by Lori Wilde
“Pay no attention to the clock,” Dante instructed. “It’s just you and me here, babe, and I trust you with my life.”
His words bolstered her courage. She opened the scissors. They’d made a groove in the copper wiring. Gently she slid the scissors farther up on the wire, getting it to the very back of the scissors for a stronger bite. If this didn’t work…
No, she couldn’t afford to think like that. It had to work.
Ten seconds.
“Here goes.” She grit her teeth and gripped down on the scissors as hard as she could.
The wire snapped.
The timer stopped counting down.
Total silence.
Then Dante let out of whoop of triumph. “She did it, Fred, she did it.”
Elle joyously flung herself into Dante’s waiting arms. He spun her around in circles.
It had never felt so great to be alive.
13
SEVERAL MINUTES LATER, Briggins and his team busted through the locked laboratory door to find Dante sitting on the floor, Elle in his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck while he stroked her hair. He held her to him, her sweet scent filling his nostrils. Nothing had ever smelled so wonderful.
Briggins hesitated at the door. “You okay?” he asked, scanning the room with his gun drawn.
Dante nodded. “We’re fine.”
Briggins holstered his gun and the rest of the team stepped across the threshold with him. Another agent went directly to the lifeless body on the floor.
“Lawson?” Dante mouthed silently to Briggins.
His boss shook his head.
Dante saw the somber expression on his boss’s face. “Gambezi?”
“He disappeared from his penthouse—place is empty. But we’ve got enough to nail him when he resurfaces. The important thing is, you shut down the Rapture factory.” Briggins swept a hand at the room.
As they were talking, the agents scurried around, bagging and tagging the pills and equipment as evidence.
Dante expected to feel angry that Gambezi had gotten away, but he couldn’t rouse any rage. He was just happy to be alive and with Elle.
Briggins was right. The important thing was they were taking the drug off the black market. Sooner or later, they’d get Gambezi. Dante no longer felt that nabbing the gangster was his own personal vendetta. He realized now he couldn’t control everything, that he wasn’t in charge of all the justice in the world. It was a humbling, and freeing, realization.
Something had changed in him, and he wasn’t sure what—or why—but he felt good. Better than he should. And a whole lot of it had to do with the woman clutched tightly in his arms.
Briggins reached down a hand to help them up off the floor. “Come on, we need to get you two checked out by a doctor.”
“We’re fine,” Dante said.
“All right, if you’re sure, we’ll get you to the field office for debriefing. I’ll get someone to take Miss Kingston’s statement and drive her home.”
“She’s staying with me,” Dante said possessively. He hadn’t asked her, he just knew he never wanted to let her go and he wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight. Elle leaned her head against his shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist. Obviously she felt the same way.
Many hours later—after the bomb squad had shown up to take away the bomb Elle had defused, after the crime scene team had finished collecting evidence, after they’d sat through a debriefing with Briggins—they were finally free to go.
It was midnight as Dante and Elle stood on the steps of the FBI field-office building looking into each other’s eyes. “I’m sorry about Mark,” he said.
“I am, too.” Elle nodded. “He had so much to offer the world. I don’t know why he chose the wrong path.”
“Greed.”
“I suppose.”
“You okay.”
“Uh-huh.”
Dante awkwardly shifted his weight, not knowing what else to do or what to say, uncertain how much Mark’s death had affected her. He didn’t want to leave her side, but he didn’t want to crowd her. He wasn’t used to this intimacy stuff. Didn’t know when to push, when to back off.
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Dante…” Her eyes were wide and her lip was trembling.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
His heart leaped. “Would you like to go to my place?”
Her smile was slight but heartfelt. “I thought you’d never ask.”
DANTE’S APARTMENT was much like the man. Minimal furniture. Spotless. No pictures on the wall. He had not made this place a home.
It made her feel sad.
But why would he decorate? He was an undercover FBI agent who worked at Quantico. He probably would be leaving Austin now that his assignment was over. She didn’t want to think about that now. All she wanted was to be in his arms again.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
Was she?
“Are you cold?”
She shook her head.
“Shock,” he told her. “Briggins was right. I should have made sure you got checked out at the hospital. You took a blow to the head. You could have a concussion.”
She raised a hand to finger the knot at her temple. It ached, but that wasn’t why she felt so unsettled. “I don’t have a concussion. I’m fine.”
“You’ve been through a big trauma today.”
“You’re used to this kind of thing, I suppose.”
“Not really,” he said. “I’ve been with the FBI for four years, but only as a surgeon. I give new faces to people in the witness protection program.”
“My instincts told me you were law enforcement,” she said. “Because of my family.”
“You’re perceptive.”
They stood in his sterile white kitchen that she doubted he’d ever cooked in, with their eyes pinned on each other.
She studied his face, which now seemed so impossibly dear. Studied his rugged, angular lips and his dark, observant eyes. Her gaze dropped to his right hand, bandaged up tight after his run-in with the hostage-taking patient hopped up on Rapture. Then she shifted her gaze to his left hand, his wrist encircled with the barbwire tattoo.
Her heart fluttered restlessly.
“You saved our lives today,” he said. “I want to thank you for that.”
“I do what I can,” she smiled, trying to make a joke of it, trying to belie the serious feelings knocking against her heart.
Darn if Dante’s dark brown stoic eyes weren’t misted with a light dusting of tears.
“When Gambezi dragged you into the lab, I thought…” His words caught in his throat. “Oh God, Elle, I thought I’d lost you forever.”
She stretched out her arm. “What are you doing standing halfway across the room?”
He rushed to her then, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her lips, which were desperately hungering for him.
It was the sweetest, most gentle kiss he’d ever given her. A kiss that said I love you all on its own. So what if the man couldn’t tell her? His lips didn’t lie. She would rather have a man like Dante who couldn’t say the words but meant them with all his heart, than a man like Mark who said the words when he didn’t mean them.
After a few minutes, Dante pulled back and peered deeply into her eyes. He was so handsome with his hair falling across his forehead instead of brushed back like he normally wore it. His gaze tracked over her body, taking in her totally unattractive hospital scrubs, staring at her as if she were wearing the finest Victoria’s Secret lingerie that money could buy.
“What?” she said. “Do I have something on my face?”
“You are truly beautiful, Elle, both inside and out,” he said. “I still can’t believe how close we came to…”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Everything turned out all right.”
“It could have gone so wrong.”
“It didn’t. We’ve been given a second chance.” She pushed a
n index finger into the cleft of his chin. “Let’s not waste it.”
He took her right hand with his left, folded his fingers around it and pressed their joined hands against his chest. She could feel his heart beating a ragged rhythm beneath his skin.
“What’s changed?” she asked.
“I realized that no matter how much I try to be perfect and not make a mistake that it can never happen. I’ve made so many mistakes, Elle.”
“Dante, we both have.”
“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” he said. “There are things about me that you need to know before we take this any further.”
“It can wait,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His eyes filled with silent gratitude. “Elle,” he whispered and brushed his lips against her forehead. “My sweet Elle.”
My sweet Elle.
He said it as if he meant it. As if he truly considered her to be his.
She could barely comprehend all that had happened, all the changes that had occurred in Dante in such a short amount of time. Gone was his cool, controlled demeanor. For the first time, he was letting her see the real Dante buried beneath the guarded surface. Tender, vulnerable, yearning for something he was afraid to wish for. She felt as if he’d given her the greatest gift in the world.
“Take me to bed, Dante,” she said.
Desire glazed his eyes. He let go of her hand to cup her chin in his palm. “You need to rest,” he said. “And you need time to process what happened to Mark. I know you think you’re over him, but you were married to the man and now he’s dead. You need to grieve.”
His thumb brushed her bottom lip and she shivered against him. “Dante,” she whispered softly. “Dante.”
He leaned in close. “Yes.”
Elle’s heart beat like a wild thing inside of her chest. If he didn’t kiss her again she would come undone. He had to kiss her. He was the only solid thing she could depend on, the only sure thing in her life at this moment.
“Dante.”
“Elle.”
His gaze searched her face and she searched his. Looking into his eyes she forgot about bombs and drugs and crazy patients and dangerous criminals and a dead ex-husband.
Dante had so many layers to his personality that she had yet to peel back, so many things about him she did not know. The corners of his mouth were hard-lined and unyielding, but she knew his lips were soft. The contradictions in him excited her. She felt as if she was teetering on some great chasm and he was the glorious abyss.
With a groan, he pulled her closer and his mouth was on hers, tasting of nervousness and uncertainty.
Who was he trying to kid? she wondered.
He was as vulnerable as she was, maybe even more so. He had no family to turn to, no one to rely on, and today, he’d lost an old friend.
His mouth was hungry, searching, promising her that they could wipe the slate clean and make a fresh start.
Ah yes, this was what she craved. Sexual oblivion.
His hands were at her back, smoothly sliding down her spine. She arched into him.
Trust. Acceptance. Redemption.
She began to undress them both and he let her.
First she loosened his tie and tossed it over the back of the kitchen chair. Then came his jacket. After that, she undid the buttons on his shirt. Freeing him from the tyranny of his clothing.
She stripped her scrub top over her head and unhooked her bra so that they were both naked from the waist up.
Dante groaned low in his throat like a jungle cat at the sight of her breasts. He dipped his head to kiss one achy breast and then the other before he would let her finish undressing them. A hot flush of pleasure flooded her body at the sensation of his warm, moist mouth gently suckling her pert nipple.
Elle kicked off her shoes and so did Dante. They grinned at each other as they both got an inch shorter. Then she reached for his belt and slowly, seductively unbuckled it and pulled it through the loops. It made a whispery slithering noise.
Her fingers teased his zipper and she felt his already erect penis get even stiffer.
She shucked off his pants and underwear in one smooth motion, peeled off his socks and then stood up to give him an impish come-hither grin.
“My turn,” he said, and knelt in front of her, pulling her scrubs down her hips to her ankles.
She kicked out of them.
He kissed her navel and sent a shock of awareness angling down deep in her crotch. She fisted her fingers in his hair and gasped when he took her white panties between his teeth and pulled them down the length of her legs.
She quivered against him and he buried his face in the triangle of her hair.
“You are so beautiful.” He breathed in a reverential sigh.
When he said it, she did feel beautiful. The sweetness of the moment made her heart ache.
“This way,” he said, taking her hand in his and leading her into his bedroom.
Dante lay down on the bed and pulled her gently on top of him, holding her close, smiling into her face. She curled against him. He made her feel important, needed. Trusted.
He touched his lips to hers.
And then time spun away from them. It ceased to exist in the midst of this incredible sense of wonder.
They’d almost died today, but they had survived. The power of it was undeniable and that bond cemented for them.
Elle had thought she wanted nothing but sex with Dante, but this was so much better. She’d thought that Dante was nothing more than a way to get her divorce out of her system, but she’d been so wrong. She wanted more. Needed more from him.
They caressed each other tenderly with lingering fingers, finding the exquisite spots that made each other smile and squirm with delight.
“Hold up your left hand,” he said.
She did as he asked.
He pressed the palm of his own left hand against hers. Elle felt the tingling flow of electricity from him to her and back again.
Love. True love. Born of something beyond them both, not simply from need or longing or desire. This was more.
This was true rapture, not a drug, not a fantasy, but love. Real, honest and undying love. There was no other word for the sensation she was feeling.
Dante’s lips slid down her throat to her breast again. He kissed each nipple, then after a time, began to suckle them with his mouth as his hand crept to the apex between her legs. Gently he eased her legs apart and began to do amazing things with his fingers, finding tantalizing spots she never knew existed.
He kept touching her and tenderly nibbling her nipples, and the next thing she knew she was moaning softly, lost in bliss.
Slowly he trailed both his fingers and lips down her inner thighs to her feet. The tickly sensation had her laughing. She watched transfixed as Dante kissed each toe separately, and then traced his tongue in small circles around her instep.
“You taste so good,” he murmured.
Elle trembled at his touch.
Shifting his position, Dante propped himself on his elbow and looked down at her. His eyes shining with an emotion she’d never seen on his face.
She prayed he was feeling it, too—this overwhelming sensation of completeness and belonging.
Abruptly, self-doubt filled her.
What if he didn’t? What if she was feeling this alone? Terrified that she had read everything wrong, Elle rolled away from him, sat up straight and pulled the covers over her.
“Elle?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Are you all right?” Dante sat up, as well, and draped his bandaged hand over his knee.
“Um, sure.”
“What’s wrong?” Gently he grabbed one corner of the sheet she held to her breasts and tugged at it. “Why are you hiding from me?”
Elle clung to the plain white cotton sheet. Curled both fists around it. Lifted it to her chin. As a barrier it wasn’t much, but she felt so naked.
So exposed.
“What’
s the matter?” he cooed. “Did I make a misstep? Touch the wrong place? Use too much pressure?” His voice lowered. “Did I hurt you somehow?”
“I can’t…I don’t…” she said, avoiding looking at him.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m scared,” she confessed. “I’m feeling things that I’m not used to feeling.”
“Me, too, sweetheart,” he said. “And I’m just as scared as you are.”
“Really?”
“I’ve never been here before. Never felt like this,” Dante admitted.
She dropped the sheet and let it fall below her breasts. She peered up from behind a thick strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “Is your heart racing as fast as mine?”
Tentatively he took her hand and pressed it against his chest. His pulse was thundering.
“See what you do to me, Elle?”
“Is your stomach all quivery?”
“Like Jell-o.”
“And it’s hard to breathe?”
“I’m ready to order an oxygen tank.”
“What does it mean?”
“I think it means we’ve got it bad.”
“Is it serious, doctor?” she teased.
“I’m afraid we’ve got a terminal case.”
She stared at him and her heartbeat stalled. “A terminal case of what?”
“Love,” he said and then his mouth came down hard on hers and she tasted the yearning on his lips, the urgency of his body.
Her own body was just as eager, just as frantic. Around him, she felt womanly, desirable.
His hands moved down her shoulders and her body came alive with pleasure. She whimpered helplessly into his mouth as he kissed her.
“That’s right, sweetheart, lie back, relax and let me pleasure you,” he urged, giving her permission to do the one thing she’d never been able to do.
Until now.
Until Dante.
Surrendering to the moment, she gave up trying to please everyone except herself. She lay back, relaxed and let Dante have his way with her.
THIS WAS WHAT HE’D BEEN missing his entire life.
Love. Real and solid and lasting.
He’d been closed off for so long. Shut down from his emotions. Avoiding relationships, eschewing commitment. Trying to fix what was wrong with him by being perfect. By clinging to the illusion that if he was just good enough then everything would be okay. It was a crippling belief and it had kept him from making those close connections.