“There was one dance I didn’t get a chance to show you,” he said smoothly as he closed his apartment door behind me.

“I’m a little more interested in the horizontal dances we could do in there,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his waist.

“Let me seduce you,” Dante said quietly, his smoldering gaze hypnotizing me.

“Oh,” I breathed.

He towered over me after I kicked out of my shoes, making me feel smaller and more delicate than I had in…well, ever. He led me to the living room, all brown and cream and black, and put on some music. Notes trickled slowly from the speakers. A saxophone made passionate love to an acoustic guitar as a broken-hearted piano cried. Dante pulled me into his embrace, gently pushing my head against his powerful chest, and wrapped me in his arms.

It wasn’t a dance so much as a rhythmic embrace, and it was my favorite of everything he had showed me that night. His warmth bled through my clothes, resonating with my core. It was so much more intimate than anything else we had done that it took my breath away.

All of those fantasies I had pushed away about a future with him returned tenfold, filling my mind and heart with wishes for endless romance.

He dipped me and kissed my throat. I closed my eyes and held his face with a little moan, awash in the bliss of every sensation. He lifted me slowly, trailing kisses up to my ear, then across to my mouth.

I returned his kiss, offering my lips for biting, my tongue for sucking. The rhythm moved from our feet to our hips, building the heat between us, awakening the lust which had been subdued after the Revival.

Dante led me to the couch, pulling me down on top of him as he sat. His arms circled my waist, resting comfortably on my rear. It was cozy and erotic all at once. I felt loved in that moment, and it made me misty-eyed. I swallowed against the lump in my throat and pulled away, blinking the moisture from my eyes.

“What’s wrong, Liv?” he asked, stroking my cheek with one warm finger.

“Nothing,” I said, my voice cracking. “Everything is wonderful.”

He smiled gently and pulled me down into a kiss again. His hands roamed over my body, tangled in my hair, loved every inch of me. The quivering deep in my core became a hot, empty ache; I needed him—not just now, but forever.

His hands slid down to my ankles and crept back up, slipping under my skirt to linger on my hips. I wriggled against his hardness, breathless with desire. He groaned into my mouth, exciting my senses with his passion.

He took his time dragging my dress up over my head. Once it was gone, he paused, drinking me in with his eyes.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he murmured, tracing my collarbone with one finger. “Inside and out.”

“I don’t know about the inside,” I confessed, my face flushing red. “Just don’t look too closely.”

He turned his eyes up to meet mine, and I felt utterly exposed. I was certain that he could see right through me, to every ugly, vengeful thing I had ever done; every weak and humiliating thought I had ever had.

Maybe he could, but he didn’t seem to mind; he brought my hand up to his mouth, kissing my knuckles without ever breaking eye contact. It sent shivers through my body, hot and cold in turn.

“I want to see everything,” he said, the words rolling out from some deep, primal place. “I want to know you, Livia.”

I swallowed hard. I had spent so much time hiding from people, from the world, from myself; the way he looked at me frightened me. Somehow, though, I didn’t mind it.

I kissed him and my hands rippled over the buttons of his shirt, exposing his glistening, muscular chest. I pushed the shirt away, dragging my nails over his skin, making him shiver beneath my touch.

He held me close and kissed my skin, my collarbone, my breasts. Honeyed heat spread between us, between my thighs, between his hips, arching through the minuscule space between us. His firm, gentle hands encouraged my hips to roll across him until I was dancing along his length, building up passionate friction, driving me mad with desire. I couldn’t wait any longer.

With trembling hands, I freed him from the belt around his waist, tugging at his waistband with the frantic need to have him inside of me. He lifted his hips and me with them, until I was hovering above the couch, riding on his muscles as he slid out of his clothes.

When he settled back down on the couch, he was ready. He ripped my panties off with a flick of his wrist, too impatient to wait any longer.

“Oh,” I gasped as he pushed his hard tip against my slit.

I teased him, rocking my hips and sliding up from head to hilt without ever letting him inside. He groaned and writhed, but on top and in charge, I took my time with him.

I traced every velvety contour of his shaft, the sensations electrifying my body. In his frustration, he grabbed me in a savage embrace, pulling my breast down to his face, stimulating me with a force I had never seen from him before.

Pinching, rolling, gripping almost hard enough to bruise me; nibbling, biting, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. The whisper of pain made me cry out with pleasure as it shot down my core to my center, making me pulse and quiver with the strength of it.

His mouth still filled with my breast, he released a primal growl and slapped his hands on my hips, lifting me up to put me down on his thick, hot manhood.

My reaction was instantaneous. He pressed a thumb to my clit as he filled me, as he squeezed my breasts, focusing every sensation on that hard little point. Wave after wave of pleasure cascaded over me, building up the pool of hot pressure beneath his thumb, swirling through my mind until not a single thought remained.

I moved over him and around him with desperately bucking hips, riding toward the point of ecstasy. He bit my lip just a touch too hard, and with a cry of pleasure mixed with pain I careened over the edge in a blinding explosion.

“Yeah, baby,” he growled. “Come for me again.”

I obeyed because there was nothing else I could do. With Dante’s thumb pressed into me and his pulsing cock filling me, with his mouth and hand on my breasts, with his smell and body and those eyes, I was ready to go again before the last little pulses had even subsided.

As I quaked and trembled with the force of my release, he stood, lifting me up with him to press me against the wall. I wrapped my legs tight around his waist, drawing him into me as he sandwiched me against the cool paint.

I watched his eyes darken and close in bliss as he moved inside of me. I tasted the sweat of his skin, heavy with masculinity, spiced with lust. His breath quickened, his heart raced against my breast, and with a primal groan, he emptied into me. I held him, his head buried in the curve of my neck, as the last quakes of his ecstasy rippled away. Tender kisses and soft, murmured words carried us back to the couch.

Music washed over us as he wrapped us in a blanket and turned the lights down low with the remote on the coffee table. I didn’t want to go to sleep—what dream could be better than this? But his warm embrace and steady breathing lulled me, and soon, the room faded as my consciousness fell away.