Desire's Edge (25 page)
The wooden door rattled as it swung open.
“Dante? What are you doing here?”
She looked surprised. Shocked, really. And so damn pretty. Innocent, somehow. Maybe it was because her hair was pulled back from her freshly washed face. She had no makeup on. Wore a pair of low-slung cotton pajama bottoms and a thin camisole, both in a soft green that, even in the pale light, made her eyes glow greener than he’d ever seen them. Oddly, she looked sexier than ever.
He leaned a hand in the doorway.
“Can I come in, Kara?”
“I . . . Okay.”
She stood back and he moved past her, waited for her to lead him up the narrow staircase. He watched the sensual swing of her ass as she moved up the stairs. He couldn’t help himself. But that wasn’t why he was here. Not entirely.
Why, then, was he here? He knew Kara would want an answer to that. Deserved an answer.
At the top of the stairs she led him through another door and into her apartment.
The place was purely
her
, for some reason. It just seemed to fit, a combination of old and new, traditional and modern. Just like his place, actually, but combined in a more feminine way. Heavily carved antiques on the old, dark wood floors, a sleek, modern sofa done in white and scattered with plush, brocade pillows. The coffee table was an old steamer trunk topped in glass. A collection of black-and-white photographs on the walls, mostly architectural pieces of old buildings. European, probably. But he was distracting himself. From what was going on in his head. His body.
her
, for some reason. It just seemed to fit, a combination of old and new, traditional and modern. Just like his place, actually, but combined in a more feminine way. Heavily carved antiques on the old, dark wood floors, a sleek, modern sofa done in white and scattered with plush, brocade pillows. The coffee table was an old steamer trunk topped in glass. A collection of black-and-white photographs on the walls, mostly architectural pieces of old buildings. European, probably. But he was distracting himself. From what was going on in his head. His body.
It was then he noticed the two paintings hanging over an antique sideboard. He moved a few steps toward them. They were both still lifes, done in the heavy oils he remembered her using in high school, but the technique had obviously been refined since then. He saw her initials in the lower right-hand corner: “KC,” done in a graceful script.
He reached out, almost touching one of them. “Jesus. These are yours. They’re good. Really great. You should be painting, Kara.”
She sighed, but didn’t say anything.
He turned to look at her, feeling too large for the cozy living room. Awkward, as if he was a giant who would knock everything over, break it all, if he moved too quickly.
“Kara . . .”
She just stood there, watching him, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. He could make out the outline of their taut fullness, the nipples, which had gone a little hard in the cool night air. He shouldn’t be noticing these things now. But it was unavoidable. Kara was pure sex to him. When she wasn’t being . . . everything else.
He swallowed. Tried to get his thoughts organized.
Say something, buddy. Don’t be such a jerk.
He cleared his throat. His head was buzzing. Where to start?
Kara spoke before he could. “Is that why you came here? To tell me what I should be doing, Dante? You’re very good at that, I’ll admit. But is that why you’re really here?” She let out a short, barking laugh. “Do you realize you’ve never even been here, inside my apartment?”
There was anger in her voice. He didn’t blame her.
She went on with a helpless shrug that hurt to see. “You just . . . drop me off at the door like I’m some cheap one-night stand. Why is that, Dante? Does it bring you too close, to be in my home? Do you not want to get to know me that well? It’s . . . insulting. Or maybe it’s that your escape route is easier if it all happens at your place. You can decide when it’s time for me to leave. When you’ve had enough of me.”
“That’s the problem, Kara.” He took a step toward her, but when her shoulders tensed, her features hardening, he stopped where he was. He said quietly, “I can never get enough of you. And it scares the shit out of me.”
His breath was hitching in his lungs. Painful, to say it out loud. To admit it to anyone, even himself.
Her eyes were glossy with emotion and she was biting her lip, hugging her body tighter. But some of the tension in her shoulders had melted away. Still, he stayed where he was. He didn’t want to startle her.
“I’m scared, too,” she said finally. “I’m more scared than I’ve ever been in my life. And this is not me, this woman who is . . . made weak by how I feel.”
“The same thing is happening to me,” he admitted, hating that he had to do it. But he
had
to. “A nd I don’t know what the hell to do with it. I can’t . . . care about someone this way. Not me.”
had
to. “A nd I don’t know what the hell to do with it. I can’t . . . care about someone this way. Not me.”
“Why not?” she challenged him, anger surging in her voice once more.
Outside, thunder rumbled, low and powerful.
He scrubbed at his jaw. “Because I will fuck it up. Just like I did with Erin. That was devastating. And I didn’t even love her. How much worse would it have been if I had? I can’t take on that much responsibility for anyone.”
“You take on responsibility for people every day. At work. As a dominant.”
“I can detach in those situations. I can’t . . .” He stopped, shook his head. “I can’t detach where you’re concerned, Kara. How the mighty have fallen, eh?”
She almost smiled then. “Yes. Me, too.”
That made it a little easier. Knowing she was in the same place. That it was hard for her, too. His body relaxed and he smiled back at her.
“So, what the hell do we do here?” he asked, truly lost. Maybe for the first time in his life since Erin had died.
“I don’t know. I think . . . I need you to tell me. And that’s not about you being the dom. It’s just that . . . well, frankly, Dante, I think when it comes to this stuff you’re in even worse shape than I am. More shut down. I don’t mean to be insulting.”
“No. You’re right. It’s true. I can admit that. I just don’t know how two people like us—and yes, like me in particular—do this stuff. We’ve talked about it before . . .”
“In some pretty limited fashion,” she said.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw again, recognized it as something he did when he was stressed or thinking too hard, and forced his hand to drop. “I don’t know how to have a more thorough discussion about it. About where we stand. We’ve been just letting things happen, but that hasn’t worked out very well.”
“So what are you asking me, Dante?”
“I’m asking . . . Christ, Kara, I can’t have this conversation from six feet away.” He moved toward her, watching to see if she would bolt. But she stood her ground.
In a moment she was in his arms. She smelled like flowers, that unique Kara scent. Her skin was warm under his hands. He pulled her in, held her close. Inhaled.
“Tell me what you want, Dante,” she demanded, her voice gone soft, yet insistent.
“I want you to be my girl,” he told her.
His
.
.
Kara’s heart was beating a hundred miles an hour.
“Yours . . . how?”
She pulled back enough to look up at him. His brown eyes were dark, burning with a fire she wasn’t sure she understood.
“I don’t want us to see anyone else,” he said fiercely. “Date anyone else. Sleep with anyone else. Play with anyone but each other at the club.”
Her heart was pounding, making her a little breathless. “Okay. Anything else?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what else this is going to mean. I haven’t asked this of any woman before. Can we start there? Can you be okay with that?”
Could she? The idea was almost a relief. As much as she understood she wanted more—wanted it all—she wasn’t so certain she would handle things any better than Dante. It was the blind leading the blind, and she couldn’t see much more clearly than he could. Maybe taking it one step at a time was for the best.
She nodded, letting out the long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding almost since Dante had shown up at her door. “I can do that.”
He pulled her in tighter then, holding her in his arms in that way that was both comforting and ridiculously sexy at the same time. His command was both of those things to her. And even though he’d come there with uncertainty in his face for the first time, it was back already—that air of surety. Absolute confidence.
“Kara,” he said, his voice low. “I need to get you in bed.”
Her body lit up immediately, her sex going damp, simply hearing the words from him. That was one thing they never had to question.
She pressed into him, silently letting him know she needed the same thing: to be naked together. To feel him inside her, his hands on her flesh.
He groaned as he bent to kiss her, crushing her lips with his. His tongue slipped inside, and she could taste the scotch he’d had at dinner very faintly, sweet and acrid and
male
. Or maybe that was just him.
male
. Or maybe that was just him.
His hands were everywhere, pulling her pajamas off, and in moments she was naked. She pressed into his body, her nipples scraping against his shirt. She felt the rain there, smelled the scent of it mixed with his citrus-and-musk soap.
Had she ever met a man who smelled as good as he did?
Thunder roared outside, rattling the windows, followed by a sharp crack of lightning. The scent of ozone made its way into the apartment, mixing with his scent. It was the scent of power. And it was perfect for him.
He pulled away to murmur, “Come on, my beautiful girl. Where’s your bed?”
His hands snaked around her, sliding under her bottom, and he picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he kissed her mouth, her neck, as he moved down the hallway to her bedroom, which was dimly lit by a small lamp on the side table.
He laid her down on the bed. She’d been just getting in when he’d rung her doorbell, and the lavender and white toile-print spread was pulled back, the sheets exposed. They were cool against her skin. He leaned over to flick on the other bedside lamp.
“I need to see you,” he told her, his voice gruff with desire.
She wanted to see him, too. She watched as he pulled his shirt off, kicked his way out of his shoes, his slacks. His body was all lean, hard muscle. Washboard abs and broad shoulders. His impressive erection strained against the fabric of his dark boxer briefs. Her sex gave a hard squeeze. She was soaking wet already, simply looking at him, all raw male beauty. As soaking wet as the streets outside as the rain came down in a torrent, rapping against the windows.
He was watching her, his features perfectly still. But he was hard as stone—his cock, his nipples, stiff and dark against his golden skin. She licked her lips and saw his cock twitch. Her sex answered, clenching.
Need him inside me . . .
She parted her thighs, reached for him, and he smiled, paused for a breath, then two. Then he was on her, covering her body with his, his hands going into her hair and holding tight. He kissed her, hard, his tongue sliding in, swirling against hers, tasting, demanding. She wrapped her legs around his waist and hung on.
He rocked his hips, his cock between her thighs, pressing against her entrance. Sliding in her juices. They were gasping their need into each other’s mouths immediately.
God, she could come just from this—this lovely slide of flesh against flesh. She angled her hip, until his cock was slipping up her cleft and over her clitoris, down, then up again. Pleasure coiled, a tight pulse beat inside her. A few more thrusting motions of his hips and she was coming, crying out into his mouth. Shivering all over.
When she was done he pulled back to mutter, “Condom.”
She gestured toward her night table, and he shifted to reach into the top drawer, finding the condoms in there and pulling one out. He tore the packet open with his teeth, and together they slipped it onto his rigid cock.
He held himself over her, staring down at her. And as he slid into her, she watched the exquisite agony on his face, the pure pleasure as he filled her and she gripped him inside her body.
“Baby, you feel so good. So damn good. I’ve never felt anything better than you.”
He pumped, driving deeper, deeper, still holding himself over her. She kept her gaze on his, his dark, dark eyes glittering with gold in their depths. And an expression she couldn’t quite understand. Pleasure and something else . . .
Doesn’t matter . . .
No, all that mattered was that he was there with her, the desire building once more, taking her higher and higher. His thrusting cock filling her, driving pleasure ever deeper. His beautiful face as he came, crying her name.
“Kara!”
Then her own climax, pleasure roaring through her like a white light. Brilliant. Dazzling.
He pulled her up then, until they were both sitting upright, her legs draped over his thighs as he knelt on the bed. He held her close, the solid wall of his chest pressed against her breasts. His breathing was a ragged pant in her ear.
“Christ, Kara,” he muttered.
Her body was still trembling with her climax, with emotion, when he turned her over with his strong hands, laying her across his lap.
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