Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)

“Please, Mary,” he said softly.

She shifted her gaze from his perfectly muscled chest to his face and gave the slightest nod. Truly, Mary wasn’t even sure her head lowered more than a quarter inch, but it was enough for him. He lunged upward like a wave, his mouth covering hers as he caught her in his arms, lifted her up and bore her back on the bed before lowering to lie half on her and half on the bed beside her.

Mary moaned at both the combination of his kiss and the feel of his suddenly roving hands. They were everywhere, one holding her head in place as he ravished her mouth, the other sliding from one breast to the other and then sliding down to press the cloth of her shorts against her core. Mary gasped and shuddered and moaned by turn, arching into his caresses even as her own hands reached eagerly for him, first grasping his shoulders in an effort to pull him down on her fully. When that proved impossible, she trailed her hands down his chest and stomach and then finally between his legs to find the spot in his jeans that was again bulging outward as if eager to get to her.

Dante groaned into her mouth and pressed more firmly between her legs as she touched him through his jeans. But just as she reached for the snap of his jeans, he suddenly broke their kiss to shimmy down her body, removing that option from her. Before she could protest, he’d jerked her top out of her shorts and tugged it up.

Gasping in alarm, Mary gave up on trying to get to him and instead turned her attention to trying to push her shirt back down. Kissing was one thing, but she was still not pleased at the thought of his seeing her old body.

However, Dante would not be denied. Catching both of her hands in one of his, he held them out of the way and jerked her shirt up again, then tugged her bra to the side, freeing one breast. He paused briefly then, drinking her in, then raised his eyes to hers and murmured, “Beautiful.”

Mary gaped at him, then sucked in a startled breath as he lowered his head and latched onto the revealed breast, drawing eagerly on the nipple with his mouth as his hand squeezed and kneaded the soft flesh around it. Mary bit her lip and twisted her head on the bed at the fire he was breathing over her tender flesh, then cried out, and arched on the bed as his knee suddenly slid between both of hers and began to press against her core.

“Dante, please, let me touch you,” Mary begged, struggling to get her hands free. She wanted desperately to hold him just then. Actually, she wanted to rip his pants off, grab him by the hair and drag his head up to kiss him again as he plunged into her, but he was having none of that. He continued to hold her hands over her head with one hand, but the other now left her breast to his mouth’s attention and lowered to undo her shorts. She felt the snap giving way and the zipper sliding down, and then he tugged her shorts down around her knees.

Mary cried out as his hand replaced the cloth.

“Si, cantare per me. Sing for me,” Dante muttered around her erect nipple as he began to caress her. But his words made Mary realize that they were in an RV with flimsy walls and that anyone passing might hear. Instead of “singing” for him, she turned her head to the side and bit into the flesh of her own upper arm to try to silence herself. And then she screamed into the flesh she’d just bit as his finger slid smoothly into her.

“God, Mary,” Dante growled. “Sei cosi stretto, you are so tight. I want to be inside you.”

“Yes,” Mary gasped, but instead of rearing up and doing that, he continued to thrust his finger into her and caress at the same time, building the tension until Mary thought she would die if he didn’t make love to her.

“Dante, please,” she almost sobbed, her hips dancing under his caress. “Please, I need you.”

“Si, Mary,” he muttered, lifting his head. He paused to kiss her again, then straightened to kneel over her and reached for the snap of his jeans, just as someone knocked at the door.

They both stilled then, eyes locking.

“No,” Dante breathed, but the knock came again and Mary bit her lip and glanced along her body toward the door as Bailey leapt off the dinette’s bench seat and moved to the door to rear up and paw at it with a bark. A sure sign that it was someone she knew at the door.

“If that is Dave again, I swear I will do more than make him bark and drink out of Bailey’s dish,” Dante growled, shifting off the bed. “I will make him lick his own balls.”

“You will not,” Mary gasped, scrambling to get off the bed and pull up her shorts.

“You are right. He probably could not reach them,” Dante said grimly, snapping up his jeans.