This was always going to happen but I figured it would be on my terms when it did. So much of the last few months has been dictated and governed by him. I just hoped it would be something I’d have a little more control over. A meeting set at my own pace. I hadn’t counted on the element of surprise and now it’s a mess – a big, horrible, twisted mess.

Seeing Dante and my father together has stirred up so many unwelcome memories. Suddenly I was right back in that hospital room again, begging for his mercy. Begging for us both. Seeing Dante as the cold-hearted killer and not as the beautiful conflicted man that I’ve come to crave. I’m so hurt and angry too. He ignored my pleas for a guarantee not to harm my father. As a result it’s broken something between us. Then there’s the lie he told, the one about his daughter. He knows I’ve seen the photographs. Did he think I’d simply forget his reaction in the bunker when I questioned him about her? I wrongly assumed that with so much deception flying about that somehow there would be more transparency between us.

God, I’m so naïve.

This man will never open up to me. I will always be an outsider, even when I’m in his bed.

“I’d like to go back to my place,” I announce quietly.

There’s a pause. “Fine. I need to debrief Manual anyway.”

“You mean beat the shit out of him again for daring to make friends with my father instead of pointing a gun at his head.”

My words are as vicious as my temper.

Dante exhales loudly before reeling off my address to Joseph. I hate him all the more for it. Must he memorize every little detail of my life?

We pull up to the curb just as Anna is slipping out of my apartment block still wearing her slinky red dress from the night before. “Walk of shame!” she giggles when she spots me exiting the vehicle then stops abruptly when Dante appears next to me. “Seems like I’m not the only one.” She raises her eyebrows at me and I know I’ve got more than a little explaining to do.

“Is Manual awake?” asks Dante, looking at her with disinterest as Joseph exits the vehicle too. Anna glances at the tall American next to Dante and her eyebrows disappear into her blond fringe. “Wow, Evie, that’s some company you’re keeping. You and I really need to have a catch-up later.”

“I’d like that,” I smile, stepping forward to give her a quick hug. “Did you have fun?” I whisper.

“Oh yes,” Anna says, her green eyes glittering with mischief. “He was definitely worth the wait.”

“Manuel,” snaps Dante, his voice slicing through our chat. “Is he up yet?”

He’s growing impatient with her so I place a hand on his arm to calm him as I silently beseech my friend to answer.

Hurry, Anna, he doesn’t like to ask twice.

“Err yeah, he’s up,” she says, staring down at my hand.

I feel a great sadness suddenly. In other circumstance she would have shot back a feisty reply, something like, “don’t be silly, he’s been up all night ha ha.” Not today, though. These dangerous criminals and their sinister presence have stolen all of her sass, just like Dante’s stolen all of my innocence. He’s given me back my lust for life but he’s also given me uncertainty, doubt. Fear. The world will always be a darker place for me now.

“Couldn’t you at least try to be nice to my friends?” I say to him as we take the elevator up to the fifth floor together. He just shoves his hands in his jeans pockets and glares at me, his black t-shirt stretching flush against his abs and making that fine definition clear for all to see.

I look away quickly. I’m too mad at him to even contemplate being turned-on but there it is again, that persistent beat, thrumming away between my thighs. “Oh for god’s sake,” I mutter, folding my arms and moving away from him but the elevator carriage is too small and I end up crashing into Joseph instead. Wow, he’s another man built of solid muscle.

The door to my small two-bed apartment opens up into a light and breezy living space with a small kitchenette off to one side. Manuel doesn’t hear us come in. He’s leaning against the side of the breakfast bar, bare-foot, bare-chested, devouring a bowl of my cereal like he hasn’t eaten in months. Lucky Anna I think right before Dante and his posse start menacing up the place. All of a sudden there’s not enough room for all the testosterone.

“Get your shirt on,” Dante snarls and Manuel practically drops his bowl in fright. He curses, apologizes to his boss and then dives for my spare bedroom.

“Stop throwing your weight around!” I say furiously but he just ignores me, and turns to speak to Joseph instead. He’s got that unnerving stillness about him again, like the ominous tick, tick of a bomb before it explodes.

“Get that son of a bitch out of here,” I hear him say. Joseph nods and moves towards the bedroom.

I can’t be in the same room as Dante anymore. He’s driving me mad. Grabbing a bowl from the cupboard, I tip way too much cereal into it before storming past him and into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me.

I sit down on the edge of my bed to take a mouthful but it tastes like cardboard without milk. There’s no way I’m going back out there again so I bang the bowl down on the nightstand and curl up under my silver quilt instead. As I do I catch sight of a collection of old photos stuck to the cork pin board opposite. Me and Anna laughing, drinking. Having fun. Our first years of college before life got way too complicated. I shudder at how much I lived under a cloud of blissful ignorance before Dante Santiago came along.

A few minutes pass and then I hear the front door slam. Moments later there’s movement outside my room. The handle is turning. Dante doesn’t bother knocking, he just walks on in like he owns the place and stands there at the foot of my bed, glaring down at me.

“Are you sick?”

“Sick of you,” I mutter, refusing to look at him.

After a beat he strolls into my periphery to take a closer look at the pin board I’m gazing at. My eyeline can’t help but dip a little to the sight of his gorgeous taut ass. Why does this devil have to look like such a god?

“What college were you at?” he murmurs.

“You know that already. You know everything about me, so why don’t we turn the question into a rhetorical one?”

There’s a pause. “Northwestern.”

“Are you serious?”

“I was a bright kid,” he shrugs.

“Too bad it didn’t translate to adulthood.”

He doesn’t answer. It’s like he hasn’t even heard me. I can’t be bothered with his mind games today. I just want to sleep.

“Dante, listen–”

“I fucked up,” he says suddenly. “I should have given you that assurance about your father.”

I’m shocked. “I thought you didn’t do–”

“I don’t but it seems that, once again, Miss Miller, you’ve pricked at my conscience.” There’s an edge to his voice now. He’s said his apology and he wants to move on.

“I thought men like you don’t have guilty–?”

“We don’t.” He turns his head to look at me and I see a brief flash of the storm inside him before he shuts it down twice as quick. “I’m the one exception to the rule.”

He leans against the edge of my desk and crosses his arms in front of him. It’s like he’s bracing himself for the next intrusive blow.

“You hurt me more with your lie than your silence, Dante,” I say quietly.

He frowns. “I never lie to you, Eve.”

I re-emerge from the safety of my quilt and rest my back and shoulders against my bedstead, tucking my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. I’m still wearing his white t-shirt and it’s swamping my slender body again. “What about when my dad asked if you had kids?”

“I didn’t lie,” he repeats gazing steadily back at my, his dark eyes burning a hole in my face. “I did have a daughter but she’s been missing, presumed dead, for nearly fifteen years now.”

Oh my god.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper. I can’t even conceive the horror of having to live with that much uncertainty for so long.

He shrugs again. “There’s not much to tell. She paid the price for having me as her father.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says brusquely. “I didn’t tell you to curry favor. She’s not some convenient card I pull out whenever I need to ingratiate myself with you. I leave the country in a few hours for another continent and I don’t know when I’ll return. I’m trying to be as straight as I can so you don’t go to sleep every night despising yourself for missing such a monster.”

It takes me a beat to digest his words and another to clock the wicked gleam in his eye. “Why, you arrogant…” but I never get to finish. Before I know it he’s pinning me to the bedstead by his mouth, his insistent tongue rimming the edges of my lips and demanding entry. I concede with a moan and we begin kissing with all of our usual faint-making passion.

His hand is at the back of my head to hold me steady. Mine is plunging into that silky dark hair and tugging roughly. He continues to weave his seductive magic and somehow I find myself flat on my back with him settling between my legs, his erection pressed up against my sex as he slowly grinds against me, arousing every nerve and impulse until I’m hovering right on the edge of ecstasy.

“What was her name?” I gasp.

“Isabella.” His eyes dull with pain before he silences everything with another kiss.

“That’s beautiful.”

“Too much talking.” With a growl he rears backwards, taking my panties with him, grazing my thigh with his short nails in his rush to remove them. The time for conversation is over, that tiny glimmer into the window to his soul has slammed shut again. His only impulse now is to lose himself in the stupor we create when we fuck.

“Dante, slow down…”

But he’s too lost in the moment. He wrenches me into a sitting position and whips off my t-shirt and the remains of Anna’s dress. “Put your arms around my neck.”

I do as he says, though I’m frightened by the look on his face. It’s too singular. Too remote. Somehow our usual connection is misfiring.

He carries me naked into the kitchen and settles me on top of the breakfast bar, impatiently kicking the stool out of the way to make room for us. Stepping back, he removes his clothes, slamming his gun down on the counter next to me, never once taking his eyes off my face for a second longer than necessary. I swear I could come just from the look in his eyes – so primal, so dominant. It’s like I’m the only person in the world and he’d kill to have me. Manual’s presence in my apartment has unnerved him and he means to claim my body back for his own.

Without warning, he grabs me by the back of my knees and drags me to the edge of the counter, the thick muscles in his forearms straining as I lose my balance and topple sideways.

“Slow down!” I beg him again, smacking the palms of my hands down to steady myself. “No sex-related incidents today, thank you,”

“I give you no promises,” he snarls, wrapping my legs around his waist. “We’ll both be aching tomorrow, my angel. Don’t worry, I’ll make your sweet cunt sing for me first, though. I want you soaking wet before I fuck you for the rest of the afternoon.

A low moan escapes my lips. He’s the only man alive who can ignite this crazy wildfire inside me. My clitoris is burning already. One touch and I know I’ll be screaming out his name. He cups my left breast and inclines his head to feast upon my nipple.

“When are you due your next shot?”

I’m rudely jolted out of my Santiago trance. “Next week, why?”

“Good. Don’t forget it.”

Incensed, I drop my legs from his waist and jerk backwards out of his grasp, wincing as his teeth catch the tip of my nipple. “Having a baby with a wanted criminal isn’t exactly high on my list of achievements, Dante.”

I don’t know why I’m so mad. I don’t want a baby with him, I’d be crazy to even consider it, but it’s like I can’t stand the thought of some other woman giving him something that I won’t.

He sighs and lets go of me, placing his fists on the counter either side of my body. Imprisoning me right where I’m sitting. “I know that’s not what you want, Eve. That’s why I bought it up.”

“Well, your timing sucks.”

“So it would seem,” he says grimly. “Can I get on with fucking you now? I have a plane to catch.”

“No you can’t!” I shove him away and jump down from the counter but he grabs my wrist and pulls me back to him. Somehow I end up bent double over my own breakfast bar, with the heat of his cock pressed tightly between my ass cheeks, my hands wrenched behind me and his forearm across my shoulder blades, forcing my heavy breasts down into the icy-cold surface.

“I’m not done with you yet, Eve. You know what your defiance does to me.”

“Get off me!” I hiss, struggling to free myself, and failing miserably. I’m like a fly batting away a horse. “I mean it this time.”

“Let’s see how much you mean it in a minute,” he says, dropping his mouth to the base of my spine, his forearm still pressing me into the counter.

All my resistance evaporates when I feel his tongue trace a hard line downwards through the crease of my ass. He stops tantalising close to the entrance of my sex, preferring to slide his hand up the inside of my thigh and finger fuck me instead. He keeps up an agonizingly slow rhythm, which puts me right on the edge in seconds.

“Shit, oh shit,” I groan helplessly.

“Stretch your hands above your head,” he orders, letting go of my arms.

Trance-like, I do as his says, my fingertips flexing around the tip of the counter as my sex starts to ripple and shudder against his intrusion.

“Don’t come until I say so… now brace yourself.”

For what, I think hazily.

A second later I have my answer as his stinging slap ricochets off my ass cheek. The force of his blow jolts my hips forward, colliding with the side of the counter. At the same time I can feel the fingers from his other hand plunging back inside me. Not letting me catch my breath, he smacks me again. And again. And again…

I count four in total before my orgasm consumes me in a potent mix of fire and flame. I’m tipped over the precipice by that exquisite duology of pain and pleasure.

“I told you not to come,” he says harshly as I lie there convulsing against the counter, gripping on as tight as I can.

“I couldn’t help it, you’re a sadist for making me hold off!”

He removes his fingers from my body. A moment later his hands are on my hips and he’s burying his cock deep inside of me.

“Fuck!”

He smacks my ass again, the bite of his touch bringing tears to my eyes. “What have I told you about cursing?”

“Screw you!” I turn my head to the side to look at him. “I’m not your angel anymore, Dante. It’s more like you’re my devil now.”

“Don’t say that,” he snarls, grinding his hips against my ass. “Your light appeases my dark, Eve. When we’re together I can almost taste whatever good is left in me.”

“And what happens when we’re apart?” His gun is lying inches from my face and terrible thoughts keep stealing into my mind. “How many people have you killed in the last two months?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

“I could smell the blood on your skin at that club. That’s why you didn’t want to see me. You weren’t sure if your demons were quite satisfied. You keep shielding me from the real you, Dante, but can’t you see? My imagination is far worse than you’ll ever be.”

There’s a pause and then I feel his forehead touch the soft skin beneath my shoulder blades as he leans over to cover my hands with his own. He’s buried so deep inside me that there’s a dull ache intermingling with the sheer indulgence of him now. “If anyone can save me, you can, Eve,” he murmurs, nuzzling upwards and into my neck.

“I can’t save a man who doesn’t want to be saved.”

He rears back only to slam forward into my body again, filling me up completely. “I’m done with this conversation.”

“Not like this,” I plead, feeling my inner muscles quivering around his cock again. “Take me back to my bedroom and make love to me.”

He slams back into me once more. “We don’t make love, Eve. We fuck. Like this.”

Dark and dirty. Satisfying that need in both of us.

“Maybe we need to relearn everything. Maybe we only fuck because the nothingness it creates makes it easier to forget how different we really are.”

He curses and withdraws completely, the sudden absence of his body heat leaving me cold and bereft. I turn to find him standing a metre away, just staring at me in all naked, erect glory. That stillness has settled over his expression again.

“Is it such a crazy theory?” I offer tentatively.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, I watch in mounting disbelief as he picks up his jeans and pulls his t-shirt back over his head.

“It’s time I left. Pass me my gun.”

“Dante–”

“I asked you to pass me my fucking gun, Eve.”

“No.” I walk up to him and bind my arms around his neck, breathing in his frustration and anger, placing myself between the cold-hearted killer and his weapon of choice. I’ve never felt more naked and exposed.

He doesn’t move away but he doesn’t return my embrace either.

“Make love to me,” I whisper, and this time I feel his whole body judder in response.

“I can’t, Eve…” He sounds pained. “Straight-up fucking gives me an element of control. I can’t lose that around you.”

“You won’t. I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t,” he says sharply, pushing me away. “You have no idea. You think your imagination takes you to dark places? Trust me, my capabilities are so much worse.”

He takes a step towards me and cups my jaw in his hands, running the pads of his thumbs roughly across my lips as I try not to flinch away. He stands at least a foot taller than me and I can feel the raw power and strength emanating from his body.

Intimidating me.

Enthralling me.

His eyes are so dark and unflinching. The eyes of a killer.

“You’re right about that night in the club, Eve. I slaughtered three men that day. I tortured the last one for five hours before he gave me what I wanted.” I try to wrench my head to the side but his grip is unflinching. He’s giving me no choice but to accept all of his truth. “Is this what you want to hear?” he says, his lips peeling back into a snarl. “Because I have a whole roll call of depravity and sin I can share with you.”

“Why?” I whisper.

“Why do I take such pleasure in hurting people? Because I fucking enjoy it, Eve. It’s the only thing that gets me as hard as you do.” There’s a horrible, lingering pause. “Saving me seems a bit of a stretch now, doesn’t it?”

I know what he’s doing. He’s daring me to turn away now that’s he’s shared his terrible secret.

“Men like me don’t make love. We take what we want and then go.”

“Have you finished taking what you want from me?”

I despise the hurt I hear in my voice. How can I still want him after everything he’s just told me? This is a man who thrives off of killing people.

“If I don’t leave now I’ll end up hurting you.”

He drops his hands to refasten his jeans as I grab the grey check throw from the back of the couch to wrap around my body.

“I may not understand what it’s like to kill and enjoy it, Dante, but I know what it feels like to be broken inside.”

“I think we may have differing opinions on what constitutes ‘broken’,” he scoffs, picking up his cell from my coffee table and tapping out a quick message.

“You don’t get to have a monopoly on this.”

“Oh, I think I do.”

I watch him slip on his shoes and head for the door. “Stop,” I say softly. But his hand is already on the handle. “Please, Dante, I don’t want you to go.” He’s opening it now.

“I love you.”

The three words slip from my mouth almost like an afterthought but they’re eloquence wrapped up in the simplest of idioms, connecting my heat and desire for him so flawlessly I find myself questioning why I never uttered them to him before. I watch his handsome face crease in confusion. That’s when it hits me. He doesn’t think he’s deserving of love. Not now. Not ever. He hurts people because that all he’s ever known. He’s never been shown an alternative.

I walk over to him and take him by the hand and lead him into my bedroom. He follows willingly, meekly even, but as soon as we step over the threshold he’s pushing me up against the nearest wall and trying to take back some semblance of control, bunching my hair around his fists and pressing his whole body weight against mine

“How can you love me?” he snarls. “How is that even possible? I’ve stolen from you, kidnapped you, hurt you, showed you my true self…”

“Maybe I see more than that. Maybe, despite everything, I still think you’re worth loving.”

He stares at me for a moment before tugging away my throw, scooping me up into his arms and placing me gently in the middle of the bed. Undressing quickly, he settles himself between my legs. “I wish I could be the man you see in me,” he groans, nuzzling into my neck.

“You will,” I say, easing some of the burden in his voice with my certainty. “Because I refuse to see any other.”

He kisses me then, entangling our tongues in a deep, deliciously slow swordplay that leaves me squirming against the sheets. I run my hands across the thick knot of muscles adorning his back as he rises up on his elbows and buries his fingers into my hair again, his erection nudging up against my sex. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I open myself wide to him and he slides in easily, nipping at the hollow of my neck, burning my cheek with his stubble as he jerks his hips upwards, slowly so slowly, working every inch of his perfect cock into me. There’s a gentleness to his touch that I’ve never known before. He’s trying so hard to give me what I asked of him and I find myself loving him all the more for it.

We settle into a temperate rhythm, his downward thrusts grinding so deeply into me that I feel skin-on-skin, shifting his position constantly to ensure his lower abdomen purposely brushes against the tip of my clitoris. At the same time I can feel his body quivering as he tries hard to hold himself back. His hand leaves my hair to grip the nearby pillowcase so tightly that his knuckles turn white as his groans fill the silence of my room.

“Look at me,” he gasps and I do just that, gazing up at those dark irises with their seldom-seen flecks of gold, so evocative of this man’s soul. Like guiding lights in a sea of darkness. “You are my everything, Eve Miller,” he declares. “If I thought myself capable of those three words I’d give them back to you, I swear it.”

“It’s ok,” I whisper, tightening my grip around his neck. “Until that time I’ll love enough for the both of us.”

He bows his mouth to my own as he keeps on driving into me with that divine pace, making love to every part of my body with his words, his cock and his tongue; intensifying the pleasure until neither one of us can hold back any longer.

We come together to the sounds of my soft cries and his animalistic roars, my nails ripping a jagged red course down his back as he moans my name over and over again into my hair, only juddering to a stop when he’s emptied every single drop of his seed inside of me. And in that moment there are no broken rules or compromised morals, no complications or sin.

The only thing that matters here is us.