Page 6 of Sev’s Blackmailed Bride (The Dante Dynasty #1)

He traced a path from moonlight to shadow, delving into the mysteries the dark kept hidden. Her eyes fluttered shut and filled him with an intense curiosity to know all she fought to hide. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m wondering how I came to be here.” She shuddered beneath his touch and it took her a minute to finish. “One instant my life is simple and clear-cut and the next it has me so confused I can’t think straight.”

“Then don’t think. Just feel. ”

He kissed her cupid’s mouth. Unable to resist, he captured the plump bottom lip between his teeth and tugged ever so gently. His reward came in the low, helpless moan that escapedher.

“Do that again,” she urged.

“All night long, if that’s what you want.”

He teased her lips once more, light, brushing strokes that promised without satisfying, suggested without delivering.

To his amusement, she chased his wandering mouth in greedy pursuit.

He finally let her catch him, delighting in the way she coaxed him into a deeper kiss.

She gave both promise and satisfaction, delivering on all he’d suggested.

He couldn’t get enough of the taste of her, of the incredible parry and slide and nibble of lips and tongue and teeth.

With each exchange, the fever within burned higher and brighter, demanding instant gratification.

Sev resisted, refusing to rush. Francesca deserved more.

For that matter, so did he. He wanted to explore every inch of her, to delve over each luscious hill and into every valley.

To commit her to memory, and then repeat the process in case he’d missed something.

“Why have you stopped?” The question came in a whisper, her confusion communicated through the growing tension in her shoulders and back. “Is something wrong?”

“I haven’t stopped,” he reassured. “I’ve just slowed down.”

“Oh, Iget it. You want to drive me crazy.”

He chuckled. “Drive us both crazy.”

Her tension changed in tenor, no longer a self-conscious nervousness, but a woman’s driving desire, full-bodied and certain. Avibrating need sent a burst of urgency through him. Maybe he’d been kidding himself. Slow was guaranteed to killhim.

Her long graceful hands swept across his torso from shoulder to hip, exploring with open delight.

Despite her eagerness, he sensed a tentativeness behind each touch, anewness that spoke of sweet inexperience, right up until her hand closed around him with gentle aggression.

Okay, maybe not total inexperience. She found the foil packet he’d set aside for their use and ripped it open, sliding the condom over him with deliberate, torturous strokes.

Unable to stand another second, he rolled her underhim.

Her body gave as only a woman’s body could, accommodating the press and slide of a man’s passion.

The moonlight shifted, fully baring her to his gaze.

High, round breasts tempted his caress, the nipples already ripe and taut with need.

He gave them his full attention, each sweep of tongue and hand causing her breath to hitch and her heartbeat to race.

Drifting lower, he paused long enough to give due attention to an abdomen that combined the sheen of satin with the softness ofdown.

And then he eased her panties from her hips.

He followed their path with a string of kisses, before drawing the scrap of silk and lace off and allowing it to drift to the floor behind him.

With that final garment removed, it left nothing between them but heated air.

Neatly cropped honeyed curls shielded the apex of her thighs and he cupped her there, drawing a single finger along the damp cleft, inciting a shudder of desperate yearning.

“It’s been a while,” she warned. He caught the hint of apprehension she struggled to control. “I haven’t—”

He was quick to reassure. “I’ll go slow. You can stop me if I do anything you don’t like.”

“I won’t stop you.” Her eyes darkened. “I can’t.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.” He swept her loosened hair away from her eyes, the dark blond strands framing the face of an angel. “Slow and easy now, sweetheart. Open for me,” he urged. “Let me in.”

To his relief, she didn’t hesitate. Her thighs parted, lifted, exposing her most private secrets to him.

Ever so gently he teased the opening, tracing his thumb across the very center of her pleasure.

She tensed, drawn bowstring-taut, and the breath escaped her lungs in a moan of sheer delight.

Again he circled and swirled, until he sensed she teetered on the very edge, before he eased between her legs and sank intoher.

She fisted around him, hot and slick and tight.

He fought for control and a modicum of finesse, while instinct rode him, slashed through him, inciting him to take her hard and fast. To mate.

To storm her defenses and shatter them once and for all.

But he couldn’t hurt her like that. She deserved better.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he pressed inward.

If she hadn’t told him of her previous lover, he’d have sworn she’d come to him untouched.

“Am I hurting you?” The guttural tone of his voice shocked him. He could hear the raw, feral quality of a man teetering on the edge. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No. Ineed...” A rosy flush of want rode her cheekbones, and her expression in the moonlight revealed a vulnerability to him and him alone. She twined her arms and legs around him, her fingernails digging into his back. “More, please.”

He didn’t require any further encouragement.

He drove home with a single powerful thrust. Her cry of astonished delight was everything he could have asked for and then some.

She moved with him, finding the rhythm with impressive speed, riding the ferocity of the storm with him.

He slid his hands beneath her, cupped her bottom and angled her in order to give her the most pleasure.

The storm intensified, howling through him with each stroke.

Rational thought fled before a single inescapable imperative.

Take the woman. Make her his. Put an indelible stamp on her, one that would bind them together from now through all eternity.

She belonged to him now, just as he belonged to her.

There was no changing that fact. No goingback.

The storm reached its zenith, tearing at him, threatening to rip him apart.

Even in the midst of the insanity, even at his most frantic, he remained focused on Francesca.

Her needs. Her desires. She anchored him, even as she drove him onward, giving and gifting and surrendering.

Her unique feminine perfume, the scent of passion, filled his nostrils.

He could feel her approaching her climax and sealed her mouth with his.

She arched upward as it hit, and he drank in her cry of ecstasy as though it were the sweetest of wines.

It was his turn after that, his release unlike any he’d ever experienced before. She’d done that to him. For him. With him. She’d marked him in some ineradicable fashion. Given him something uniquely hers to give, something he’d never known with any other woman.

“Oh, my,” she murmured long afterward, the breath still hitching from her lungs. “That was... unexpected.”

“Very.” As unexpected as it was unforgettable.

Struggling to catch his own breath, he gathered her up and rolled with her to take the weight from her and transfer it to him.

She curled close with a unique feline grace, entangling their limbs into an inescapable knot, part feminine silk, part masculine sinew.

Full, round curves cushioned hard angles.

With the sweet, gusty sigh of a woman well-satisfied, sleep claimedher.

He lay awake for a long time, holding her close. His palm still itched and burned from that first contact and he longed to rub it. He resisted, not wanting to disturb Francesca’s slumber.

Their joining should have fulfilled him, satiated whatever fever fired his blood and drove him to make this woman his.

It hadn’t. Not by a long shot. It should be over now, the flame diminished to a mere flicker.

It wasn’t. It continued to roar like wildfire driven before a gale.

Instead of ending things, their lovemaking had rooted the bond between them, weaving the fabric of their connection into a tight, inseparable warp andweft .

Whether she knew it yet or not, this night had made herhis.

F rancesca stirred beneath the benevolent rays of the early morning sunshine.

Lord, she felt incredible. Warm. Relaxed. Happy. She didn’t know what had caused such an amazing sensation, but considering how fleeting such feelings could be, she didn’t want to move in case it wentaway.

A heavy masculine hand skated down the length of her spine to cup her bottom, giving it a loving pat. “Mmm. Nice.”

What the hell? Francesca’s eyes flew open and she stared in horror at the gorgeous male relaxing inches from her nose.

Sunlight marched boldly across the bed and openly caressed a man whose bone structure managed to combine both a masculine hardness and a mouth-watering allure.

Thick, ebony hair framed high, sweeping cheekbones and an aristocratic nose.

He smiled drowsily, his wide sensuous lips stirring images of all the places that mouth had been.

Memory crashed down on her, overwhelming in its intensity.

What had she done? A better question might have been, what hadn’t she done?

In the brief time they’d spent together, they’d made love in every conceivable fashion.

Of course, she’d reveled in every minute.

Sev had proven an outstanding lover. But the romantic illusion cast by the glittering evening had faded beneath the harsh reality of morning light.

She’d had a job to do last night at Le Premier, and instead she’d—