Giving in to the incredible rush that sweeps through me and pulls in one direction, I open my eyes with a cry of ecstasy, embracing the passage from sleep to consciousness and also the man who kisses his way up my stomach.
I’m wet and hot from his tongue between my legs, all my most sensitive parts throbbing from my explosive release. Flutters linger in my belly, sparked back into vicious flapping when the man I love and adore nips the sensitive spot where my neck meets my shoulder.
“Dante,” I moan, breathing him in.
He smells like shower gel and that understated, sophisticated scent of leather and virility, of a beautiful, powerful, and dangerous man.
Our eyes meet when he lifts his head to stare at me with a cocky smile on his sexy lips. I’m lost in the depths of those amber pools, in the flames that burn for me, and in the ink that covers his skin. A delicious weight presses between my thighs, its hardness a promise of new and fiercer pleasure.
Threading my fingers through his hair, I hold on to that gaze so that I can etch the fire reflecting his own need into my memory. I can never get used to the fact that I have this power over him, that he wants me so much he seems to be in pain. I get a little drunk on the knowledge each and every time.
The growl that rumbles deep in his chest is an affirmation of my thoughts. The intention in his eyes is so darkly predatory that it’s scary. It’s the wild look in the golden eyes of a lion about to tear into its prey. It’s the feverish regard of a devoted believer looking upon his god as he goes down on his knees to pray.
He pushes my nightdress up to my waist and hooks his fingers into the elastic of my panties. I let go of him and lift my hips on his silent instruction, mesmerized by the maddening passion drawn in stark lines on his handsome face as I bend my knees to make the task of removing my underwear easier for him.
He draws the panties free and, like I knew he would, brings them to his nose and inhales deeply.
I lock my arms around his neck again and draw him closer, heat rising to my cheeks. “Why do you always do that?”
“Because it turns me on.”
The answer is straightforward and honest. There’s never been a place for lies in our bed, no matter where we happened to make that bed. Sometimes, it was on a blanket on the beach. At other times, it was the comfortable mattress of a king-sized bed scattered with rose petals in a fancy guesthouse.
There’s never been lies between us. Point.
Or has there been?
The sharpened point of doubt pierces my heart.
“Dante.”
He pushes one bent knee back, opening me up more. The hard, searing promise of earlier becomes a solid pressure where I’m split open, waiting, vulnerable and exposed. His perfect face is a mask of concentration as he slowly drives his hips down until a smooth, thick intrusion parts my folds.
I cry out with pleasure, almost forgetting what I was going to say. He reaches for my wrists where my fingers are intertwined at his nape and gently pulls my hands apart before pushing them palms-up on the mattress above my head. His gaze bores into mine as he takes me deeper, sinking another inch into me.
That shard of glass in my heart compels me to speak. “Where have you been?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He kisses my lips, slipping his tongue between them. I taste myself in the kiss, the climax he’s so generously given me, as well as the lie.
Because it does matter. That’s why he’s inside me now. He always takes me with delirious need and maddening kisses when he has a lot going on in his head, whether that be work or other problems.
I arch my back as he closes the last distance, claiming everything I have to offer with a single thrust.
As he starts to move, he studies my face like a dying man looking upon rain in the desert, obliterating my words. Every punch of his hips steals my breath, coaxing the air to leave my lungs with a gasp.
He keeps a leisurely rhythm. He’s not going to rush this. Diving for my mouth, he catches my bottom lip between his teeth. The nip stings, sending more heat to my core.
I curl my fingers around the big hands pinning mine to the bed, following the dance he leads with his hips. “Were you in danger?”
The scorching heat of the fire in his gaze softens to the hazy glow of smoldering embers, but then he changes his angle and hits a spot that makes my toes curl.
“Don’t worry about me.” He rolls his hips, giving me his dimpled smile. “I can take care of myself.”
“How can I not worry if I don’t know where you are?”
The playful light in his eyes vanishes, leaving him open for me to read. The man behind the civilized veneer appears, the lethal, unfairly attractive male with sharp intelligence who hypnotizes its prey with a disarming smile even as he plunges the blade all the way to the bone.
