Dante leaned in close to Lacey, inhaling her vanilla-scented hair, now going wild with the steam from the shower. “I think you need to be very careful what you wish for, honey,” he said, but his own words dripped more promise than warning, and he could tell by the way her eyes dilated that she was so far gone that rational thought just wasn’t happening here. “And you gotta stop looking at me like that. I’m hanging on by a thread here.”
“I don’t want you hanging on by a thread,” she whispered, and the urgency in her voice sent another shock wave of need through him. “I want you—this … oh, forget it. If you’re not going to get in, I am.” She angled away, crossing her arms to pull off her tunic with an angry little yank. Despite the boldness of the move, she immediately bunched up the material in her hands in front of her breasts as she whirled back to him, and her breath came fitfully through her lips, her cheeks still red.
The ping-ponging back and forth between idolizing fan and needy woman wasn’t new in Dante’s world. He got it all the time, and he was used to it by now. But on Lacey, it looked different. This was the same woman who had managed to reach into the back of his brain and tickle memories he hadn’t let himself think about in too many years. She’d shown flashes of seeing more in him than just what he appeared to be—or even what he’d been. And now she was standing in front of him, clearly not sure what the hell she was doing anymore. He didn’t know either, and the idea teased and tantalized him like nothing he’d felt in years.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, as he reached out lazily and pushed her tunic-clutching fingers down, down, until Lacey’s smooth black silk bra was all that remained between him and the soft, round handfuls of her breasts. He slid his fingers under the tight material of her bra, and was rewarded with a soft hiss from Lacey. Her eyes darkened, and her mouth opened in a round, lush O.
He leaned into her then and covered that mouth with his own, palming her breasts through the thin material now damp with steam and Lacey’s own heat. Her nipples had hardened into tight, mouthwatering buds, and he dragged his thumbs over them, delighting in the moans that Lacey couldn’t quite hold back. He dropped one hand down the curve of her waist to the small of her back, molding her body to his. He knew the exact moment she felt his erection nudge against her belly by the strangled hiss of her breath as he teased her mouth open with soft determination. When she opened to him on a sigh he deepened the kiss, branding her mouth with his, pushing into it with the same intensity that he wanted to apply to every other inch of her body.
“Dante,” Lacey gasped against his mouth. She tried to move back again, but the room was only so big. There was no place to go. She’d dropped the shirt at some point and was now holding on to the towel at his waist. He doubted she knew that she was the one holding it in place, not the flimsy knot he’d tied. He traced a line along the curve of her jaw, pausing on the erratic pulse point at her throat, grinning with the knowledge that he was doing this to her, he was taking her places she hadn’t expected to go. And he wasn’t done yet.
“I think you’re still overdressed, honey.”
Lacey couldn’t track all of the sensations rocketing through her, but when Dante leaned back from her and she felt the catch of her bra spring open, spilling her breasts more fully against his chest, she couldn’t stop her surprised exhalation.
“So beautiful,” Dante murmured again, and he tilted her with the palm of his hand splayed against her lower back, leaning down to drag his mouth along her overheated skin to where her body ached for him to go. He took too long to get there, though, exploring the curve of her right breast as it flared out and around, licking, nipping, and tasting its soft fullness until she felt her hands fisting at his sides, the thick white terry cloth of his towel caught in a stranglehold as he finally blew a cool whisper of breath over the tight nub of her nipple and then turned her inside out as he drew the tip of her breast into his mouth, sucking gently at first, and then with more insistence as her hips instinctively shifted forward and she felt the hard length of his erection fit more securely into the vee of her thighs.
Then Dante was grinning at her and she blinked, confused, until through the swirl of sensations she realized he’d slipped his hands beneath the waistband of her leggings, the soft material giving him easy access to her bare ass and the tiny scrap of a thong that clearly didn’t cover anything at all. “I really like these,” he said, kneading her butt with fingers so long and strong she felt like she was going to come apart if he got them anywhere closer to her center. “But I think we can get rid of them now.”
He slid her leggings down her legs and somehow, impossibly, followed the movement with the rest of his body, until his face was right at her hips and he was staring—oh dear God, thank heavens she’d shaved this morning, but it’s not like she … She hadn’t thought … And then Lacey’s world rolled completely sideways as Dante leaned forward and circled her hip bone with his tongue before pressing his teeth against her and drawing her skin into his mouth. Lacey came unglued, her hands in his hair, her fingernails raking Dante’s shoulders, something unintelligible coming out of her mouth as she felt rather than heard the shushing sounds of his mouth against her inner thigh. She felt naked, exposed—hell, she was naked and exposed—but as he shifted again she took the tiny opening of space to step back into the open shower stall. And under a torrent of superheated water.
“Oh!” she managed to hide her distress, her relief as she tilted her head back and allowed the water to stream the hair from her eyes until it fell into a thick heavy coil behind her head. She wasn’t ready for Dante to kiss her so intimately, not there, not all at once—she wasn’t ready for any of this, and yet she wanted it so desperately, so desperately, as if one brief moment with him would create enough memories to last a lifetime. If she could just keep her cool, just keep her sanity long enough for it to happen, she could put it away in a box and treasure it for the rest of forever.
She peered out through the fall of water as Dante slowly straightened, the grin on his face making it clear that he knew she was running away from him, but that where she’d run to was by no means safe. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled the towel off his hips and tossed it aside. His erection sprang free and she stared, mesmerized by the sight for the bare second he gave her to process it before he stepped into the shower with her and pressed all of his hot, hard, and now soaking wet body against her, crowding her up and back against the walls that seemed to come alive with half a dozen sideways nozzles, one of them apparently right under her—
“My God!” She squirmed as a burst of warm water pounded against the back of her thighs, causing her legs to part instinctively even as Dante reached his hand into the flow of water, cupping her sex, his fingers swirling against her, parting her to experience the pulse of water more intimately, more forcefully. She gasped and his mouth was on her again, his tongue pushing into her mouth even as she molded herself against him, wanting more, wanting everything. Her hands skimmed over the muscles bunched in his chest, the slick slide of tattoos that trailed over his shoulders and flowed down his arms, the hard angles of his waist and bare curve of his hips before the long, hard muscles of his legs took shape beneath her questing fingers. He was angled slightly away from her to give himself access, but two could play that game, and she gathered the hard length of his erection in her right hand, giving it a long, firm stroke up before softly rolling the tip in her fingers. The hot, agonized hiss that escaped Dante’s mouth as he sagged against the shower wall melted her bones. She had done this to him, had caused that sound. She wanted more. She wanted him to break open. He had to be close—he was breathing hard already. She circled his thick shaft with both her hands once again, one dipping down to cup his balls, and the hiss turned into a low, warning growl.
“Lacey, that’s really not a good idea,” Dante said tightly, and his voice commanded her attention, drawing up her gaze so they stared at each other for a moment, spray all around them. Lacey shook her head, pushing his hands out of the way so they stopped the impossible stoking of heat between her legs. At this point the man just needed to whisper in her direction and she’d shatter. But she wanted to be in control, she wanted this.
“Let me,” she said, her voice more intense than she’d ever heard it. “Let me try to—”
“Honey, there’s no ‘try’ to it,” Dante said. “I’m ready to explode as it is—God, your hands. You’re so good—so fucking good.”
“Then show me, tell me,” Lacey said. She had never gotten a guy off quite like this. Her sex life hadn’t been completely vanilla but—Dante’s shaft was quivering, thick and heavy, and her thoughts unhinged for a moment just imagining what it would be like to have him at her mercy that way, too, the taste of him—the feel of him in her mouth. Not possible in this shower but at least—at least she had her hands, and it seemed more dangerous, more exciting than sex, and—
“You’ve got to get that look off your face,” Dante groaned, and he hitched his hips toward her as she stroked his balls, balancing the weight of them in her fingers, marveling at how his erection seemed to get wider, fuller, his entire body clenching and unclenching because of her.
“Come for me, Dante,” Lacey whispered, aghast at the words coming out of her mouth, but rewarded by another half-choked moan that told her he had heard her words as well. “Let me do it—show me how you like to be touched, to be stroked, to be—”
“Shit,” Dante bit the word out as he pressed her away from him and his seed spilled into the stream of water and was swept into the drain, his body convulsing with thudding pulses as Lacey watched, marveling at the strength of him, at the power of his orgasm, at the power she felt knowing he had broken because of her, for her, with her. She reached out, drew her hands down his back, pressing her forehead against his shoulder as she sighed in deep and luxurious pleasure.
Then Dante turned and gathered her into his arms, the water streaming over both of them. When she would have hidden her head against him, he tilted her chin up until she was staring into his deep, dark, chocolate eyes. “That,” he said, speaking the words with an intensity that set her body into another tightening spiral, “was not the way this was supposed to go.”
“You didn’t like it?” she asked, knowing he had, but feeling suddenly uncertain, as if this man before her wasn’t the man she’d known—thought she’d known—at all.
“I fucking loved it, sweetheart.” Dante shook his head, but his gaze remained serious, focused. “But I’m not a guy to leave a girl to do all the work, and the last I could tell …” His fingers were sliding over her breast again, her nipple tightening painfully in his grasp as he pinched it hard enough for her breath to catch, then soothed the abraded skin with a gentle stroke. “We still have some unfinished business.”
“Really, Dante, I’m fine—,” Lacey began, but both of his hands were moving now, squeezing her breasts, and his mouth had dropped to the column of her neck, her collarbone. When he pulled her toward him to adjust the controls behind her, it just seemed natural for her to fall back against the slick surface of the shower wall, her hips tilting forward before she could stop herself.
Even as she tried to regain her balance, Dante caught her around the waist, his long fingers splayed against her ass. “Uh-uh-uh,” he said, smiling at her wickedly as his other fingers dipped down, separating the folds of her labia and pressing into her with such an easy confidence that Lacey would have sworn he’d studied a map of her body for weeks. One finger became two and she gasped at the stretch, looking up to see his dark eyes intent upon her. “So tight, so sweet,” he murmured, the fire banked in his gaze flaring to life. “I want to put my mouth on you and taste you, taste what I’m doing to you—”
“No—,” Lacey began, suddenly mortified, and Dante chuckled darkly.
“Not this time. When I do it, I’ll do it right.” He drew his fingers away and Lacey couldn’t help whimpering, shuddering as he dipped back into her, pulled out, then returned in a maddening ritual that seemed to wind her tighter at each touch. “And make no mistake, I will be tasting you soon, Lacey.”
She closed her eyes against the explosive reactions he was setting off within her, and Dante murmured her name, his fingers still swirling, teasing, circling the one spot that she needed him desperately to touch, to ease. Her hips were now shaking in anticipation, wriggling to get forward, to get him to just shift. It was only the sound of his soft laughter that drew her back to semiawareness, so deeply had she sunk into a haze of sheer need. “You want me somewhere?” he teased, his words dripping with knowledge and heat. “Maybe here?” As he spoke his fingers touched—too lightly, too quickly!—the very focal point of all of her need, and she gasped and tried to squirm toward him even as he pulled away, teasing her overheated skin, his other hand kneading her ass, which was causing her attention to split and fracture, only to return inexorably to the pulse point he was avoiding.
“I think you want it here, don’t you?”
“Dante!” Lacey gasped. “Please don’t—don’t stop—just …”
And this time he didn’t, and Lacey felt the roar of a body-splitting orgasm sweep over her like a wave she knew was coming but couldn’t escape. It caught her up in its undertow and flung her forward, and she shattered into a million pieces in an experience so sharp, so strong, so impossibly intense that she couldn’t feel her legs, her arms, her feet—just the powerful convulsions that shook her from the inside out, and she thought she heard Dante’s growl of triumph and then …
She floated back to earth a few moments later, suddenly aware of the water still streaming over them, her body cradled in Dante’s arms, and the soft pressure of his lips on her forehead as they simply stood and shuddered and breathed.
Then Dante tightened his arms around her, chuckling as he apparently realized she’d returned to him. “There you are, Ms. Dawes,” he said, his voice deep with satisfaction. “I guess it’s time to get back to work.”