Alex took Dante’s head in his hands when Dante’s hot, wet mouth closed over his balls and sucked. He wasn’t going to risk losing him. He moved restlessly when the seductive mouth left his sac and kissed the crown of his now hard cock. Sensual heat speared him when Dante took his cock in his mouth, a finger still inside him, playing. Alex opened himself to the wash of sensations created by a mouth that sucked, tongued and teased its way up and down his cock until the storm at his core overwhelmed him and he came, crying out Dante’s name.
Later, Dante brought a warm, damp cloth and gently washed his saliva off those delicate parts. “Sorry you couldn’t reach me to bite.”
Alex, as sated as he was, laughed.
He sat up, and they tried a game of checkers and Dante had more champagne and snacked on chips.
As he studied the game, Alex wondered how he might bring up the subject of them remaining together, but there was something about Dante, some upheaval in his soul surrounding him like a dark miasma that stopped him.
Don’t press, he told himself. Allow him to wrestle and work it out or it won’t be the right decision for him. If it isn’t right for him, it won’t be for us. With a sigh, he forced himself into the patience mode it had taken him years to master.
Seeming reluctant for their time together to end, Dante insisted they stay up past the time he’d usually go to sleep. They sat side by side in bed. Alex put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him close as they watched a video, but when Dante laid his head on his shoulder it was too uncomfortable.
“Sorry,” Dante said.
When Alex realized Dante had fallen asleep sitting up, he brushed his lips across his cheek after easing him down and covering him. Dante didn’t stir. Alex stretched out beside him and watched him breathe, watched as he sometimes shifted positions without waking. And it was almost as if Alex breathed, too. As if he were alive and breathing and human again.
§§§§
Dante woke to the touch of Alex’s lips on his cheek. Fingers brushed locks of his hair back from his face.
“It’s time. The sun rises in a little over an hour.”
Dante stretched and opened his eyes to find Alex’s gaze on his. He reached for him, and Alex kissed his lips. “How do you feel today?” Dante asked.
“I’m at about ninety-eight percent today. And you?”
Dante sat up, unable to push away the sudden sadness he felt at leaving. “I’m okay. Remember, I wasn’t burned as seriously as you were.”
“If you’d had some of my blood, as I had of the prince’s, you’d have been healed by that evening.” Alex’s voice was soft.
It tugged at Dante’s heart. “Well, you weren’t in any shape to offer, were you?”
“Would you have taken it from any other vampire?”
“God, no!” The thought horrified Dante. “You look supremely satisfied with my answer.”
Alex threw his head back and laughed. “You’d better not drink anyone’s blood but mine.”
Dante didn’t expect to ever drink any vampire’s blood, but he didn’t say it. He rose and collected his clothes from the couch where he’d left them and entered the bath and shower in the executive suite. He was inside the stall when the glass door clicked open and Alex stepped in behind him. No early morning sex for them, though. Just careful loving as they bathed each other. He had to use his hands on Alex because the washcloth was too painful.
He shampooed the long blond hair, wanting to see it restored to its natural gleaming health. When they’d finished and had dried off, he combed Alex’s hair and used a mild setting on the hair dryer to blow it dry as he sifted it through his fingers. The silken pull of it between his digits would have caused his cock to swell if he hadn’t concentrated on other things.
“I’ve always loved how your hair smells.” He combed through the strands again, then Alex’s deft fingers fashioned his braid. “Your hair shines again today. It tells me how much you’ve healed.”
Alex sighed. “But not enough to make love to you one last time.”
“That’s okay. All the other times make up for it.”
He dressed in silence. Alex slipped into pajama bottoms and the silken robe again and ordered breakfast for Dante and blood for himself.
“Will you fly directly to New Orleans from here?”
“No, to London and from there, on another company jet to Louis Armstrong International Airport, in New Orleans. I can sleep most of the way, and our jet can land at sundown. It’s tricky because of the daylight, but I’ve made arrangements to protect myself. Especially now that it almost killed me.”
Then it was time to go, and they stood next to the plane’s door.
“Alex, I—” Dante found he couldn’t say what he knew needed to be said. The pain on Alex’s face came and went so fast he wasn’t sure he’d seen it. Didn’t want to have seen it. “Will you call me? Let me know you arrived safely?”
Alex’s voice was tight. “Yes. And then I will know you arrived safely as well.”
Dante thought Alex’s mouth had never been so cold as it was when they kissed good-bye. He held onto their hug longer than Alex would have, but still he found himself too choked up to talk. As the door opened and the cool morning air invaded the warm plane, he released him and started down the steps, then stopped. “Be careful, Alexandros Nicolaides. Giacomo is out there somewhere, and he hates you.”
“I think you’re in love with me, Dante Rocco. Are you? Will you come and live with me in New Orleans?”
Dante’s tongue refused to move. He had nothing to say.
Alex spoke instead. “I’ll be careful, my lover. Promise me you won’t walk the streets of Florence alone after sunset.” He touched his fingers to his lips and pointed them toward Dante as if to send his kiss with him, and the doors closed in front of him.
The sun was flooding the horizon with narrow washes of orange and yellow. Dante stood by the town Car Alex had ordered for him and listened to the sounds of the plane revving its engines.
Suddenly, he was suffocating, as if he was being confined to a world the size of a jail cell. Was his life to consist of working, playing small league soccer until his knees gave out or his hamstring pulled and reinjured repeatedly? How many nights had he hung out this year on the Ponte Vecchio playing guitar with friends? Maybe three?
I am such a fool. How many people find someone as loyal and fine as Alex? How many let them get away because they refuse to know their own mind and heart?
The plane began a slow roll toward the runway, and, without thinking about it, Dante began to run alongside it shouting, “Alex! Wait for me! I want to go with you!”
He ran, but he couldn’t keep up with the speed of the small jet. And no one heard him. He was forced to drop back and watch the plane gather more speed as it roared down the runway and, jets screaming, hurtled into the air to make a white-and-silver splash on a brilliant blue canvas above the streaming yellow sunlight.
Stunned, he stood on the asphalt pavement and whispered, “Damn it, I do love you, Alex. I’ve finally decided what I feel is love.”
There was nothing to do but step into the town Car and let it carry him to the train station. He would use his ticket and return to Florence. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and thumbed in a simple message.
Yes. And yes.
To Be Continued: Book 2, Night Train To New Orleans
About the Author
Carolina Valdez is a multi-published, award-winning author who began her first novel because she thought everyone who was published should write a book. Only when someone in her writers group mentioned her “romance” did she realize love was the theme of her story. She has focused on romances ever since.
Valdez is a member of Romance Writers of America (PAN) and its Orange County, California, chapter. She’s also a member of Sisters in Crime.
She and her husband live in southern California.
NIGHT TRAIN: TO NEW ORLEANS
BOOK 2
BY
CA
ROLINA VALDEZ
Since flights from Europe to Louisiana arrive during the day, Dante flies into Baton Rouge and takes the night train to New Orleans so Alex can meet him. Confusion, danger, and passion heat up the reunion of the Italian diamond courier and the immortal who once was his business rival, and then his lover. Alex has never wavered in what Dante means to him, but Dante arrives suddenly unsure again of his feelings and the impulsive promise he’d made to leave Italy for America. In the historic richness of the French Quarter, Dante must decide how he really feels about Alex, even as the powerful ruler of the Louisiana vampires complicates their lives, and Giacomo arrives bent on murder.
NIGHT TRAIN: TO VENICE
BOOK 3
BY
CAROLINA VALDEZ
Someone is robbing and killing diamond couriers in Europe. When his Italian lover, Dante, is assigned a delivery in Venice, Alexandros insists he and Malcolm, the other staff immortal on the Global Diamond Couriers staff, go as bodyguards.
Traveling from Rome on the restored Oriental Express, Malcolm and his human train steward reignite an old romance. In Venice, lo Greco, doge of all the Venetian vampires, angers Alex by making a pass at Dante. Dante assures him he only wanted him as a blood donor, and Alex calms down. But when Malcolm’s lover turns up at their secret hotel, all are plunged into a maelstrom of danger none may survive.
MLR Press
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Join us. Sample our stories. We have something for everyone. From lust-filled, stolen moments to long, lazy afternoons of lovemaking to intriguing mysteries and fantasies, we have the adventures you're looking for wrapped up in solid plots with heroes you can love with a passion. Maybe even hate with a passion, but passion will be a part of it. Our authors are skilled wordsmiths who weave tales of mayhem, lust and romance that will set your heart pounding and your temperature rising. Intriguing, erotic, sometimes explicit, but always enticing novels filled with action, suspense and sultry goodness.
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