The shadow of a sin
634 Words
The air in the library stacks was thick, heavy with the scent of old paper and Dante’s intoxicating cologne. Being pinned against the bookshelf felt like being caught in the path of a hurricane. I could feel every line of his hard body, the heat of his skin radiating through his shirt.
"Say it," Dante rasped, his voice a low vibration that made my entire body hum. "Tell me you want me to stop."
"I..." my voice failed me. I looked into his eyes—the eyes of the "Beast" he tried so hard to cage—and all I saw was a reflection of my own desperate hunger.
Dante’s hand moved from my waist to my throat, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a feather-light touch that felt like fire. "You can't say it, can you?"
His gaze dropped to my lips. He leaned in, the tip of his nose brushing against mine. We were so close that our breaths mingled, a shared secret in the dark. Beneath his trousers, the staggering length of his arousal was a rigid, pulsing truth, a silent scream of the desire he had been hiding for years.
I tilted my head back, my eyes fluttering shut. I wanted his lips on mine. I wanted him to ruin me, just like he promised.
"Elena?"
The sound of Theo’s voice from the end of the aisle was like a bucket of ice water.
Dante didn't jump back. He didn't scramble. He slowly pulled his hand away from my throat, but he didn't move his body an inch. He kept me pinned, his shadow swallowing me whole as footsteps grew closer.
"Dante? Are you back here?" Sasha’s high-pitched voice joined Theo’s.
Dante leaned down, his lips ghosting over the shell of my ear. "This isn't over, brat," he whispered, his voice a lethal promise. "Not by a long shot."
In one fluid, predatory motion, he stepped back and reached for a random book on the shelf above my head. When Theo and Sasha turned the corner, they found Dante casually flipping through a dusty volume on 18th-century architecture, while I stood there, breathless and flushed, pretending to look at a book on French history.
"Oh! There you are," Theo said, looking between us with a confused frown. "I thought you were looking for a book for your essay?"
"I found it," I said, my voice sounding tight and unfamiliar even to my own ears.
"And I was just helping her reach it," Dante said, his voice perfectly bored once again. He didn't even look at me as he tucked the book under his arm. "The lighting is better back here for reading. Sasha, I’m done. Let's go."
He walked past them without another word, Sasha scurrying to keep up with his long strides. I stayed in the shadows for a moment longer, my heart hammering against my ribs. He had almost kissed me. And I knew, with a terrifying certainty, that when he finally did, there would be no going back.
Dante’s Perspective
I walked toward the exit, Sasha’s hand on my arm feeling like lead. My hands were shaking, and the unyielding thickness of my desire was a painful reminder of how close I had come to losing everything.
I had almost tasted her. I had almost destroyed three years of lies for one moment of her lips on mine.
"Dante, you're walking too fast!" Sasha complained.
I didn't slow down. I needed to get away from the library, away from the "Good Guy," and most of all, away from the woman who was turning me into a monster. But as I climbed into my car, I knew it didn't matter. The "Beast" had tasted the hunt, and it wouldn't stop until it had the prize
- Writer
