Nexus

  “More . . .” she whispered against his neck.

  “Bloody hell, Angel.”

  Dante fisted her hair, forcing her mouth to his. He swept his tongue inside her mouth to intermingle with hers—thick, controlling, and delicious. A gush of warmth pooled between her thighs. Oh, God . . . she wanted him so bad.

  More.

  Dante was the first to break the kiss, his head falling back yet again with parted lips. His chest rose and fell with labored breaths as Tori licked and sucked a path to his neck again, and then over the defined muscle of his shoulder and arm, down his chest, inhaling his manly scent along the way and devouring every inch of skin she had been ogling since her arrival. She wanted him, and there was no way she was going to be deterred.

  Tori pulled her hand away from his and pushed at the material only barely covering his hip. Sliding down his body, she nipped at that tantalizing swell of the Adonis belt muscle at his hip while Dante toed his boots off. When she licked at the mark she had made and closed her lips over the spot, Dante paused to make an appreciative sound. Like a woman on a mission, Tori rolled him forward until the partially obscured mark on his lower back was in reach. Then she pulled his pants down to reveal it more fully, her mouth closing over it and her tongue making a swirling motion.

  Dante moaned . . . loudly, arching his back and fisting her hair again to hold her securely in place. Tori’s girly bits throbbed as a longing ached in the pit of her stomach. More. She wanted, she needed, more.

  Unable to contain her hunger or her lust, she pulled back, eyed the delectable curve of his ass, and then bit into his flesh. The sound that erupted from Dante was a mixture of pain and pleasure that turned into a blissful hum when Tori flattened her tongue to lick and suck at the marred skin to erase the sting.

  Dante grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up and onto her back as he hovered over her, quickly shedding what was left of his clothing altogether. Unable to resist the urge, Tori assessed the magnificence of the man perched precariously above her, really seeing him—all of him—for the first time.

  He was beautiful.

  Like an artist had chiseled his every feature, broad shoulders angled into a perfectly sculpted chest and then tapered into a slim waist. And then she looked between their bodies. An audible whimper came from somewhere inside her. It wasn’t because his cock was such a formidable presence—although it most certainly was; in fact, the thing was huge—but it was because there were finally no barriers between them. Her more was in her grasp, mere inches away and on the cusp of becoming a reality.

  Her heart thumped and she squirmed beneath Dante’s powerful presence, craving that final connection that would make her complete. She looked up at him, that same pleading in her eyes, and an unspoken desire in the way she bit down on her lip.

  Dante’s voice was husky, thick with the knowledge of what they both knew was about to happen. “Tell me to stop, Angel, because I’m losing control and I don’t know if I can stop myself.”

  Tori’s hand roamed up his strong arms to his shoulders, and then she pushed her fingers through his silky hair. “I don’t want you to stop, Dante. I need this. I need you.”

  As she spoke, her other hand made its way between them and she wrapped her fingers around his thickness. Dante closed his eyes and parted his lips as he pushed his hips forward, reveling in her touch. The action caused their lower regions to touch and they both moaned at the pleasure.

  “Please, Dante . . .”

  Dante’s arms buckled and he slowly lowered himself on top of her. She closed her eyes and sighed at the feel of his weight and so much of their skin touching.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he whispered into her ear. “Touching like this? So perfect.”

  Tori hummed in answer, wrapping her arms around his back and holding him to her.

  Dante kissed a trail up her neck, moving against her center without entering to coat himself in her slick arousal. When he reached the spot just below her ear, he kissed her sweetly, caressing the shell with his soft lips while teasing her senses with his warm breath.

  “Open up for me, Angel. Invite me in.” His voice was soft as velvet against her ear.

  Suddenly timid but unwilling to leave the mound without fulfilling her need, Tori lifted her knees, spreading her legs more fully. Dante positioned himself more comfortably between her thighs, taking aim at her center. She could feel him pressed at her opening, and she dug her nails into his skin while burying her face into the crook of his arm beside her.

  “Relax,” he whispered. “Look at me.” When Tori opened her eyes and turned to meet his gaze, the sheer brightness of the Light in his eyes calmed her significantly, and she felt the tension leave her body. “I promise I’ll be gentle.”

  Dante leaned in and kissed her full lips, stroking her into submission. Tori melted into his kiss, letting herself get lost in that special connection that only the two of them shared. Nothing else mattered in that moment. Right then, everything was about as perfect as it ever would be.

  Dante pressed forward, working himself inside her, and then he paused. His kiss became more heated, and Tori hung on for dear life as apprehension threatened to take her under again, but Dante stroked her tongue with his, coaxing her back from the ledge with the gentle pull and suckle of his expert mouth. And then his hips thrust forward.

  Tori reared her head back, grunting at the pain.

  Dante went still. “Shh, just give it a moment,” he said soothingly with his forehead pressed to hers.

  He kissed her swollen lips again, soft and gentle, until the pain ebbed, and then he began to move inside her. Bit by bit, he filled her more and more until he was completely sheathed. He pulled back and looked into her eyes, his lips parted and the cords in his neck taut with restraint.

  “Better?”

  Tori nodded. So much better. So much more.

  “You feel so good, Angel. I’ve never . . .” He clenched his jaw shut and moaned as he pulled his hips back and pushed forward again. “Christ . . .”

  Tori closed her eyes and pressed her head back into the pillow while fisting the blanket under them. Pressing her knees into his sides, her lower body moved with his by pure instinct. More, more, more.

  She dug her nails into his back and bit down on her bottom lip when he increased his pace and buried his face into the side of her neck. Leaning all of his weight onto one forearm, he ran his large hand down the length of her body to hook behind one knee. In and out, in and out, he moved, so agonizingly slow it was almost torture.

  She had felt the ecstasy of his fingers and mouth on her and their clothed bodies moving together, but none of it . . . none of it was anywhere close to the pure euphoric perfection of feeling him move inside her. Harmonic. Whole. She was finally whole. They were whole.

  Tori wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding him to her while still allowing him room to move, because yeah, that was the part that felt the best. She lifted her head and pressed her mouth to his shoulder, alternating between open-mouthed kisses and nips of his skin.

  Moving up her thigh, Dante swept the swell of her ass, the curve of her hip, and along her ribs until he palmed her breast. He dipped his head, capturing the swollen nipple with his mouth, licking and sucking until Tori moaned out in pleasure and dug her heels into his backside.

  He looked up at her with a sultry smirk. “You like that?”

  She nodded, having no ability to form coherent words.

  “Feel me, Angel,” he said as his hips surged against her in long strokes.

  “I do. I feel you,” she said through her breaths.

  “And do I feel good?” He pulled back and thrust into her again, completely immersing himself inside her before rolling his hips against her most sensitive spot.

  Tori nodded. “More,” she moaned.

  Dante shook his head. “Not too fast, Angel. You have no idea how difficult this is for me. So warm. So wet. So eager.”

  Tori lifted her hips t
o meet his next thrust, and Dante hissed as he squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.

  “I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”

  “Oh no. You did something very right.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her again, devouring her mouth as they both moved in unison. Tori let instinct guide her motions and she undulated beneath him, her hands going to the muscular cheeks of his ass. For just a moment, she let them rest there, feeling the rhythmic flexing under her palms until she could stand it no more and gripped them hard.

  Dante found her ear and grunted through heavy breaths as he thrust, rolled his hips, pulled back, thrust, rolled his hips, pulled back. And then he quickened the pace, moving in and out of her with purposeful strokes. He caressed something inside of her, something delicious and just perfect. Tori moaned, her mouth falling open to let the sound resonate through the hollowed space of the mound with an echo.

  “Right there, is it?” Dante whispered, obviously pleased with himself. “Let’s have more of that then, shall we?”

  He did it over and over again, grunting as the constant stroke to that very special place inside her worked her into a frenzy under his constant manipulation. The coil in her abdomen wound tighter and tighter, and she closed her eyes, biting down on her lip and digging her nails into the heated flesh of his ass.

  Dante pulled back to look at her, his eyes hooded and his lips parted with beads of perspiration glistening on his brow.

  “Dante . . .” Her voice affirmed her desperation for release.

  A half smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I know, Angel. I feel it, too.”

  With one more deep thrust, a white hot explosion erupted in her abdomen as the coil snapped free and she cried out her pleasure. She clung to him as her insides released a rhythmic pulse that carried waves of something indescribable to every hidden nook and cranny of her body.

  Dante pulled back to watch her. “Your eyes . . .” he whispered.

  With that, he thrust hard and his whole body tensed, the muscles of his ass clenching tightly under her hands.

  “Let me see,” Tori urged him, wanting to see what he saw in her as she had come undone.

  Dante opened his eyes. The blue of his irises was so bright and bits of honey sparkled like stars in the night sky. Tori was entranced, caught in their hypnotic spell. Then he parted his lips and a deep, throaty moan spilled from them—so sultry, so devastatingly sexy that it forced yet another release to ricochet inside her. She would never forget that sound. There was enough power behind that moan to make her come on demand, and God help her if Dante ever learned to master it well enough that he could brandish it at will. His arms quaked, his legs shook, and his cock pulsed inside her as he came.

  With all the strength she could muster, Tori leaned up and kissed him, taking the sound into herself. It wasn’t until the last of her own release had subsided that she gave up the good fight and fell back to the pillow.

  Three times? Really?

  Dante Dickens is a sex god.

  Dante let out a breathy chuckle that sounded oddly arrogant.

  Oh God. Had she said that out loud?

  Tori looked up at him, finding an egotistical smirk on his face. Yep, she had said it out loud.

  Cripes.

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” he said with a wink. Then he winced as he pulled out of her.

  Tori didn’t like that very much. It made her feel empty, like a part of her was missing.

  “Really? Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am?” Tori asked when he got out of bed.

  Dante bent over the bed, slipping one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. “Not hardly, Angel. You’ll have a bloody hard time getting rid of me easily after that,” he said as he lifted her from the bed and carried her across the room.

  Tori put her arms around his neck and nuzzled his ear. “Where are we going?”

  “Trust me; you’re going to be sore after that, and the only way I know to counteract it is to take care of you properly now.”

  He walked to the back of the hot spring and carried her down the steps and into the pool.

  The water was hot, not unbearably so—just enough to make her want to stretch out and purr, which oddly, Dante had just done only moments ago, only times a thousand.

  He sat her on one of the manmade benches carved into the side. “Stay here,” he said, and then he waded out to the deeper part and dove under the water, giving Tori a fantastic view of a perfect ass with her claw marks imprinted on it. When he broke the surface, he pushed his wet hair back out of his face and sighed with contentment.

  Then he fixed his gaze on her, a knowing smile instantly lighting up his face, but it was no match to the Light in his eyes. She knew what he was thinking, and Tori could’ve sworn she felt the temperature of the water go up by about ten degrees from those thoughts alone. Could he really be that insatiable?

  “It’s not quite the same unless you completely immerse yourself,” he said, wading toward her.

  When he reached the place where she sat, she spread her legs in invitation—would they ever be closed to him again?—and wrapped them around his waist. Dante lifted her from the bench and pulled her to him as he kissed her neck. Pushing his hand into her hair, he angled her head toward him. Tori offered her mouth for the kiss he was about to take, but Dante pulled up short.

  “What? What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Mischief danced in his eyes. “You were being a little naughty back there, weren’t you?”

  “Um, I think we were both being a little naughty,” Tori corrected him.

  Dante smirked. “Point well made, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “What are you talking about then?”

  Without warning, Dante pushed Tori away and spun her around so that her back was pressed to his chest with one arm around her waist.

  She laughed once she got over her initial shock and squirmed in his arms. “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see,” he said at her ear. Then he pushed her hair over one of her shoulders and kissed the back of her neck. Right where her birthmark was.

  “Oh! Oh . . .” she moaned when bolts of concentrated gratification attacked her senses.

  Taking advantage of her inability to stop him, Dante’s fingers slinked their way between her legs and manipulated her special spot while his tongue masterfully worked her mark. Within seconds, yet another orgasm staked its claim, nearly making her body convulse.

  After a short breather, Dante spun her back around to face him with a smirk and a wink. “I believe that would be number four, Angel. Care to make it five?”

  “Are you trying to kill me?” Tori was so lethargic, her voice barely even made a sound. She had asked for more, but now she was thoroughly convinced she’d had her fair share. More than her fair share, actually.

  Dante chuckled and then kissed her softly for a long moment. Somewhere along the way, the kiss changed from playful to passionate, and Tori had to be the first one to break it for fear she may never recuperate if she didn’t. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his, trying to restore her equilibrium because Dante’s kisses were so intoxicating they just might hold the power to upset the balance of nature.

  She felt his nose brush against hers, and then another soft, yet chaste kiss to her lips. His voice was quiet, thick as honey and satiny smooth as his breath washed over her face. “I love you.”

  Those three little words slammed into her like a wrecking ball, knocking the breath from her lungs, and she gasped, but she didn’t open her eyes. She let them sink in and slink their way through her veins until they reached a heart that was pumping so hard it was in danger of bursting from joy. Slowly, she exhaled, and then let the air fill her lungs again with a steady breath. Was she trembling? Did he know the effect those words had? He had to.

  She had heard those words before, but never had they had such a tremendous impact on her. And then she realized she was being too quiet.
br />   Her lids opened slowly and her breathing stopped yet again when she saw the power of the gaze in his eyes. Unable and unwilling to look away, she fixated on the caramel specks swirling and drowning in pools of icy blue. There was something about the way he looked at her, something raw that stripped her bare in return, that asked her to take his hand and let him lead the way, something that made her feel like they were the only two people in existence.

  “Hold your breath, Angel. I’m going to take you under.”

  Little did he know, he already had.

  There was no gasp of air, no show of squeezing her eyes shut or holding her nose to keep out the water. Instead, she kept her hands on his shoulders and her eyes on his and let him immerse them both in the warm spring.

  Seconds later, Tori angled her chin upward and emerged from the water with Dante still holding her to him. Steam rose from their heated bodies and water dripped from Dante’s nose, lips, and chin, but he made no move to wipe them away. Just as she was about to tell him she loved him, too, he pressed his lips to hers.

  Soft and deliberate, unbelievably amazing. This was no power kiss, but of all the kisses they had shared before, this one carried the most punch.

  Dante pulled back first. “You don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know how I feel. And if you say them now, I’ll always wonder if you did so out of a sense of obligation.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe she shouldn’t say it just yet. In the past, she had always felt like uttering those three little words would infinitely bind her to the man to whom she had confessed those feelings. It meant losing a part of herself and everything in her world for just one person, forever binding herself to him for an eternity. She hadn’t been able to make that unbreakable commitment to him.

  But she wanted to make it to Dante.

  Something in the back of her mind pulled her in the other direction, something that reminded her that he had always been there and accepted her despite the gruesome faults that were part of the package that was Victoria Milena Cruz-Grayson. Would Dante? Could he?