“You’ll be more comfortable this way. And I’ll be less likely to hurt you,” he said. And it put me in control, as much as a woman could be in control when you made love with a man. It touched me, the gesture. The thoughtfulness behind it. The heavy chains, though, clinking and rattling with each move were distracting and annoying, setting my already jumpy nerves even more on edge.
“Let me remove the chains,” I said, reaching for his shackles.
“No,” he said sharply, pulling his wrists out of my reach. “It’s not safe. I’m not safe yet. Leave them on.”
I mentally dug a hole and buried the last of my unease in it. Yes, I thought, he’s a man worth saving. But instead of making me feel better, it made me feel worse. Never had I felt the burden of my own pleasure so keenly. My initiation into sex had been a painful thing. With humans. Humans that Monère are not compatible with because we’re of a different chemistry, a different race. It wasn’t until I came across another Monère, across Gryphon, that I had found the joy and pleasure that could be had in being intimate with a man.
I’d never had a man’s life—a virgin, to boot—dependent on my glowing in pleasure before. Of him going mad and being executed by his own father if I didn’t. It wasn’t so much his lack of lovemaking skills I was doubting as much as I was questioning my own adequacy. A woman is harder to stir up and please than a man. Pure, unalterable fact. And right now, bruised and unsettled among strangers, bare skin to bare skin with someone I felt I should know but didn’t, I did not feel up to the burdensome task that pleasure had suddenly become.
Dante was calmer, saner now, after I’d eased his pain. Maybe we could wait until we returned to Belle Vista and Dontaine was there to help us. I knew that I could glow with Dontaine.
“What is your name?” Dante demanded in a gritty voice.
“Mona Lisa.”
“Mona Lisa,” he repeated. And while his next words were said in a soft whisper, they were tinged with strain. “Can you…touch me? It’s starting to hurt again.”
My faint hope died. Nope, we weren’t going to be able to wait.
I shifted up on my knees and laid a hand on his chest, another on his forehead. Praying while I did so. Please. Help me be enough for him.
He closed his eyes, relaxing beneath my tingling touch.
As the pain seeped out of him, my touch changed from soothing to caressing, stroking the slight swell of his chest, trailing down the bristly side of his face to trace his slightly chapped lips. Such a smooth-rough contrast. Like what he was—dangerous pleasure. I leaned even closer until our lips were just a breath apart. “Dante,” I whispered, brushing my mouth against his. “Come dance with me.”
We kissed and it was a sweet, light thing. A mingling of breath, of scent. A simple pleasing of our senses.
At first his lips were soft and yielding, pliant. As if he’d never kissed anyone before, and perhaps he hadn’t. As if he were just absorbing the feel of me. Then they firmed, moved across mine in a light caress, brushing across my lips, easing back, coming back at a different angle. He danced with me as I had asked him to. With his mouth, with his lips, only his lips, closed and gentle-rough against mine. He kissed me now as an active participant, with pleased discovery, with growing delight. With quickly learned skill, and slowly budding pleasure. Finding what he liked. What I liked. Building that slight, fragile connection between us with soft caresses, gentle touches. Until I yearned for more than just the feel of his lips brushing against mine. Until I yearned for the taste of him, too.
My tongue swept lightly across his lips. His eyes, still closed, twitched with surprise. I smiled and did it again. A light, deliberate wet stroke across the seam of his mouth. “Open for me,” I whispered.
He did. Our mouths mated again with our lips open, and I tasted him. A light sweep in his mouth, a gentle foray, retreating then. I did it again—gentle probe in, a teasing flicker of my tongue against the tip of his. When I retreated this time, he followed, delving into my mouth with a light stroke of his own. Another, and another. Tasting me as I tasted him. Teasing my tongue as I’d teased his, a sure and quick learner. And all the while our mouths and tongues danced with each other, my hands moved over him. A sweep over his wide shoulders. A caressing stroke down the muscles of his arms. He did not have the thickness and breadth of chest and shoulders that he would have in another century. He had the sweet, budding slenderness of youth still yet, with more. The muscles carving his body marked his entry into manhood, and his claim on a warrior’s body, strength, and will. That will now was focused on finding my pleasure.
We were playing a more intimate version of Simon Says. He did as I did, went where I went. His hands lifted, touched me, across the shoulders, feathering over my collarbones. He sighed into my mouth with pure unadulterated delight at the raw pleasure of touching me, tangling our tongues together in a wet, intimate caress. He sipped upon me, nibbled on my lower lip.
When I tensed and drew in a breath as his teeth skimmed across my flesh, he said in a gritty whisper, “No biting, no blood. I remember. But all other things I may do, yes?”
“Yes.”
He smiled and watched me with half-closed eyes. The hard intent gleam, his rough stubble, the primitive ear piercing, and the darkness I sensed in him tangled up with this gentleness—it all sent a tremor shooting through me. Because playing with him was like playing with a keg of dynamite. Safe until it blew up on you. And that darkness that dwelled within me—that had been a part of me even before I took in the demon essence—was both scared and thrillingly turned on by that perilous pleasure.
With deliberate lightness, he drew his hands slowly down my breasts, learning their shape, their feel, watching my reaction to his touch. Helpless tremors shook me as his fingers skimmed over my nipples. They pebbled in response and those hooded eyes lowered down to them in fascination. His fingers returned to circle the pouting hardness that he’d drawn forth, rimming the brown areolas, brushing softly over the sensitive tips. He watched me respond, his piercing eyes lifting back up to mine, and I was helpless to look away as the control suddenly shifted from me to him.
“You like this?”
I nodded, unable to speak with the rough pads of his fingers brushing over my nipples. A light swirling stroke, then a firmer caress. His fingers traced down the slight swell of my breasts. Drifted down my belly. He splayed his hands across my waist, my hips, down my thighs, back up again. With just the tips of his fingers, as if he were a blind man reading braille, reading me, he ran those sensitive rough pads around to the back of me and bent his head down. Again I had the sense that he was reading me, learning me, as he moved his mouth inch by inch closer until his lips brushed my nipple.
My hands tightened on his arms. Tightened more as he drew that sensitive tip into his mouth and I felt wetness and warmth. And pleasure. Oh my God, so much pleasure. He played with that nipple the same way he had kissed me, with slow, deliberate intent, with loving thoroughness, with pleased discovery.
I leaned into him, increasing the pressure, asking for more, and he gave it to me. A firmer lick, a harder suction, the dangerous tease and scrape of his teeth across the budded tip while his hands cupped my bottom, kneading the rounded flesh in a firm, caressing grip.
He drew me to him and our naked flesh met. Our bodies pressed together and he was unable to hold back the groan that welled up in him, that seemed to come from his very soul. It came tumbling out of his mouth as he released my tender bud and buried his face against me. His stubble scraped across my erect nipple and it felt good, so good. I moaned softly and moved against him, increasing the friction against the rough abrasiveness of his beard, twisting like a cat in his lap, purring with delight.