Leading him step by step, she backed Dante against the chaise and guided him down to sitting. He leaned back and stretched out, dwarfing the chair, taking up every inch of space. The hard edge in his eyes had returned, along with the ticking clench in his jaw. He looked to be fighting something, though hell if Ariana knew what that was.
She hiked her skirt up. Straddled him. And pulled Dante up by his collar to meet her. As she settled over his groin, she sighed and closed her eyes. He was rock hard, rubbing against the ache between her legs. Only a few layers of clothing stopped his shaft from meeting her center completely. Her core drenched at the contact, responding like her body knew what was coming.
On a low groan, Dante caught her mouth. Swirled his tongue along hers. Toyed with her. Set her stomach on high-speed spin. She toyed with him right back, kissing him hard, open mouthed and desperate, then pulling back and kissing him softer and more delicately.
It was a cycle that proved to be as torturous on Dante as it was on Ariana. Her heart couldn’t beat any faster. Her lungs couldn’t squeeze in any more air.
A part of Ariana wanted to tease Dante until he lost control. She wanted him to flip her over and make love to her until morning light shined over their spent, glistening bodies. But another part of her, perhaps the part that had seen what the Dante Unleashed Show was all about, wondered if concern for her safety was the reason he kept pulling back.
Although she felt safer with Dante than she had with anyone else, she’d trusted Echo, too. Was her trust meter still whacked out? Or was she over thinking?
When Dante leaned back and stripped out of his shirt, thinking no longer posed a problem. Ariana’s heartbeat went from slow to nonexistent, her legs tingly numb.
Even though she’d had plenty of time to marvel at his stature the two days while he was unconscious, she couldn’t escape the shock of seeing him again. She was gripped by the sight of him. Held tight, breath caught. His chest was huge, twitching and pulsing, glowing with a sheen of sweat. Bronze and chiseled abs rivaled marble statues she’d studied of the Greek gods.
This time was very different from the last.
This time his body responded to her touch.
Losing sight of everything but this moment, Ariana traced her fingers over the lines of his scars, around the raised mark where Pike had stabbed him, over his chest where two marks dug into his flesh.
His breath hitched. She met his eyes. They were dark. Hungry.
He palmed her breast, brushed his thumb over her nipple. Her body melted and her hips rolled. And before Ariana knew what was happening, his hips were moving beneath hers, small circles that promised he’d be as wicked talented off his feet as he was on them.
She needed out of her dress. Now.
As Dante continued to work magic with his mouth, searing a line of kisses across her neck and shoulder, Ariana reached down and grabbed hold of the bottom hemline of her dress. With a swift yank, she pulled the dress over her hips, then shimmied it over her waist and breasts.
Before she could push the armfuls of chiffon over her head, Dante pressed against her and dragged her down. She tossed the dress aside and hung her head back, delighting in the feel of his skin on hers. He was rough where she was soft. Hard where she craved pressure.
He was her fantasy come to life. Everything she’d ever dreamed.
She melted into him. Nuzzled into his neck. And as he gripped two handfuls of her backside, a spike of bloodlust rammed into her core, tipping her over the edge. Below the ridge of sculpted muscle stretching from Dante’s neck to his shoulder, a thick vein pulsed beneath honey bronze skin.
Burying her face into his neck, Ariana licked the vein. Squirmed inside as it pounded wildly against her tongue. Her fangs dropped, humming, sparking, vibrating with hunger.
Dante palmed the back of her head. Pulled her back, away from his vein. Groaned in what sounded like pain. Then with a thrust of his hips, he pushed her head back down. If that was his attempt to fight her off, it was weak and didn’t last long.
She took full advantage.
She slid the tips of her fangs into his skin, quivering as the first tang of blood hit the back of her throat. His blood was musky, with hints of smoke. Rich with iron. Just how she imagined he’d taste.
Strong. The blood of a warrior. Irresistible.
As she fully sheathed her fangs and took a harder draw, Dante moaned deep within his chest. It reverberated around her, fueling her hunger. She pulled harder. Savored the taste of him entering her mouth, sliding along her tongue. Filling her.
Ariana pulled back, massaging his skin with her fangs as she withdrew them.
“You taste so good,” she said, licking a drip of his blood out of the corner of her mouth. “I want more.”
“Not yet.” He growled. The tips of his fangs gleamed brilliantly white. “It’s my turn.”
She shuddered, wanting nothing more than for him to take from her as she took from him. Breath hitching, Ariana dragged her braid over her shoulder and leaned her head to the side, giving him full access to her vein.
He didn’t take it.
Eyes blazing liquid gold, Dante snaked his arms around her backside. Lifted her onto his lap. Stood up in one hurried move. She gasped in delight, cinching her legs around his middle, coiling her arms around his neck. And when he set her on her feet facing the balcony instead of laying her down on the chaise, confusion set in.
He kneeled on the cement in front of her. Brushed his hand along the flat span of her stomach, so deviously slow. She quivered at his touch. Rolled her eyes back and tunneled fingers through his hair, grasping a handful and pulling it from the roots. He groaned and rested his forehead on her stomach.
For a second, a split disheartening second, Ariana thought Dante was going to stop. That another kiss and another touch was enough to satiate his desires. He was hesitating. Debating something she couldn’t fathom.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I want you so bad.” He shook his head, brushing his lips against her stomach. “I’ve never wanted anyone more.”
“I’m right here.” She tipped his chin up with her fingers. “Right in front of you.”
His heavy-lidded gaze burned bright and bore into her, sizzling with what Ariana could only describe as torment. He needed something that was out of reach. Something he couldn’t say or wouldn’t do. The pain was written all over his face, etched in tiny creases that had sprouted on his forehead and beside his eyes. If only she knew what it was. What was torturing him so much that he couldn’t focus on the passion sparking between them?
She blinked quickly, as if at any moment the battle he seemed to be fighting would manifest before her eyes.
“Whatever you need . . .” Blood. Sex. “Take from me.”
As if she jolted juice back into his battery, the lines on his face disappeared. The torment plaguing his eyes eased. He remained on his knees. Stripped her out of her panties, first one leg, then the other. He moved slowly. Controlled. His gaze blistered her skin, lighting her core on fire in molten heat.
She’d never known undressing to be so sensual.
He spread her legs by dragging a soft, slow finger through her slick heat. Reached between her legs and grasped a fistful of her rear.
Ariana didn’t have time to be shy. To realize what he was about to do or stop him. Not that she would’ve.
Moving as if he had the plan fully concocted in his head, Dante skimmed his hand down her left leg, grabbed hold of her ankle, and lifted, propping her leg on the chaise she’d fully planned to stretch out on.
He found another use for the chair.
As Dante licked his lips and bent low to put his mouth on her, Ariana blanched, nearly falling over onto the balcony.
“Easy now,” he mumbled, looking up from between her legs with a ravenous gleam in his eye. “I don’t w
ant you to fall . . . at least not yet.”
She didn’t plan on falling anywhere anytime soon. But when his hands parted her sensitive folds and his tongue dove into her core, her legs gave way to a shudder. It rocked her whole body, dropping her head back and buckling her knees. Barely steadying herself, Ariana used the chaise to push off, to raise her hips higher.
Dante took the gesture and ran with it, palming her rear, angling her hips forward to tease her pleasure spot. She bucked against his hand, his tongue, wishing he’d never stop.
Alternating between swift flicks of his tongue and slow, lazy draws, Dante drove Ariana wild. Made her want to crawl out of her skin. Made her want to lower herself over him until the pressure of his mouth soothed the ache that was gathering in her center.
When her hips began to writhe, Dante moaned, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated something deep within her. The sensations increased, multiplying into ripples of white-hot pleasure, gathering, concentrating and then—she exploded against his mouth, riding the currents of ecstasy into the hardest, most luxurious orgasm of her life.
When she thought the tide had ebbed, Dante slipped two fingers inside her and massaged her into another orgasm that lasted longer than the first. Between the pressure of his fingers and the heat of his mouth, she was irrevocably lost in the moment, in him.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t bring strength back to her legs. Drawing in a jagged breath, Ariana toppled and somehow managed to land right on his lap.
“Let the record state I was wrong.” Ariana collapsed into his arms, her words spoken between shudders. “You are most definitely not inexperienced.”
He exhaled into a laugh. “There’s something to be said for finding the right partner.”
The fact that Dante thought Ariana was the right partner made her all kinds of ecstatic. Especially if that meant she could start dinging the bell for round two.
Unable to keep her hands off him, Ariana reached between their bodies, sliding her hand along his chest, down the ridges of his abs. Dante hissed, his skin jumping at the contact. When she reached the rim of his pants, he jumped again, though this time the movement was different.
He flinched. Like he didn’t want her to touch him at all.
She stilled, her fingers dancing along the lowest ripple of his abs. He’d turned into a rigid wall of steel. The muscles on his neck strained with the kind of tension brought on before a fight. Ariana recognized the reaction right away. She’d seen his muscles flare and tighten that way before.
As she kissed his shoulder, his neck, and licked the scruffy underside of his jaw, he relaxed into her again, moaning in approval. She explored him then, her hand traveling over the enormous bulge in his pants. She could barely close her hand around him! His erection was as hard as a rock—every inch as solid as the rest of him.
Tingles of pleasure shot through Ariana’s middle as she slipped her hand beneath the rim of his pants and brushed the thick, swollen head of his shaft.
A sound of absolute agony escaped him and he jerked away, his gaze sharpening on hers. He stilled, the color in his face draining to full moon white.
Ariana pulled back, gazed deep into those swirling gold eyes and—
“What the hell?” She nearly jumped out of his arms.
“Oh God, what’s wrong?” Dante asked, his voice hoarse. “I didn’t think I pulled a thing from you, I couldn’t have!”
“Look.”
Arching across his shoulder, over his back and down the entire left side of his body, was a mark that resembled a tribal tattoo. It was shadowy black. Long and detailed, with tiny vines and thick-headed branches. It sure as hell hadn’t been there when he’d taken his shirt off not ten minutes before.
“What the fuck?” he breathed, reaching out to touch the smoke-like mark beneath his arm.
The damn thing moved. Squirmed to life beneath his touch. The part he touched disappeared, only to reappear as an extension on another part of the tattoo. He jerked his hand away like the mark burned him.
Ariana eased off his lap, the horror of Pike’s words drumming in her ears. “The mark presents itself when you resist your urges.”
“Stop.” Anger seeped from Dante’s pores.
“Pike . . .” she whispered, skin shrinking over her bones.
Dante was a Watcher. It was the only explanation. The only thing that made sense. Despite his bag of tricks that resembled an elder’s maware, Dante wasn’t a vampire at all. At least not a full-blooded one. “He . . . he was right.”
“Stop.”
“My God,” she breathed, mind reeling.
“Ariana, stop . . . please.”
Her mind raced. If Dante was a Watcher and the records in the library were right, he was the descendant of a fallen angel. The one they’ve been waiting for.
Her heart banged against her rib cage. “What does it mean that he was right?”
Chapter Eighteen
BOWING HIS HEAD, Dante threw up his hand. “Enough.”
The voices didn’t listen, just went on mumbling their torturous tune: Bring her to her knees . . . suck the innocence from her soul.
Dante’s eyelids were lead doors, heaving open, catching on the suppleness of her lower lip. He was tired of fighting, weary from blocking the constant hum in his head.
Although the tenor of the voices had changed the moment Ariana’s pleasure had peaked, they were still present, droning in his head and buzzing in his ears.
But the voices had behaved differently this time, hadn’t they?
Instead of increasing until his head threatened to explode off his neck, the voices eased. Quieted. Each demonic command became a bleep on his busy ass radar. It was white noise. Second fiddle to the soul-rattling sound of Ariana catching her breath. The voices were ever-present. Annoying. But they’d unclenched their steely grip.
Wait . . . Ariana had said something.
“I’ve got a shit ton of questions for Pike.” Dante scraped his finger over the dark tendril of a vine and watched in morbid wonder as it shrank away beneath his fingertip. He pinched his eyes shut, willing the voices to subside completely. “But I’d planned on paying your friend Echo a visit anyhow, so it’ll kill two birds with one stone.”
“Don’t worry about Echo.” Ariana bit her bottom lip, thinking. “I’ll take care of him.”
Take care of yourself. Fill her up, feed your soul.
“I wouldn’t waste your time.” Dante shook his head, more to shake out the thoughts than to answer her. “He doesn’t matter.”
Not when the voices were banging down his door, begging to come out and play.
“It really is remarkable . . .” She reached out to touch his side.
Something dark slithered through him, just beneath his skin, and he wrenched his body away. Rejection narrowing her eyes, Ariana covered her breasts, sat on the chaise, and dragged her dress over her legs.
He couldn’t bear to tell her he’d pulled away for her own good. When her breasts were pressed against him and she was cradled in his arms, he fought off the voices. Barely. But the instant he put space between them, the easier it was to breathe, to focus.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
It was better this way. With distance between them. Ariana didn’t know how close he was to losing control. How razor thin his level of restraint was.
This time may’ve been off target from all the other times he’d been with a woman, when he’d pleasured them for their sake alone, but he couldn’t chance Ariana getting hurt. He couldn’t chance taking things to the next level. No matter how damn much he wanted to sink into her, he couldn’t.
Frustration gnawed on his bones. He stood quickly, shoving his shirt over his head.
One look at Ariana sitting on the edge of the chaise, hair pulled back with soft tendrils framing her
face, wearing a perplexed pout on her mouth, and Dante’s thoughts froze. He remembered all too easily where his mouth had been when her pleasure had peaked.
He licked his lips, savoring the sweet taste that still lingered on them.
Take more. More. More!
He stood and went elbows down on the balcony, pretending the streaks of pink and orange smearing their way across the horizon had captured his interest. Everything was tainted, wasn’t it? His soul, the connection between him and Ariana. Even the damned pristine blue sky got stained in the early morning light.
There was no avoiding it, he realized. No escaping his fate.
The voices clanging against his skull weren’t going to take five until he fed. There was no denying it and certainly no ignoring it—not when Ariana seemed glued to his side as of late. Things were only going to escalate from here if he couldn’t figure his shit out.
But it wasn’t like he could fight a member of Black Moon—they were elders for Satan’s sake! And he wasn’t about to bloody one of the unsuspecting vamps who just arrived.
There was another option . . . he could find a dame and slip back to his room, use her for her pleasure, fill up and jet out.
Even as the thought streamed through his mind, he knew he wouldn’t see it through.
It simply didn’t feel right. Not after what just happened between them.
What the hell was happening? He didn’t have a claim to Ariana any more than she did to him. He didn’t owe her anything. Why did he feel like he’d be betraying her, soiling what they shared if he fed from another?
“I’m screwed,” he mumbled over the erratic pounding of his heart. “Screwed.”
Ariana was beside him before he realized it, wearing nothing but her black lace bra; she really was trying to kill him. Confidence, it seemed, was one thing Ariana had in spades.
She caressed his back softly, up and down, dancing her fingers along his spine. The loving gesture made him want to wrap his arm around her and hold on until morning light.
Until the murmur of voices blasted through his ears like a bullhorn.
Last Vamp Standing Page 18
