretty hot and bothered. That part had been like listening to classy erotica.
On Sundays, Dante had also taken to teaching her dance to help with her sense of balance. He would bring her to his studio and spend two hours playing music and leading her around the room, holding her upright when her knees shook, catching her if she fell, to the point she would literally close her eyes and trust him blindly, and he would always keep her safe.