God, how he wanted.
His blood was pounding, hot and furious, through his body. His sex was stiff with need, the hard length of him fully aroused, and he was only just getting started with Tess.
The way he felt now, he hoped this was only the start.
Before Dante could stop himself, he was guiding her around to the sofa, easing her down onto the cushions.
She fell back, looking up at him from under those thick-fringed lashes, the aqua color of her eyes gone dark like stormy azure. Her mouth was glistening and swollen from his kiss, her lips blushing a deep, dark rose. The front of her neck was pink with the flush of her desire, color that fanned down into the V of her clingy shirt. Her nipples were hard little buds, straining against the fabric with each rise of her breath. She was ripe with want, and he had never seen anything more exquisite.
"You're mine, Tess." Dante moved over her, kissing a path from her lips to her chin, then along her throat, to the soft skin below her ear. She smelled so good. Felt so good against him.
Dante groaned, his nostrils picking up the sweet perfume of her arousal. Lust made his gums ache with the stretching of his fangs. He could feel the sharp points coming down, throbbing with the steady beat of his pulse. "You are mine. And you know that, don't you?"
Although her voice was small, little more than a breath of air rushing out of her lungs, Dante heard her plainly, and the word went through him like fire.
She said yes. God, what was she saying?
What was she doing, letting herself be kissed and touched--seduced--like this?
It was reckless and so unlike her at all. Probably dangerous too, for a dozen reasons she couldn't quite bring herself to care about right now.
She'd never been easy--far from it, given her general distrust of the male gender--but something about this man made fear and inhibition fly right out the window. She felt linked to him somehow, a connection that went deeper than anything she knew, into uncharted territory that made her think of fairy-tale concepts like fate and destiny. Those things weren't part of her normal lexicon, but she couldn't deny that despite all she should be feeling about this moment, it just felt... right.
It felt too good to doubt, even if her body was inclined to listen to reason. Which it wasn't, not when Dante was kissing her, touching her, making all that was female in her awaken as though it had been asleep for a hundred years.
She didn't resist as he carefully pulled off her sweater, then lifted the hem of her shirt up over her breasts. He drew in a sharp breath as he bent down and kissed her bare stomach, teasing her with gentle nips as he moved up her belly to the front closure of her bra. He snapped it open and slowly peeled the satin away from her breasts.
"Christ, you are lovely."
His voice was rough, his breath hot on her skin. Her nipples ached to be touched, to be drawn into his mouth and suckled hard. As though he knew the direction of her thoughts, Dante flicked his tongue over one of the tight buds. He pulled with teeth and tongue, while he took the other in his palm, caressing her, driving her crazy with need.
Tess felt him reaching down for the button of her jeans. He worked it free, then tugged the zipper open. Cool air hit her abdomen, then her hips, as Dante nudged her pants down around her thighs. With a long pull of her nipple, he lifted his head and looked at her partial nakedness.
"Exquisite," he said, the same word he'd spoken the other night.
He reached up tenderly, smoothing his palm down the length of her throat, then along the center of her. Her body arched up for him as though attached to an invisible string that he was pulling. When he reached the core of her, he slid his fingers underneath her panties, not stopping until he found her moist cleft. Tess closed her eyes in tormented bliss as he cupped her, one long finger cleaving between her folds.
His breath leaked out of him in a hiss. "You feel like silk, Tess. Wet, hot silk."
He penetrated her as he spoke, just the tip of his finger, the smallest invasion. She wanted more. She lifted her hips, a quiet moan in her throat as he drew back, teasing, sliding her moisture up around her clit with the tip of his slick finger.
"What?" he asked her in a gruff whisper. "What do you want, Tess?"
She writhed under his touch, reaching for him. Dante bent down and kissed her stomach as he put both hands on the loose waistband of her jeans and pushed them down. Her panties followed. Dante kissed her navel, then traced his tongue in a downward path, toward the small patch of curls at her groin. With one hand, he lifted her thigh, spreading her open.
"Do you want me to kiss you here?" he asked, pressing his mouth to her hipbone. His dark head moved lower, to the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. "How about here?"
"Please," she gasped, her spine arcing as heat roared through her.
"I think," he said, moving off the sofa and positioning himself between her slack legs, "that you want me to kiss you... here."
The first press of his mouth to her sex took her breath away. He kissed her deeper then, using his tongue on her, driving her wild. Tess's pleasure spun higher, tighter. She didn't know it was possible to feel this kind of need, but now that she was burning with it, there was only one thing that could sate it.
"Please," she said, her voice sounding broken and thick. "Dante, please... "
"Do you want me inside you, Tess? Because that's where I want to be right now. I want to be driving into you, feeling all of your wet heat milking my cock dry."
Oh, God. He was going to make her come just thinking about it.