But his handsomeness paled in comparison to the dark stranger before her. This male tasted of wine and decadence. Of mystical, exotic power and knowledge.
His tongue swept against hers as her body heated to a fever pitch.
"Are you Dante?" she asked him as she nibbled his firm lips.
"Yes."
Good. At least he wouldn't share her. It was a small relief to know that.
"What is your name, gataki?"
"Pandora Kouti."
He pulled back to smile at her.
"Pandora," he purred as he buried his hands in her hair before inhaling the sensitive flesh of her neck, then licking it slowly. Teasingly. "And what surprises are you hiding from the world in your box, Pandora?"
She couldn't answer as he continued to lick her skin. Her knees buckled. Only the strength of his arms around her kept her from falling.
Dante knew he should leave. He should flash himself into a cold shower somewhere.
But he couldn't.
She was too hypnotic. Too tempting. The animal in him refused to leave until he'd tasted her.
And he would be her first. He could smell her innocent state.
That knowledge alone was enough to make him roar. He'd never taken a virgin before. For that matter, he'd rarely taken any woman of his own species. A pantheress was violent by nature. She had to be held down, and if a male wasn't fast enough, he could be maimed or killed during mating.
Once an orgasm seized a pantheress, the ferocity of it would make her feral. She would turn on her lover with claws and teeth bared. In the case of a Katagari female, she'd turn immediately to her animal form and attack her lover.
The male had to be ready to pull back and flash to his animal form or he wouldn't be able to defend himself from her surging hormonal and psychic overload.
It was a sobering thought.
Dante had never cared much for violent mating. He preferred to take his time pleasing his lover. To sample every single inch of her body at his leisure.
He'd always loved the taste of a woman. The scent of her. The feel of her soft limbs rubbing against his rougher ones. Always liked to hear the sounds of her ecstasy echoing in his ears as he brought her to climax over and over again.
And Pandora…
She would be unlike any lover he'd ever known. His first Arcadian.
His first virgin.
Kissing her deeply, he dissolved the clothes from their bodies so that there was nothing between his hands and her sweet, succulent flesh.
She shivered in his arms.
"It's okay, gataki," he said as he skimmed his hand down her supple back. "I won't hurt you."
His words seemed to make her panic. "You're a Katagari male."
He nibbled her shoulder, reveling in the taste of her soft, salty-sweet skin. She was truly decadent. A mouthwatering treat to sate the beast inside him.
"And I won't hurt you," he reiterated as he nibbled his way around her shoulder blade, down her back, and then around front so that he could taste her breast.
Pandora cried out the instant his mouth closed around her hard, sensitive nipple. Her body jerked and sizzled.
