He released me and took several steps back. The air around him rippled and then he was in Dreki form. Cornelia didn’t move an inch, her gaze fixed on my face. With a final look at her I climbed onto Dante’s back, and then with a beat of his wings we were airborne.
* * *
We landed on the bridge by the doors to the tower where I’d be staying. Dante ushered me inside, closed the door, and then crushed me to him, squeezing the breath from my lungs. Part of me wanted to protest that his grip was way too tight but the other was too busy reveling in the intimate contact of his body against mine.
I was honed, muscular and lithe, but when pressed up against Dante’s body I was all soft curves. He was steel pectorals and bumpy abdominal muscles and the scent of bonfires on a cold winter’s day. God he smelled good. Finally, his grip eased, and I pulled away slightly, not enough to break free of the circle of his arms but enough to tilt my chin and look up at his face.
“I thought she meant to eat you,” Dante said. He gripped my jaw and tilted it further. His thumb caressed my lips and my breath hitched in my throat. “You have no idea, Anya.” And then he kissed me.
It was a soul-melding, breath-devouring kiss, bruising in its intensity. My mouth ached with need and my throat tightened with desire. I stroked his tongue with mine, pushing up against the hard ridge of his arousal. I allowed my hands to skim over his hips, grabbing his ass and pulling him against me. He moaned raggedly into my mouth as I ground against his thick length, and then I was pressed to the door and his hand was down my pants. I gasped as his fingers slid into my wet heat, expertly playing all the notes that had me lifting my hips and moving against him. He worked me, sliding in and out and over my throbbing desire while swallowing every gasp and pant. Oh fuck, I needed this, I needed him.
Sex had never coupled with such potent desire before. Sex had always been a recreational activity where I took what I needed. Where I owned my partner, but for the first time in my life I wanted to be taken, to be owned, and I wanted Dante to do it.
The thought was like ice water, shocking me to my senses and clearing the haze of lust that clogged my mind.
I grabbed his wrist. “Stop.”
He groaned into my mouth. “Fuck, Anya.”
“I can’t.”
He withdrew, burying his head in the crook of my shoulder. His warm, erratic breath kissed my skin.
“Is there someone else?”
I let out a sharp bark of laughter.
“Then why not?” He was genuinely perplexed. Probably because Skins weren’t usually coy when it came to sex. “You want me. I can feel it.” He put his glistening fingers into his mouth and sucked them clean.
Oh, fuck my life.
Temptation was a bitch, but the thought of losing control was a demon who liked to sit on my shoulder and scare the shit out of me. The thought of having real feelings, of being vulnerable and having it taken away, terrified me. Sex was one thing, but sex with Dante would be something more. I could feel it.
“I’m not ready.” Fuck, I sounded like a cunny.
He nodded and kissed the spot below my ear. “I can wait.”
He released me, but it was a moment before I could peel myself from the door. My cheeks grew warm and I ducked my head. Shit, was I blushing? I never blushed.
“This way,” Dante said. His voice was calm, but his eyes still blazed with unsatiated desire.
I fell into step beside him as we made our way to an arch and the flight of steps beyond.
The silence crackled with sexual tension that needed to be defused. “Tell me about Cornelia. Does she kidnap people often?”
“Usually, if Cornelia carries someone off, they’re unlikely to be seen in one piece again, but it’s been decades since she’s left her roost.”
I guess I was lucky. “She doesn’t live with the other wyverns?”
“Cornelia was Anara’s wyvern. Anara raised her from a hatchling. She was like a daughter to our dragon queen. When Anara died, Cornelia retreated to her roost and we haven’t seen her much since.”
Dante climbed ahead of me so his butt was on view. Temptation, you are my bitch.
I fisted my hands. “Was that nest her roost?”
“No. I don’t know what that was. I didn’t even know it was there. That part of the fortress isn’t structurally safe, so we don’t use it.”
But she had a nest. “Maybe she used it for her own hatchlings?”
“Cornelia is a runt. Unable to breed,” he said.
“Runt? She’s fucking bigger than any wyvern I’ve ever seen.”
“A rare breed. Probably the last of her kind,” he said over his shoulder.
“Any idea why she decided to Skin-nap me?”
“I have no idea.” He sounded speculative.
We’d reached the top of the stairs, and he stood back to let me pass. I brushed by him, and he grabbed my elbow and pulled me toward him. Our breath mingled, lips mere centimeters apart. My eyelids fluttered closed, pulse quickening with the need to bridge the miniscule gap, but if I did then I wouldn’t stop. I’d take him right here in the stairwell. I’d abandon myself to him, allow him under my skin to the beating heart of me, and I wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t break that heart.
“Anya…I want you,” he said. “I haven’t felt this need for a female since…a long fucking time.”
He had no idea. I pressed my palm to his cheek and tucked in my chin so his lips grazed the tip of my nose.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
And then I walked away.
Chapter Ten
The quarters beyond were wreathed in shadows and silence. The rooms were opulent enough with a large living space,
