Dante’s Salvation

by Anna Leigh Keaton

  “You are single, then?”

  She choked. More coffee sloshed from the mug and out of her mouth.

  Dante was right there with more napkins, first blotting her chin, then her hand.

  Please let me die right now! Right now, God. If you care about me at all! Her cheeks heated with embarrassment as he once again cleaned up the table.

  “Your coffee is cold. Let me get you another.”

  Before she could respond, he had her mug and was walking up to the counter. She had the urge to make a run for it while his back was turned. She could get out the door and down a block before he ever knew she was gone. He’d never find her.

  Leaning against the counter with a sophisticated nonchalance she could only dream of possessing, he turned and winked at her.

  Good Lord, the man was lethal. When he stuck his hand in his slacks, his jacket lifted just enough for her to get a great view of his ass. His perfect, round, tight buns. She licked her lips, hoping she didn’t salivate.

  Think, Wendy! Okay, he’d said her hair was beautiful, he was buying her a cup of coffee, and he was flirting. Maybe he was lonely and just wanted someone to spend the night with. She probably came off as an easy candidate, since she was by herself on her birthday, sitting in here sulking.

  Would it hurt to get laid? Hadn’t she been thinking about a quickie when he came in? She chewed the inside of her cheek and stared at that gorgeous backside. The suit covered him well, but there was no mistaking wide shoulders and a slim waist. If his butt looked that good, what would his chest be like? Rippled abs? Damn, she didn’t think she’d actually ever slept with a guy with rippling abs.

  He was young, though. Really young. And she was old and flabby. If he saw her naked, he might become ill. Besides the thirty extra pounds she carried on her short frame, she had batwing arms and cottage cheese thighs. Nu uh. No way could she do him. He was way too good looking. A one-night stand she chose needed to be in her league, not a million miles ahead of her.

  Damned if she didn’t want to, though.

  He picked up a steaming mug the barista had set down and smiled as he came toward her. “Here you are, my lady. Would you like me to have your roll heated for you?” He set the drink in front of her.

  She shook her head. “No, thanks.” No way was she going to sit there eating a gooey cinnamon bun while he watched. “After I ordered it, I realized I wasn’t very hungry.” Actually, she was starving, since she hadn’t had supper. What she really wanted was that pizza. Lots of cheese and sausage...the kind that always gave her heartburn. That sounded good tonight. And an ice cold beer...or two.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” he said after he’d taken his seat and sipped his own coffee, “what do you do for a living?”

  She’d just met the man, and after tonight she’d never see him again. Part of her had the urge to lie and come up with something exciting, like telling him she was a cop or an international news reporter or something. Instead, she carefully lifted her coffee and sipped. “I’m a medical assistant for a clinic.”

  A small smile flitted over his lips, and he nodded. “I pictured you in the healing arts.”

  She frowned. He sure didn’t speak like any thirty-year-olds she knew. Hell, John had been nearing forty and all he talked about was video games and the latest reality television shows, not healing arts.

  “You have a gentle aura about you,” he continued, as if explaining himself. “A soft beauty that shows through. It is very attractive.”

  A soft beauty? She didn’t know if she should roll her eyes at yet another lame pickup line, or swoon at his feet. “And you? What is it you do for a living?” Professional bullshit artist?

  He set his mug aside, reached inside his jacket, and withdrew a business card. “This is my company. I deal in antiquities.”

  She took the gold embossed card and read it. Echidna’s Cave. If you’ve ever dreamed it, we will find it.

  “Echidna?” she asked. The name had a familiar ring to it, though she had no idea why.

  “Ahh. You remember your Greek mythology?”

  She shook her head and laid the card on the table. “It’s been a while. Who was she?”

  Dante’s grin was teasing. His eyes fairly sparkled. “More of a what, really. A creature that was half nymph and half serpent. She lived in a cave and came out to eat those who passed by.” He winked again, and her heart fluttered.

  She chuckled to cover her unease at her body’s unwarranted reaction to him. “And is that how you get customers? By snatching them off the street as they walk by?”

  He laughed, his perfect teeth against his dark goatee almost startling. “Alas, no. I run a reputable business. You should stop by sometime.”

  She glanced at the business card but didn’t pick it up. It would be much better for her to never lay eyes on this man after tonight. Besides, she didn’t do antiques. The only thing she had older than herself was the crucifix she wore tucked inside her shirt, handed down to her from her great-grandmother.

  Dante watched Wendy’s pulse flutter in her neck. His fangs ached to be set free, which made no sense since he’d just finished feeding. Even more remarkable, his cock stirred. With every smile and sultry chuckle from her, he grew ever increasingly uncomfortable. She was a stunning beauty, and he wished to taste her skin. She was pure and healthy, she smelled of not only the food he wished he could taste, which sat under the tin foil on the table, but of the soft aroma of lilacs. Beneath all the other scents, she smelled of clean human flesh and arousal. Warm and enticing.

  Not since Mary, nearly a century and a half ago, had a woman’s body called to his this way. He wanted to kiss her, taste her skin, bathe her with his tongue, drink her excitement. He smelled no other male on her, so he doubted she’d been with one in quite some time. Male pheromones tended to cling to their sexual partners weeks, sometimes months, after a relationship ended. Though he’d asked to be certain, he’d known before the question left his lips that she was single.

  She was neither coy nor obvious in her want of him, which intrigued him. Women who found him attractive usually had no qualms about throwing themselves at him. It disgusted him. Wendy was shy and unsure of herself. If he were to guess, he’d say she didn’t find herself worthy of his attentiveness. How wrong she was. She was the first woman in over a century he wanted to possess. She was pure of heart, mind, and body.

  Her friend stood her up on her birthday, yet she defended the woman. Loyalty such as that was hard to find. In fact, he knew no women in this day who stood up for their friends the way she had.

  He lifted his coffee and sipped. Wendy slowly spun the plate holding the cinnamon bun with her fingertips. Her nervousness he found endearing. He wondered if she’d come by his store. If he wanted to, he could implant the urge in her mind with a simple hypnosis technique, but he needed her to come of her own free will. She must want to see him again. He would not employ vampire trickery on this sweet woman.

  No. She was special.

  She suddenly leaned over and picked up her leather purse from the floor. “I really should get going.”

  His heart sank, but he nodded in response. He shouldn’t have stared so long. Conversation was the key, and he’d blown it. It had been too long since he tried to entice a woman with his human charm.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a couple of crumpled bills.

  “Wait.” He laid a hand over hers, and her wide-eyed gaze jerked up to meet his. “Let me pay. It is the least I can do.” He smiled. “You allowed me your company and turned a very unpleasant evening into something I will remember for years to come.”

  Her brow puckered, and then she chuckled. “Okay. Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

  He stood, withdrew his wallet, and threw a couple of bills on the table. Then he held out his hand for her. “Allow me to hail you a cab.”

  She glanced at his hand then back up to his face. Shaking her head, she motioned toward the door. “I just live a few b
locks away. I can walk.”

  “Then let me be a gentleman and show the lady to her door.”

  She stared at his still extended hand.

  “Come. I am harmless, I promise you.”

  “Said the spider to the fly,” she murmured.

  “I believe the spider asked the fly to step into her parlor.”

  She chuckled and looked up at him. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  Just as he wasn’t supposed to hear her blood rushing through her veins or her heart pounding with excitement and trepidation. But he did.

  “I will not ask to enter your parlor. I am a gentleman. I will walk you to your door and bid you a fond goodnight.” No matter how badly he wanted to get his hands on her.

  She slipped her small hand into his and stood up. “You run a hard bargain, Mr. Rainaldi. I’d be a fool to pass up an escort home.”

  “Please,” he said, dropping his voice to little more than a whisper and leaning down slightly, “call me Dante.”

  A shiver passed over her, and he smiled to himself as he breathed in her glorious scent. Aroused woman with the hint of sweet lilac. She’d taste like ambrosia, he was sure.

  “Come then,” he said, pulling himself back. Just as he laid a hand on the small of her warm back, she grabbed his business card, cinnamon roll, and tin foil-covered plate off the table. The card she stuffed into her purse. Ah, perhaps he still had the charm after all.

  He guided her out the door onto the street. A gentle breeze had come up off the bay, and her hair whipped around her and against his jacket. He wished he were naked in order to feel her cool curls against his flesh. She wrapped her arms around herself and huddled against the chill.

  “Allow me,” he said as he slipped the buttons of his jacket and shrugged out of it. When he laid it around her shoulders, she smiled at him—a genuine smile. Soft and sweet. Not the forced ones of earlier, or those she’d used to cover her unease.

  “Thank you. You are a gentleman.”

  He kept a loose arm around her as they walked up the steep hill toward 3rd. She was small, yet she wasn’t frail. Her curves covered a sturdy build he found quite arousing. She was soft and warm, and he knew his jacket would hold her scent for days. He looked forward to it.

  His fangs ached, and he drew in a breath to calm his own lust. Sex and feeding...he didn’t understand why it would meld now at this particular moment. He wanted her body, not her blood. He wanted to taste her flesh, her arousal, not sink his fangs into her. Besides, he’d just fed. He didn’t need human blood again for at least two weeks.

  “So...is this what you do with your Friday nights? Rescue lonely women from having to walk home alone?”

  He cocked his head and looked down at her, but her own head was bowed. “Are you lonely, Wendy?”

  He heard her swallow, and she didn’t answer.

  “I am sorry. I do not mean to make you uncomfortable. It is just that most women of your age are usually searching for...something.”

  Her shoulders slumped slightly beneath his arm, and she ducked her head even farther.

  Hell, he was going to mess up his well-laid seduction if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.

  “You mean like a man?” she finally asked. “I don’t need a man. I’m perfectly happy without one.”

  Though her words held conviction, her body language said otherwise. She was lonely, and it hurt him to see her so. He’d bet his store and all that was in it that some man, or perhaps more than one, had hurt her.

  “You are a very well-adjusted woman. Self assurance is highly underrated.”

  She lifted her head, and a small smile curled her sensual, pink lips. “I can take care of myself.”

  He nodded in agreement. There was a difference between loneliness and needing a man to lean on. She didn’t need one, but she’d like one. It was written all over her face for the world to see. “And you have taken care of yourself for a very long time, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” The word came out on a soft sigh.

  He wanted—no, needed—to be the man she could lean on.

  “This is my place,” she said as she slipped from beneath his arm and turned to face him. She slid his jacket off her shoulders and held it out to him. “Thank you for walking me home.”

  Her building was a mid-class apartment complex. “I assure you, the pleasure was mine alone.”

  Standing under the streetlamp as they were, her deep auburn hair seemed spun with strands of gold. Her eyes were the most startling, intriguing spring-like green. Her smile was shy and sweet.

  She reached into her purse and withdrew a small ring of keys, and then she looked up at him again, and he saw the question in her eyes. Even if she asked, he’d have to decline the invitation. Not tonight. It was too soon and had been much too long since he held a woman in his arms. When he did have her body, he needed to be in control of his lust, lest he frighten her.

  “Well. I guess I should go in.”

  He nodded but wasn’t about to let her go without a taste. “It is late.”

  She didn’t move away, which he took as a small invitation. It was enough.

  Gripping his jacket in one hand, he raised the other and tucked a thick lock of downy soft hair behind her ear. Her heartbeat sped, thundering in his ears as if it were his own. The seductive scent of her arousal assailed him, and his fangs tried to extend. He forced his need into submission and leaned down until his cheek softly brushed hers.

  “This last hour with you has been the best I’ve experienced in many years.” He turned his head slightly and grazed his lips over her rose petal soft skin. Her flavor was more than he’d expected, and his cock throbbed to fullness. “I look forward to seeing you again.” For just the briefest moment, he buried his nose in her hair and breathed her in, imprinting her on his soul. “Goodnight, sweet Wendy.”

  He pulled back and turned away. If he didn’t, he couldn’t be held responsible for what he might do to her.

  “Goodnight,” she whispered, her voice carrying to him on the evening breeze, too soft for human ears to have heard.

  Chapter Three

  Dante walked the streets of downtown Seattle until the half moon rose high over the bay and reflected off the rippling water. A lightness he hadn’t experienced in more years than he cared to remember put a spring in his step. The lingering scent of Wendy on his skin, which softly wafted up from his jacket collar to his nose, made him sigh every so often.

  Wendy. Even her name was innocence personified. He wondered what birthday she was celebrating tonight. He’d place her somewhere around forty, maybe a bit younger. To find such a woman of her age was a rare treasure. And he knew rare beauty. He made his livelihood collecting it for his shop.

  Finally, he headed up into Queen Anne where he and Digger shared a stately seventy-year-old home. Digger’s bedroom light was still on, which meant he was still entertaining. Instead of going inside, Dante jumped the six-foot privacy fence in a single leap into the backyard. The only positive aspect of feeding was regaining his full strength. He sat down in one of the cushioned loungers near the sunken whirlpool on the deck.

  With a sigh, he closed his eyes, relaxing his body, hoping his semi arousal would soon fade. Then Wendy’s scent carried up from his jacket and teased him. His mouth watered, and his cock jumped inside his slacks.

  Was she thinking of him? Wanting him as much as he wanted her? Did she have difficulty getting to sleep because she craved him? Did a woman of such pure heart even think about acting on her arousal with a man she’d just met?

  Her body had fairly vibrated with lust. Her pulse had sped, and her scent...

  His cock twitched and grew harder. He sucked in a lungful of air. The rose bushes along the back fence put off a sensual aroma that mixed with Wendy’s lingering scent. His penis tented his slacks, and he groaned.

  There was one way to find out. He hadn’t attempted to astral project in years, but he needed to know.

  He slipped out of his s
uit jacket and tossed it on the nearby chair, then unbuttoned and rolled back his shirtsleeves. Settling fully into the lounger, he systematically relaxed his muscles. When his heartbeat slowed to only a few beats per minute and his breathing grew shallow, he cast his soul from his body and soared above Queen Anne, over the bay, and then into downtown to Wendy’s apartment building. He reached for her essence. Her elemental being. Floating around the building, he locked into her on the tenth floor.

  Ahh, sweet Wendy. You are a naughty, naughty girl.

  —

  Wendy’s breath hitched as she flicked her fingertips over her right nipple. Tingles raced through her body and made her throb. Dante. Dante. So beautifully handsome and sophisticated. His scent seemed to linger on her skin from where he’d touched her, where his jacket had rested around her.

  She should have invited him in. If she had, and he’d accepted, he could be here with her now, touching her as she touched herself.

  Running her hand down over her belly, she tangled her fingers in her damp curls and moaned. His long, tapered fingers. She wanted his touch. He was every woman’s dream, and she’d let him get away.

  She glided her fingertip between her spread legs, gathering her slick juices, then skimmed it up over her clit. Her hips jerked, and she sighed with anticipation of the coming orgasm.

  Dante. Dante. Why did I let you get away?

  She envisioned what his body would look like beneath his tailored suit. Sleek and toned, his olive skin glistening in the darkness as he hovered over her, his mouth suckling, his gorgeous teeth nipping.

  He’d know how to make a woman writhe in ecstasy. He’d taunt and torment her body until she couldn’t stand it one second longer.

  Ah, beautiful Wendy.

  She could still hear his voice in her mind. That cultured, European accent. His low, smooth voice. He’d whisper to her as he made love to her, as he touched, caressed and teased her into a sexual frenzy the likes of which she’d never known.

  She pinched her nipple and delved her fingers deep into her core, crying out as his image hovered behind her closed eyelids.