26. TWENTY-SIX #2
Laughter melts into sighs. We grip each other like we’re single-handedly keeping the other from melting out of existence.
Emboldened, I grab his shoulders and shove him backward as hard as I can—forcing his back against the nearest tree.
My body thrills at the novelty of each sensation—the slick plane of his toned abdomen against mine, his hands buried in my wet hair, the probe of his tongue.
“I need you,” I breathe. “I need you everywhere.”
“Don’t say that,” Dante pants.
“Why not?”
He pulls back, his breathing heavy. “Because I won’t stop.”
This gets a shiver out of me. My heart hammers faster, anticipation and just a whisper of fear making my mouth go dry.
“Then don’t,” I whisper. “I’m already damned, you know.”
I almost wince at the truth in my own words. But there’s no going back, and I don’t want to.
I look down at my own body—seeing it through his eyes. The water laps around our thighs, casting refractions of shifting light over our skin. Each of us have brutal beauty on our own—but together, we’re fucking magnificent.
I trace my eyes over him next—taking in every line and angle that forge his ruthless, exquisite body.
“Sometimes you look at me like you’ve never seen a male at all,” Dante murmurs, curious despite the lopsided grin aimed my way.
“Well, hardly. Never without a tunic on.”
“Really?” Even with what he knows of Corvus, he’s still capable of gentle surprise at this—brows pinching, eyes bright.
I skate my hands up his chest, shaking my head. “And certainly not the depraved positions we were in last night.”
We share a tender snicker, only for mine to sour into an outraged blush as his grin turns insufferably proud. Me, it seems to say. I made it before all those other fuckers.
I punch his arm. “Don’t look so damn smug about it!”
“Not be proud of claiming you? Imprinting on these angel eyes? You ask the impossible.” Dante’s voice is a gravelly murmur—rough and warm in a way that makes my chest swell.
At risk of fanning his flame, my smile softens. “I never knew half the things I’ve felt in the last day alone,” I confess—as though he didn’t know already. “Like this—”
I pluck at my left nipple, rolling it into a stiff peak. The motion sends a wave of sensation straight into my belly—the kind of touch I had never thought to pursue on myself in the dormitories. I glance at his face and find his eyes glazed with desire.
“Allow me,” Dante says huskily, palming my breast. His hand is large enough to cup it entirely. His calloused palm grifts over the tender skin, massaging me.
He mimics my prior motion on both nipples with finesse even I couldn’t achieve. A century of practice, I think, only a little sour at the reminder. And then he dips his head, pressing his mouth to the nipple and sucks—hard.
“Oh, fuck,” and just like that, my voice is reduced to a whimper.
His fangs tease me before he finally pulls back, seeming to enjoy my little jump of surprise. I’m losing what’s left of my sanity—I can feel it slipping away. Losing myself in this moment, in my own selfish desire for more.
I lower myself, licking from his shaft to his collarbone and back down again, peppering reverent kisses between. I steal a glance up through my lashes at him—drinking in the way his eyes flutter shut with a groan.
Maybe I’m good at this. Or are all men this easily excitable?
As I start to stand once more, a sudden pressure lays over my shoulder, pushing me back down. I look up sharply. The firm hand resting on me is a request—but a searing one, given the look on Dante’s face.
The water laps at my chest now, putting me nose to nose with his arousal.
He’s studying me with predatory intensity, but once again I’m stunned to read worry knotted behind the lust. He cares what I think of him, of this—a devastating amount, apparently.
If I were to give my head the slightest shake in protest, he would release me.
And it’s this thought that has me melting, leaning my cheek against his arm.
With painstaking care, Dante puts my hand on his cock. His erection gives a twitch of anticipation under our joint grasp. He shows me the pressure he wants before removing his hand and combing it back through my hair. I feel like a leashed pet—but a beloved one, I suppose.
“Open your mouth, darling,” he says, that resonant, velvet decibel that I’m certain has led hundreds of souls to their doom. “Tongue out.”
My stomach knots, a quiet jolt cutting through me. I’d pressed bold kisses to his cock once or twice last night, but to take it fully into my mouth... It was intimidating to say the least. I’m still viciously sore in the last area he’d sheathed it.
But I do it. I open my mouth, letting my tongue hang waiting past my lower lip. My cheeks burn at the vulnerability of it, but I’m too curious, too hungry to refuse.
And not when this might be our last night together and my last taste of him altogether.
With a roll of his hips, the head slides across my tongue. There’s already a little wetness there that blends with the taste of crisp water—saltiness and skin. Dante shudders, head tipping back against the tree trunk.
The next slide is sloppier, grazing across my lips and cheek. And then, with a seed of intuition, I open my mouth wider and allow him in.
Dante gives a deep groan, unraveled. He pumps—slowly at first, then picks up. My free hand flies up to grasp his hip, steadying myself while still working the base of him with my other hand.
My eyes widen as nearly every impossible inch of him slides deeper into my mouth, stealing my voice, my breath, my very ability to form a coherent thought. Cool water sloshes around us as I begin to bob my head to match his pace, sending droplets onto my eyelashes and cheeks.
And I realize—he’s fucking my mouth.
I can’t tell how long it’s been when Dante withdraws, giving me a chance to pull in a few deep gasps.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No,” I rasp, looking up at him with watering eyes, a silent invitation in the slight curve of my lips.
I lean in, trailing my mouth along his slick length until my nose brushes against the short gold hairs that trail up to his navel.
I can take him deeper. I know I can.
In a blink, he’s back in my mouth. I gag when he pushes further this time, almost hitting the back of my throat. I can’t pull in more than a shallow gasp of air around his girth. My moan of surprise catching around him, seems to nearly tip him over the edge. Dante gasps and curses.
He fists a hand into my hair at the roots—as though to make sure his view remains unobstructed.
I can’t imagine I possibly look attractive like this, with my eyes bloodshot and expression strained.
But there’s no denying when I steal a glance up at him—he’s in heaven, that shadowed glint memorizing me.
“Can you suck harder?” his voice cuts through my dizziness. “Harder.”
I do my best—and I feel another shiver of pleasure run through his whole body.
“Oh my God,” he groans, like a plea. I rather like it, hearing him all but begging me. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful.”
It dawns on me, the power I have here on my knees. Each stroke of my tongue is undoing him more than any blade ever could.
With a haggard noise, Dante pulls out, leaving me gasping and wiping saliva from my mouth. I don’t get a moment to recompose my dignity before he’s heaving me back to my feet.
The air clips my bare skin until I’m wrapped in his arms again. He kisses me with shocking gentleness along my shoulders and up my throat while filthy words burn my ears.
“Look at the stars in your eyes,” Dante murmurs.
“I—wasn’t finished.” I pant.
“I know. I nearly was,” Dante ducks to kiss my swollen lips. “The woman sent to kill me… So pretty on her knees for me. You’re making me lose my goddamn mind. Christ, Ariya.”
My expression turns reproachful. “Must you be blasphemous?”
“My very existence is sacrilege, and you pry at semantics?” He pinches my mouth, running a thumb over my lower lip—very much looking like he’s replaying the entire exchange already.
“It’s a crime that you’ll be locked away in that fucking abbey. This mouth was made to take me.” His smirk softens. “Did you like that?”
I nod.
“You’ll enjoy this, too.”
He locks his arms around me and pulls us into shallower waters, shoving my back up against another tree.
My feet scramble for purchase against the tangle of roots, but with his grip, I doubt I’d fall an inch even if I wanted to.
There’s a gratifying ease on his face as he takes control, as though it may literally kill him if he isn’t on top.
But even as the rough bark digs into my skin, I have no urge to complain under his caresses. Every skillful touch of his hands is a heaven that I don’t deserve.