Whatever the cause, I was overwhelmed with fright. I threw myself into Dante’s arms and wrapped my own around the soft fabric of his shirt.
“Cedric! I can’t… the captain…” Dante’s body had stiffened under me. His hand dropped from my shoulder.
“I’m rather afraid,” I murmured into his front. It was an understatement, but he already seemed rather overwhelmed, and I didn’t want to make it worse.
His arms settled around me almost gingerly.
Something about me frightens him, I thought. That idea was so awful I buried myself tighter against him, inhaling his peculiar dry pages scent. A funny thing for a pirate to smell of.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not letting go. “I know I ought to be braver, but I’m not. I’m not brave.”
Dante’s arms tightened around me, and I felt a touch to my hair, his mouth perhaps or his nose nuzzling into my curls.
“You don’t have to be anything, Cedric,” he murmured. His low voice rumbling in his chest where my ear was pressed. It went some way to console me. “You’re in an extraordinary situation and you’re coping with it as best you can.”
I took a deep breath and sat up a little, keeping close to Dante but pulling back enough to look him in the eyes. In the back of my mind I was realising that I was naked and Dante had his arms around me, but I didn’t want to break the spell of his kindness. These tender words he was saying seemed to be hard won, and I wanted as many of them as I could get, especially after how Gabriel had treated me.
“Do you really think so?” I asked, pathetically.
“Yes, I do.” Then he leaned in slowly and kissed me on the mouth.
If Gabriel’s kisses were fire, demanding, consuming, then Dante’s kiss was something more beguiling. A mist perhaps, beckoning one inside, cooling and muffling, while concealing ...who knew what? Both fire and mist had danger associated with them, and I welcomed both.
He kissed slowly, tipping his head to the side and moving his lips as if beckoning something out of me. I opened my mouth to him with a soft sigh.
Unfortunately, that sigh broke whatever spell had been cast between us and he pulled back.
His eyes had become darker, somehow. A deep, seaweed green that promised hidden depths. A tide pool far deeper than expected.
“I can’t,” he said, although it was barely louder than a whisper.
My fear made me bold, and I climbed further into his lap. “You bloody well can.” I kissed him hard, demanding what he had promised me a moment before. Demanding he not only pay attention to me, but give me what I wanted.
Dante kissed me back, his body surged under mine and I felt his hardness, unmistakably large and pressing against my behind.
“God yes,” I moaned into his mouth.
This time he didn’t just pull back, he pulled me off him bodily, his eyes narrowed, and his lips parted, panting gently. “No, I can’t.”
I scrambled, trying to touch him again but he shied back from me.
“You don’t have to control yourself, I’m asking for it,” I said. “I think you’re impossibly attractive and you’re kind as well, I just want-”
Dante stood up and took a few steps back, putting himself out of my reach. “It’s too dangerous, besides, you’re the Captain’s…”
“I am?” I smiled, pleased despite myself. “I don’t mind being yours, too. Unless you’d rather be mine? I’m flexible, I don’t mind.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, and he was going to tell me more reasons why the answer was no, but I missed his arms around me and god damn it but I needed that back. My fear and desire were all jumbled up together and now I was annoyed. It welled up in me uncontrollably.
“I do understand, you’re afraid of the captain, possibly even afraid of this thing on my back!” I shouted.
His hissed, his face contorting into something pointy and strange, his nose wrinkling. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Then he turned on his heel and left the room. I cast around for my clothes, found my trousers and pulled them on. A hard lump in the pocket. The charm from the witch. She’d said it would guard my dreams.
It hadn’t been on my person last night and I'd had that nightmare. I pulled on my shirt and stuffed the charm back in my pocket. I’d ask Gabriel for something to make it into a pendant later, but I didn’t think Dante had locked the door behind him, and our conversation was not over. I wouldn’t let it be.
I let myself out of the captain’s cabin as quietly as I could manage and found myself out on the deck. Quickly I darted along the wall, found the closest door to the deck below and slipped through it.
No one shouted, so I assumed I hadn’t been seen. Now I just had to track Dante down.
Chapter 17
In which Cedric pursues Dante
I couldn’t have told you exactly why it felt so imperative to follow Dante at just that exact moment, except that the opportunity of the unlocked door was too good to pass up. I could have sought out Gabriel of course, but he’d have just sent me back to the cabin.
I could have sought out Marco perhaps? But I still had the taste of Dante on my lips, the alluring coolness of his skin, the way he’d wanted me but pulled away. Perhaps I was wrong and all of this was a mistake? But I’d felt his hardness. The way he’d coaxed my tongue into his mouth and his hands on me, pulling me in. His eyes on my bare skin.
I found the cell where I’d been held previously, the one blanket still in a heap on the narrow cot.
I had to be careful, if the wrong member of crew found me wandering around I could be in trouble.
Thankfully, I heard something then. A growl, or perhaps more correctly a howl of annoyance. And I knew that voice.
I followed the sound to a cabin with the door ajar. I pushed it open, holding my breath, as I took in the sight of Dante tossing a bottle across the room. It shattered into pieces, allowing the contents, which looked like sherry perhaps, or a particularly dark red wine to splash over the deck and the wall.
“Bit of a waste,” I said, stepping inside and closing the door behind me.
Dante whirled to look at me, his eyes narrowed and his teeth bared. “Stay back!”
Something in his expression was raw, almost animal and my heart skipped a beat. I pressed myself back against the door, trying to make sense of what about his face was wrong. It was his teeth, I realised. He had too many of them, or perhaps they were too large?
He didn’t usually look like that, so I was mostly curious rather than afraid.
“What’s wrong with your mouth?” I blurted, before thinking perhaps this was all a stupid mistake and I should have stayed in Gabriel’s bed like a good little hostage. There was a smell to this room, and it wasn’t of spilled wine. It was something else, something that was familiar but I couldn’t quite place.
Dante shut his mouth, brought a hand up to cover his mouth and glared at me. “Nothing. Leave me alone.”
“I will if you really want me to,” I said. “But after kissing you just now, I rather thought you wanted more, and I definitely want more, so can we just… try that instead?”
“Foolish boy,” Dante said. He turned away from me, his shoulders hunched, his back a line of tension I’d have to sketch with the aid of a ruler. All angles and sharpness. “This is for your own good.”
“I’m not foolish,” I said, then added, “well, most of the time. I’m young but I know what I want. I want you, and I know you want me too, so what’s the problem?”
Something clicked into place and I realised then, what the smell was. Blood.
I narrowed my eyes, looking Dante over. He was still turned away, his shoulders moving as if he were breathing hard. He didn’t appear to be injured at all though. I looked at the smashed bottle and the rapidly congealing contents. It wasn’t wine at all, but something turning viscous and brown.
“Blood?” I breathed. I stepped away from the door intent on investigating. “Was that a bottle of blood?”
“Yes,�
� Dante said. His voice low again. Controlled but only just. There was a tremble in it, something being held back.
“Why on earth would you have a bottle of blood…” I said out loud, and then my own blood ran chill in my veins. “Oh my Lord, you’re one of the cultists! You’re waiting for the right moment and then you’re going to kill me!”
Dante tensed, turned back to me, his expression now one of incredulity, his hand dropped from his mouth which looked perfectly normal now. “Really? That’s the conclusion you came to?”
“I’ll admit,” I said, frowning. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but… you knew what the symbol on my back meant, you knew I was having a strange dream.” I warmed to the subject and spoke a little more confidently. “I don’t know why you haven’t just killed me, but perhaps you’re making sure I’m being delivered into their clutches!”
“I am not a member of a suicidal cult to the old gods,” Dante said. He looked at the blood and then at me, sighed and spread his hands out in a gesture of surrender. “I’m a vampire.”
I opened my mouth to respond but my mouth was dry and every thought had vanished out of my head.
I closed my mouth again.
“Well?” He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you have anything witty to say about that?”
I swallowed. The magnetism I felt between us, the way he kept staring at my throat. His pallor and the coolness to his skin. I had heard of vampires, in legends and in rumour, but I had no real understanding that they existed.
“Vampire?” I repeated finally.
“Indeed.”
I let the implications sink in - he drank blood. He might want to drink my blood.
But… I didn’t think he wanted to hurt me. I wouldn’t have chased after him if I’d thought that.
Although I’d briefly thought he might be from the murder cult, it was a temporary madness. If I thought about it, I knew deep in my soul that Dante wouldn’t hurt me.
I trusted him, the way I trusted Gabriel. They were pirates, they were murderers, they were intending to give me back to my family only for a large sum of money, but they had treated me kindly, fed me, made sure no one was taking advantage or abusing me. I felt safe on this ship, if somewhat confined.
Dante might be a blood sucking vampire, but he was loyal to Gabriel and I knew Gabriel to be a good man. An honourable one.
No, these men wouldn’t hurt me.
“I don’t mind,” I said, finally.
Dante’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t mind,” I said again. I took a couple of steps towards him so he could look in my eyes and see how much I meant it. “Okay, so you’re a vampire. I like bites, I ask my lovers to bite me all the time. It doesn’t bother me. I assume you’re not going to kill me, or you’d have said that was the problem.”
“It’s somewhat implied in the whole being a vampire thing,” Dante said. His hand covered his eyes and he sighed, then raised his hand a little to massage his own forehead. “You really have no sense of self-preservation, do you?”
I shrugged and smiled. “Hardly any, or I wouldn’t be on this ship with a cursed tattoo on my back.”
“Offering yourself to a bloodthirsty creature of the night,” Dante said.
“Are you always this dramatic?” I asked, moving a little closer still and smiling, because he wasn’t pushing me away now.
“I’m not being dramatic, I'm being realistic. Gabriel has told me no.”
“Do you always do what Gabriel tells you to do?” I reached up to touch the smoothness of his cheek. His cool skin made sense now. He didn’t move away from my touch.
“Obviously I do, he’s the captain.”
“If you let him tell you who to fuck then he’s more than that,” I teased. Dante held my gaze and I could see the hunger in his eyes. His desire swirled there, close to the surface. He pressed his cheek ever so slightly against my hand.
I felt his jaw tense against my palm. “What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing at all. Just that if you let him decide who to bed, you might as well go to him on your knees and ask him to do what he will with you.” I probably wouldn’t have noticed much of a reaction if I hadn’t been so close to him, with my hand on his cheek. But I felt the slight shudder and saw the way his pupils expanded - a sign of pleasure.
“Be quiet,” Dante said, his voice low and hoarse.
“Make me,” I said, just as quietly.
It was a gamble, but like so many of the things I chose to gamble on, it came out in my favour.
Dante crashed his lips to mine, wrapped an arm around my waist and forced me back against the wall where I moaned, putting my arms around his neck and pulling him in, prolonging the kiss.
His hand slipped down, cupped my rear and squeezed, and my cock responded enthusiastically. I rutted against his thigh - he was a good few inches taller than me, after all, and he was stooping to kiss me.
“God yes.” Dante tensed in my arms and I bit my lip. “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that, does it hurt you? I don’t have a cross or anything.”
Dante huffed and covered my mouth with his hand. “Just shut up. And don’t take the Lord’s name in vain because yes, it stings.” I winked at him so he’d know I understood and then he took his hand away and was kissing me again.
I pushed back against him, trying to aim him for the bed, but his strength, his vampire strength, I supposed, prevented me from budging him even a little. Relenting, I unlaced his shirt with one hand and caressed his chest. He had a chain around his neck with a pendant hanging off it. Some kind of witch’s charm perhaps?
Dante kissed my jaw and then very gently nipped it. “Want something, sunshine?” Sunshine? I don’t hate that...
“Just you,” I said, softly. “Possibly on the bed, but I’m open to suggestions.”
“Here’s fine.” Dante lifted me, pressing my back against the wall and yanked my trousers down. “Tell me why you want me.”
I slipped my hand down to open his trousers and free his cock, wrapping my hand around him and stroking him. His cock was long, not as thick as the captain’s but not narrow. It was a beautiful heaviness in my palm.
“I want you because you’re handsome and mysterious and…” I breathed out and tugged on his cock a little more. “Because you’re...” I had been about to say something like ‘you came running when I had a nightmare’ but that didn’t seem as sensual and exciting as I wanted to sound. Instead I went with something definitely exciting. “You’re dangerous.”
Dante kissed my neck. “You’re right, I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured against my skin.
“I mean, you could bite me,” I said. His fingers slipped down my rear and pushed inside without hesitation. I was still aching a little, in the sweet, used way from Gabriel’s attention the night before.
“Are you sure?” Dante pushed his finger inside me and I whined with need.
“Yeah, I’m sure, I like bites.”
Dante withdrew his finger, carried me to the bed and laid me down. Looking up at him with his dark eyes and his sharp cheekbones and his long dark hair hanging down as if he’d misplaced his hairbrush. My heart skipped a beat but I ignored it in favour of the pulse I knew must be beating in my throat. I tipped my chin up, inviting him in.
“Not yet,” he twisted his finger inside me, stretching me open impatiently. His other hand retrieved a pot of oil, and he used it to slick his own cock before bringing it to tease at my hole. “It’s best when we’re just about to come.”
“Ohh.” I let my arms drop down to his hips, pressing my fingers into his hips and pulling him closer, pushing my knees up, planting my feet on the bed to give him a better angle for entrance. “Come on then.”
He smirked and dropped a careless kiss on my knee before pushing inside with agonising slowness.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to lecture me about patience,” I groaned, although in truth I wanted to be teased. He seemed to know this because he ac
tually moved slower still. His hands moved over my body, feeling me, caressing my skin and focusing on my chest. I gasped as his nail lightly grazed my nipple and he smirked. “Finding my weak spots are you?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much, Cedric?” he said, his voice a low drawl. His accent had become more pronounced now that he was pressed inside of me. I swallowed hard.
“Yes, obviously, all the time.”
He chuckled again. “And you never listen?”
“If I didn’t talk as much as I did, I’d never get the things I want,” I said.
He frowned a little, considering, and then nodded. He leaned in, pushing my knees apart as he claimed my mouth with his. I reached up to tangle a hand in his hair and pull gently, encouraging him to do more, give me more. He obliged but slowly, seemingly determined to test my patience, what little there was of it.
“Cedric, slow down,” he murmured against my lips.
“Why?”
“Because there’s pleasure in anticipation.” He pulled back from the kiss and pulled himself almost all the way out, luxuriating in the pull and tug of withdrawing before pushing back inside a little quicker. It was a divine sort of feeling - although obviously not Heavenly, after what he’d asked me before.
“You called me sunshine, before,” I said, putting on a pout.
He ruffled my hair with his hand and then cupped it at the base of my skull, holding me in place as he buried himself deep inside. He repeated the withdrawal and pushing in several times until I was trembling, biting my tongue so I didn’t beg him. I felt sure if I begged he’d simply go slower still and that was the last thing I wanted.
He continued far past what seemed like a reasonable time. “Please, Dante, I need more. Touch me.”
He hummed and pressed his finger into my mouth which wasn’t at all what I’d meant, but it tasted salty and like the coconut oil and I sucked on it quite happily. He watched me with something like wonder, and I saw his eyes go even darker than before.
Kidnapped by the Gentleman Page 8
