Dane. Elizabeth Amber
strange and sudden numbness came over him then, and his own fingers fumbled, becoming uncoordinated and uncertain. His hold on her slackened. Not because she’d renewed her puny efforts to shake him off but because of…something else. Something was wrong.
Dante felt himself waver, felt his consciousness ripple like the waves on a pond that had been disturbed. His hands dropped away from her as the shadow of another presence crowded around the edges of his mind. Dane? No, it couldn’t be. Yet it was.
But Dane had never resurfaced during a carnal encounter. It wasn’t safe. What if they came again and took him back to that awful place? It had driven him into an asylum before. Next time, it might kill him. Dante couldn’t let that happen! Protecting Dane was what he lived for.
Don’t you remember how things were…before? Dante warned. Don’t you value your sanity? You must hide. Sleep, he crooned.
Get out of my head, damn you! Dane bit out. I don’t need you!
Stunned, Dante could only stand there, arms useless at his sides as he faded further still, inexorably losing his grip on…
Dane sucked in a sharp intake of breath, inhaling his own soul back into his flesh. His mind, his very essence, poured back into his body like wine into a goblet. He was himself again. Alone in his own skin.
He opened his eyes, blinking at the world, seeing it at first as if he were under water. Drowning. He was disoriented, his vision blurred, almost losing his balance for a moment before managing to right himself. His hands found an anchor. A woman.
Her back was against him; her body a warm, pliant, delicious weight in his arms. His palms shaped her ribs, stroking the turn of her waist and hips. Somehow he knew he must hold on to her, as if she were his conduit to consciousness. To salvation.
Things swam back into focus as disconnected flashes. He was in the grove, just as he last remembered himself. He’d been working here on his newly acquired property earlier, hacking away vines to keep them from suffocating the trees.
Then that whoreson phantom Dante had come. Had taken control of him, of his mind, his body. Intending to use it to fuck the night away in his stead. Claiming it was all done for Dane’s own good—same as every Moonful. But Dane had interrupted the bastard this time!
How he’d done so was a matter of question. It had something to do with her, this woman who inexplicably stood here with him in the gathering gloom, her head upon his chest, her exquisite body unresisting under his intimate exploration.
Her pale gray bodice was partially unbuttoned, revealing the curves of full, white, perfect breasts. He’d long had a particular affection for this portion of a woman’s anatomy. As if in a dream, he watched his hand slip between fabric and flesh, catching on the fine gold chains she wore. Her breast was cool under his fingers, and firm. He found and teased a rosy nipple, dragging the cold metal links over and over it until it drew up tight.
She moaned and touched his wrist, her thighs shifting restlessly against his. His cock surged and he gasped, almost brought to his knees by the sensation. He found its prodigious length with his hand, gripping it through lightweight black wool that could scarcely contain it.
He was hard. He. Not Dante. Was. Hard.
Never in his life had he experienced the hot thrill of his own arousal. Urgently, he turned her toward him, half fearing that she might be a specter herself and fade away. She was comely, with raven lashes and hair, and gently flushed cheeks. His prick was fat and hungry between them, twitching for a taste of her. This was a gift, a miracle wrought by this beguiling stranger.
His arm slanted across her back and his hand met her nape, holding her for his descending mouth. Her fingers threaded his hair, and her kiss met his. She tasted of magic.
He inhaled her scent and found it redolent of ElseWorld. His senses keened, sorting through the soft rainbow of flavors within it. They were unusually complex—a sprinkling of citrus and spice, a dusting of fey glamour, and a heady confusion of other fragrances. But he was a Tracker and would soon have their measure.
Seconds later, his head jerked back. His hands gripped her shoulders and he stared down at her, stunned.
“You’re…No, it’s impossible….” Yet her scent was unmistakable. She was satyr, like him. Never in all of history had a female been born among his species!
“What are you?” he demanded, giving her a little shake. He needed to hear her admit it.
Eyes that were slumberous, the color of spring clover, tangled with his. “I’m emptiness. Want.” Rising on tiptoe, she rubbed her lips over his. “Fill me,” she whispered.
His hunger shot higher, past all restraint. Urgently, he pressed her back against the trunk of a centuries-old olive tree planted by the ancients and covered her body with his larger one. His hands swept over her waist, ribs, and breasts, learning her shape.
“Yes, we will do as our kind must for tonight,” Dane rasped against her lips, his voice rough with need. “But you will answer my questions come dawn.”
“Oui, monsieur,” she breathed, her eyes dark with passion yet oddly evasive.
She wanted him, whether due to an innate desire or to Dante’s magic, he didn’t know—was past caring. He led her hand low between their bodies to the monumental erection that threatened to burst from his trousers, then turned his own fingers to rip at fastenings. His cock surged from its woolen prison, finding the warm cup of her palm.
A predatory growl rumbled from his throat when she encircled his root with fingers that didn’t quite meet around its girth. Through lowered lashes, his silvered eyes glinted with arousal, watching her face as he drew back his hips, moving himself within her hand in a long, voluptuous drag. Then a push, and yet another withdrawal, this one sending her clasp upward along a length roped with hot, blue veins, until finally she held his crown.
His entire body gave a violent shudder at the seductive stimulation. Never prior to this moment had he felt the throb of his cock under an erotic feminine touch or felt the pleasurable burn of viscous precum welling higher to pool in the tiny slit at its crest. Things other men of virility took for granted. She found his pearly seed and smeared it with the pad of a thumb. Her eyes widened, as if this were new to her, too. With a wicked daring quite at odds with her innocent expression, she lifted the thumb to her lips, tasting him.
As if she’d lit the wick on a keg of blasting powder, his ardor exploded. He crossed her wrists under one hand and pinned them above her head upon smooth, silver bark. Her breasts rose, splitting the gap in her bodice and tantalizing him with her every inhalation.
A stockinged thigh slid upward between his to gently nudge his balls. “S’il vous plaît,” she whispered.
“Gods, yes,” he gritted. His mouth fell upon hers, parting soft lips. His tongue pressed inside in much the way his prick would soon breach another pair of lips and mate another feminine mouth. With his free hand, he tossed her skirts higher.
At any other time, he would not have acted so rashly. But it was Moonful, and the urge to cleave himself to her drummed in him, stronger than the beat of his heart or the workings of his curious mind. Though his body had engaged in copulation under every full moon that had passed since his eighteenth year, he recalled none of it. But tonight, he’d conquered Dante. This time, he would remember what he did.
He guided his straining rod past her delicate underthings, and when he insinuated himself between her legs, she shifted slightly, opening for him. Flesh met flesh. Her breathing hitched and a smothered feminine cry of desire perfumed the air. A lecherous rush of answering masculine need sent his fat knob plowing her slick furrow. Unerringly, he found her hot, yearning heart and nestled there, anointing himself with her precious weeping passion. Their eyes caught and clung…
High above them, the forest’s umbrella rustled in the gentle breeze, parting for the gaze of an unblinking moon, which chose that tender moment to observe them. Its luminescence caressed their entwined figures, calling to them.
“Sweet