by Lori Wilde
“Sometimes being dumb is the smartest thing you can be,” she said.
That totally made no sense, but at this point, he pretended her words were pearls of rare wisdom. They could worry about the consequences later, when their judgment wasn’t glazed with the bright sheen of lust.
And then they were in her bedroom, kicking aside the covers, crawling wet and shivering into the dry sheets. They were both totally naked and he wasn’t sure how they’d gotten that way or how he would survive what was going to happen next.
“You sure you want to do this?” he panted, breaking their kiss. The last thing he wanted was for her to have regrets when this was over.
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”
That was all he needed to hear.
Dante felt remorseful, but he made a choice to live with the guilt and let himself go. He tipped right over the edge of stupidity and allowed it to take him under. Drowning his senses, drowning his fear and his restraint.
Very quickly Dante stopped feeling guilty and forgot how he was supposed to feel and let the sensations come.
But how could he do that when his body burned so badly for her? He stared at her, awed by the sight of her luscious body. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her sapphire-blue eyes flared at his frank appraisal. Her look dismantled him, pulling the nails out of the boards of his defenses with those sultry, half-lowered lids.
The pulse of blood in his groin was hot and bounding, and his balls weighed heavy, aching against his thigh.
She reached up to cradle his face in her palms and kissed his lips lightly, sweetly.
He groaned and fisted a hand through her hair.
She nipped at his earlobe, nibbled her way around his chin. He needed a shave, he heard his beard rasp roughly against her skin, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Wait,” he said. “We can’t do this.”
“We’ve already been over that, Dante. Just be in the moment.”
“Can’t,” he gasped, so aroused he was barely able to speak. “No protection.”
“Don’t worry.” She pulled open the drawer to her bedside table and withdrew a three-pack of condoms. “Got us covered.”
“Thank you,” he croaked.
“Dante,” she breathed huskily, sizing him up with her gaze. “What do you have to brood about, Dante? What dark secret’s got you locked up tight?”
She took the index finger of her right hand and pressed it against his sternum. It was as if in that one crystal moment she knew all his secrets and they did not scare her.
The look in her eyes cajoled him. Come on, you can tell me anything and I promise I won’t judge you. Be honest with me.
But he could not trust that look. Nor his sudden impulse to open his mouth and tell her why he was the way he was. Why he needed control and why sometimes a sharp darkness descended upon him without warning. How a cold hand from the past would unexpectedly clamp down on the nape of his neck and chill him from the inside out. It scared him, the instability of these feelings.
Maybe that was one of the reasons he was so attracted to her. She was so warm, like a cozy fireplace greeting a weary traveler coming in from the cold.
She’d pegged him.
In a rush, it swept through him. His loneliness, his need, his haunting desire for her.
Without preamble, he claimed her mouth with his, surprising them both with the unexpected power.
“Oh,” Elle whispered into his mouth and then mumbled, “You taste good.”
His rational mind was telling him he shouldn’t be doing this, that he was going to regret it as soon as it was over, but his soul was whispering, Let go, take a chance.
He closed his eyes. She tasted so sweet and she felt so good in his arms it blanked out all coherent thought. The experience swept over him.
Tongues and mouths and teeth and heat.
He was submerged.
Gone under. Drowning. Happily drowning.
Fight it.
He couldn’t. He didn’t want to fight it. It had been too long and it felt incredible and he was just a man, lonely and looking for a light to lead him in from the blackness.
Abruptly she left the bed.
He opened his eyes, hardly able to focus, his breathing reedy, his mouth tingling.
She stood looking at him, her hair tousled, her chest rising and falling under her fast gasps for breath, her parted lips swollen.
He stood, too, kissed her deep, savoring the heat of her mouth and pulling her up tight to his chest.
Her breasts rubbed against him and he groaned aloud.
Slowly, while trailing both her hands down either side of his body, she sank to her knees.
“Elle,” Dante groaned her name when he felt her warm breath against his throbbing skin. “What are you doing?”
“Shh,” she said. “Just relax and let me do this.”
She was a goddess.
He should tell her to get up, tell her not to do this, tell her that he wanted to be inside her, but he was a man. And when the tip of her tongue flicked out to moisten the head of him, he was a goner one hundred percent.
She splayed her hands across his buttocks. That was a good thing, otherwise he might have toppled over. Her mouth was so sweet. Sweet velvet heat. Her tongue became an instrument of delicious torture.
She’d pushed him to the limits of his endurance. He tried to hold back, tried to resist but he could not. She was too damned wonderful.
Bombs went off in his head.
It felt that powerful. A ball of fire rolled down his body to lodge in the dead center of his aching shaft.
And then he left the earth, shot straight to the stars and it was all her doing.
10
HE COLLAPSED BACKWARD onto the bed, pulling her with him. Panting, he closed his eyes, spent, but still wanting more of her. He feared he would never stop wanting her, the hunger was that great. His body stirred, blood pooling between his legs again, making him swell harder than before.
Unbelievable.
Laughing sneakily, Elle curled against his chest.
“Your turn now,” he said, once he’d recovered somewhat. “And then we’ll see who’ll be snickering.”
“What?”
He rolled her over onto her back, pinned her to the covers and stared down at her. She was the most incredible sight in the whole wide world, looking up at him with those trusting eyes, nibbling her bottom lip nervously but excited.
Thoroughly, ravenously, he kissed her and she kissed him back with the same starving wildness. Lovemaking had never been like this for him.
Ever.
He wondered if it was special for her, too, or if it was just sex. Don’t think about that. Just be in the moment. Be here with her now.
He wanted to, but it was so hard letting go.
She pressed her body against his, made a soft moan of desperation low in her throat.
Sensing her need, he began a slow slide from the tender flesh of her breasts to where she most wanted him to go. Trailing kisses down her rib cage to her taut, flat belly, Dante veered to lick the warm, damp path of skin between her legs.
Her thick, womanly scent filled his nostrils as he cradled his head against her thigh. He ran one hand down and then up the opposite leg before tickling higher on the returning stroke.
“Your touch,” she whispered. “Incredible.”
She shivered as his fingers tiptoed along her skin, tracing his fingernails over the firm curve of her thigh, stopping just short of her sweet inner spot.
His body was on fire for her. Blood pulsed through him, hot and frustrated. He moved his head closer, slightly grazing his lips against her most sensitive skin, and showered her with rich, tender kisses.
His erection was like granite, yearning to plunge deep inside her, but somehow he managed to control himself even though his heart was slamming hard against his chest.
She moaned and arched against his mouth.
&
nbsp; His senses swam with each sound she made.
His fingers tangled in her damp curls and he closed his eyes, inhaling her. He kept his eyes shut, knowing her more intimately this way.
He curved his palm over her soft mound and, reaching the spot where her skin began to part, he stroked her gently, allowing his fingers to follow both halves of her. Finally, after she was gasping for air, he slowly sank a finger deep into her feminine folds.
Dante found her moist center engorged with longing. She moaned earnest and loud, and he almost paused, torturing her sweetly.
“No, no,” she said, reading his intentions. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He thought about it anyway, but he could not be that cruel. Not when she was clinging to his head with both hands and begging, begging for him to take her.
Chuckling, he kissed her, lower and lower. She was a ripe, succulent peach and he was craving her sweet juices.
He put his tongue to her clitoris and it was like switching on a light in a darkened room.
“Yes, yes,” she cried. “Exactly. You know exactly where and how to touch me. How do you know that?”
Blind luck was his answer, but he would take whatever gifts he could get. Her responsiveness stoked his ego and tamped down his fear that he might be doing it all wrong. Using two fingers, he moved in slow circles and her hips began to rock gently in response.
He sucked at her every fold, lapping at the ridges, cupping his hands around her buttocks to lift her higher. He made a hungry sound intending for it to hum up through her, vibrate throughout her hooded cleft. It worked. She arched her pelvis upward in reflexive savagery.
“Stunning,” she said, letting him know she liked what he was doing to her.
Dante kept it up, giving Elle more of what she needed.
Moaning loudly, she clasped her thighs around him, capturing him against her.
His ears throbbed, obliterating all sounds.
Lightly, he released the suction his hold had on her, but kept his tongue playing across her soft cleft. He toyed with her, wriggling his tongue nimbly around and around until she was breathlessly crying out his name.
Nothing existed for him but Elle’s pleasure. He owned every inch of her body. She was his and he was intent on keeping her teetering on the edge.
She made a strangled noise and he knew she was close. So very close. His heart thumped with pride. He was doing this to her and she was loving it.
“I can’t stand it any longer,” she cried. “I’m going to fly apart.”
And then it happened—uncontrollable spasms gripped her body and she shattered against him.
AFTER A THIRTY-MINUTE recovery period, Dante reached for her again with a huge grin on his face.
“Come here.”
Elle rolled into his arms, her bare belly pressed against his flat, rippled abdomen. His hard erection pulsed against her outer thigh.
An erotic electricity shot through her entire body when his mouth claimed hers and his hand strayed to explore. His fingers made large circles at the triangle of hair below her navel while his mouth teased hers.
Then his tongue traveled south to the peaks of her jutting breasts. He licked over one nipple, while his thumb rubbed the other straining, aching bud, drawing it into the extraordinary heat of his mouth. His thigh tightened against her leg and his abdominal muscles hardened.
“Dante…” she whispered his name on a sigh. She loved his name. Dante, Dante, Dante. She couldn’t say it enough. “Dante, that feels so good.”
Her eyes flew open and she lifted her head up off the mattress. She had to see what he was doing. Her gaze latched onto his lips as she watched him drawing her nipple in and out of his mouth.
His tongue laved her sensitive skin as he suckled her deeply. She writhed against him, trying to push her body into his, needing more. Barbed ribbons of fevered sensation unfurled straight to her throbbing sex. Her inner muscles contracted, rollicking with desire for him.
“Dante,” she whispered weakly. “Dante.”
“Yes, sweetheart. What do you want? Tell me what you need.”
“I need you inside me. Now.” She looked into his proud face, reached up to trace her finger along his scar and felt something monumental move inside her. It was an emotion unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
She stopped trying to figure out what it was, and just let it sweep her away.
He was kissing her again—her mouth, her nose, her eyelids, her ears. He was over her and around her and then, at last, he was in her.
“Elle,” he whispered her name, soft as an ocean breeze, caressing her with sound as he rotated his hips from side to side, maintaining tight, intense contact.
Now, with him deep in her snug wetness, she felt every twitch of his body. He lit her up; a match to gasoline. She had no thoughts beyond wanting him deeper, thrust to the hilt inside of her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and rocked him into her. Her fingers gripped his buttocks, pushing him further. It was her turn to own him.
Everything was urgent and desperate and frantic. She felt need, such need. To find, to press, to soothe, to fly free.
They came together, and infused, she could not tell where he began and she ended. Their connection was absolute and it filled them in every sense. There was no space for anything else. Their oneness banged through their whole bodies. No moment existed in which they were not part of it, of each other.
She bristled with joy. It felt strong and resilient. It rippled through her body, burning her to a crisp, and she loved it.
When it was over and they were two once more, Elle lay panting in his arms. The total obliteration of what had just happened scared her witless.
The wipeout had been pure. Complete. Unadulterated lust had knocked her into a trance from which she feared there was no awakening.
“YOU KNOW WHAT I JUST realized?” Elle said to Dante a few minutes later. She rolled over onto her side, propped her cheek atop her stacked hands and studied him in the muted evening light seeping through her bedroom window.
“What?” he asked leisurely, lazily shifting his fingers through her hair.
“I barely know anything about you.”
His eyes darkened. She could see him mentally pulling away from her as he had that night on the pool table. He was already leaving, packing his bags, trudging his emotional suitcase to the curb.
Suddenly she understood something. Good-looking, successful, accomplished Dr. Dante Nash had never been in love. To test her theory, she asked him the question: “Have you ever been married?”
He didn’t answer right away. It looked as if he wasn’t going to answer, but then finally, he admitted, “No.”
“Ever come close?”
“No.”
“Why not? You’re rich, handsome, smart.”
“I never thought of myself as the marrying kind,” he mumbled, bringing her hand to his mouth and gently nibbling her knuckles. It was distracting, the feel of his lips on her skin.
“Why’s that?” she asked, determined to find out more about this enigmatic man she’d bedded twice in twenty-four hours.
Dante shrugged. “My work requires all my focus.”
“You don’t want kids?”
“I want you.” He tried to draw her to him again, but she splayed her palm against his chest, keeping him at arm’s length.
“Answer the question. Don’t you want kids?”
“I suppose I never gave it much thought.”
“How can you not have given it much thought?”
“I don’t know. I just haven’t.” He fell back against the pillow, cradled his head in his palms and stared up at the ceiling.
She was losing his attention, but she felt compelled to ask. She was falling for this guy and before she let herself get in too deep, she had to know the answer to the deal-breaking question. If he didn’t want children someday, she had to let go of the happily-ever-after fantasy that was starting to curl around her mind.
“Thirty-four.”
“And you seriously haven’t given kids much thought?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“What does that mean.”
“Nothing. I just said oh.”
“It sounded like you were disappointed.”
“Maybe I am.”
“And like you were judging me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“But it sounded like it.”
“Sounds like you’re projecting to me.”
He snorted. “We both know too much psychology.”
“Hey, you don’t know anything about psychology until you’ve lived with a sociopath psychologist.”
“You think Mark is a sociopath?”
“He uses people,” she said, “and then he throws them away without the slightest bit of remorse or conscience. I don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like that again.”
“I’m not like Mark.”
“I don’t know that. You don’t give up much of yourself. How can I know that?” She licked her lips, hating that she sounded halfway desperate.
He studied her and she wished she hadn’t gotten on the topic of Mark. “The bastard sure did a number on you. He violated your trust.”
Elle lifted her shoulders, tried to look unconcerned. “It’s over. I lived to tell the tale. So what about you? Any sordid relationship-gone-wrong stories on your side of the fence?”
“Not really.”
“No broken hearts?”
“Sorry, no. Does that disappoint you?”
“It concerns me.”
He turned over on his side again and looked surprised. “It does?”
“I’m worried about you. How do you get to the ripe old age of thirty-four without getting your heart broken?”
“Luckily I guess.”
Or unable to love, she thought sadly.
“I’ve had my heart broken,” she said. “By more than just Mark. In fact, by the time our marriage was over, I realized I had never really loved Mark—I had loved the idea of him. He’s got a gift for being what you need him to be. I wanted to warn you, Dante. He’s not who you think he is. He’s not really your friend. Mark is incapable of caring about anyone but himself.”
