Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)

“Yes, I’m sorry,” Mary said softly. “I just wanted to be sure you were all right. I know you’re worried about your brother.”

Dante let his breath out on a sigh, his body releasing the tension that had suddenly claimed it.

“Yes. Thank you,” he added softly. “I am worried about him, of course, but we will find him.”

“Of course we will,” she said, but her voice sounded distracted now. Noticing that her eyes had dropped, he glanced down to see that the sheet had slipped down, leaving his bare chest on show. Resisting the urge to flex his muscles to try to impress her, he instead held out his hand and said her name softly.

Mary gave a start at the sound of her name and glanced to the hand he held out. After a hesitation, she took the couple of steps necessary and took his hand lightly in her own.

When Dante smiled and squeezed her hand, then tugged gently, urging her to sit, she didn’t fight, but sank slowly to sit on the side of the couch-bed. Trying not to rush her and scare her off, he toyed with her hand briefly, then glanced up to her face and said, “I would like to kiss you.”

“Yes, please,” she murmured, and that’s when Dante realized he was dreaming. He was quite sure that in reality, Mary Winslow would not come out to check on him in nothing but an overlarge T-shirt, would not cross willingly to the bed to take his hand, and would not agree to his kissing her. This was one of the infamous shared dreams immortals and their mates enjoyed when they found each other. Mary wouldn’t realize what it was, that he was here with her. She would think it was just a normal dream, the result of her desires, which meant she wouldn’t be held back by fears or anxieties. She would do as she truly wished without being held back by all the morals and societal pressures that normally affected behavior. But this dream was also an opportunity for him to show her what she could have with him.

Nodding to himself, Dante released her hands and sat up, noting the way Mary’s eyes followed his sheet as it dropped to pool around his waist. Smiling, he slid his hand around her head and pulled her forward to claim her lips. She went still at first, but when he slid his tongue out to urge her lips apart, she opened to him and the moment he deepened the kiss a moan sounded deep in her throat and she melted against him like butter on a warm muffin. The moment she did, Dante slipped his arm around her waist and twisted his upper body on the bed, dragging her across his lower body to lay her on her back on the inside of the bed.

Mary gasped in surprise at the action, her arms instinctively closing around him and holding tight. Once her back touched the cool sheets, though, she began to kiss him back. She also eased her panicked grip and began to run her hands over his shoulders and then up into his hair.

Dante moaned his pleasure as her nails scraped across his scalp. He was leaning on one arm to keep from crushing her, but let his other hand begin to move then, following the curve of her side and hip, and then following that curve back up, before allowing it to slide over to cover one breast.

Mary moaned and arched into the caress, her hands tightening in his hair. But in the next moment, she released that tight grip to begin moving her hands over the skin of his back again. Mary alternately massaged the muscles of his back and pulled at him, her body shifting and arching as he kneaded and squeezed first one breast then the other through the cloth of her overlarge T-shirt.

It wasn’t long before that wasn’t enough, and Dante wanted the T-shirt gone. His kiss growing more demanding, he slanted his mouth over her one way and then the other as his hand dropped away to find the bottom of the T-shirt. He started out thinking to slip his hand under and snake his way back up to her breast so that he could touch her without the cloth between his fingers and her flesh, but when his fingers brushed between her legs as he started to move his hand up and he realized she wasn’t wearing panties . . . well, that, combined with the way Mary cried out into his mouth, her hips bucking in response, immediately changed his plans. Instead of continuing upward, his hand paused and then he cupped her there.

Mary tore her mouth away on a gasp and twisted her head from side to side. Her gasps quickly turned into mewls of sound as he began to caress her. Dante watched her thrash beneath him, fascinated. She was incredibly beautiful to him, glowing with passion and need and . . . suddenly gone. He didn’t know if it was her sudden disappearance from the dream or the sound of her voice that startled him awake, but he opened his eyes to the dark RV and sat up, listening to the sound of her murmured attempts to soothe her dog.