"Let me up, Magnus." His voice held a level of desperation that caught me off guard.
"I need to tell you something else-" I began.
"No," Dante responded. "Let me up."
I didn't. I couldn't. Because even if he wasn't as angry as he'd been, he'd still flee.
And I couldn't let that happen.
Which meant I had to take the leap I'd been too afraid to take since he'd nearly kissed me in the car at the cemetery. I'd been too confused then to know what I wanted, but I knew now. Between talking to Hawke and having Dante put me first over and over again, I was ready to accept that what I felt for the young man who'd managed to burrow under my skin from the day we'd met was real and not some byproduct of the stress and grief I'd been trying to dodge for years.
"I was jealous, Dante," I murmured as I pinned his gaze with mine. "I saw you with Mel the day of the wake and she was touching you-"
"I swear, Magnus, I wasn't hitting on her. I wouldn't do that to you."
My pulse sped up as a feeling of warmth spread through me at his words. Maybe I wasn't the only one feeling some kind of connection here.
But he was also missing my point.
"I wasn't jealous of you," I said as I settled more of my weight on him, bringing our groins in to direct contact. Dante gasped and I saw his eyes slide shut for a moment as he swallowed hard. I waited until they opened again before saying, "I was jealous of her."
I could tell he still wasn't getting what I was saying, so I let my eyes fall to his lips as I said, "Just like I was jealous of Shelly and her friend." I punctuated my words with the slightest shift of my hips and I bit back a moan as our cocks brushed against each other. Dante's eyes widened as he finally started to understand. "And the waiter at the wedding … " I lowered my mouth and brushed a kiss over Dante's racing pulse. "And the nurse in the parking garage."
I met Dante's surprised gaze briefly before skimming my mouth over his jaw. He was panting as I let my mouth hover against his and I could feel his cock pressing urgently against mine.
"Magnus, please don't do this to me," he whispered just before I was about to get my first taste of him.
I immediately lifted enough to put some space between us, but not enough that he could get away from me. Was I hurting him somehow? I could have sworn he wanted me, but the fear in his eyes had me second guessing myself.
"Don't do what?" I asked. "Am I hurting you?"
I was stunned to see Dante's eyes shimmering with tears. "Don't toy with me just to punish me."
"Punish you?" I whispered in disbelief. "I'm not, Dante. I swear. I want this … you."
Dante shook his head. "You don't even like me."
Pain bloomed in my chest at his words. He sounded so young and vulnerable. Had I really done this to him? I'd thought we'd gotten past our history of digging at each other.
I should have just let him go, but I couldn't. I couldn't stomach the thought of him walking away and letting him believe I didn't care about him – that I'd used his attraction to me against him.
"I like you, Dante," I said gently as I settled my weight back on him. I stifled a moan of pleasure when his legs separated enough to make room for me. "Too much," I admitted, as I bent my head to kiss him. But he turned his face at the last moment.
"I … I'm not really into kissing," he murmured.
"That's too bad," I breathed against the skin of his cheek before kissing him there. The little bit of stubble should have felt wrong to me, but it didn't. It felt amazing against my lips. His scent was driving me crazy and I actually dipped my nose down to his neck to draw in more of his natural fragrance before kissing his jaw again. "Because it feels like I've been dreaming of tasting you for a lifetime now."
I heard Dante suck in a breath, but otherwise he lay completely still beneath me. "The day we got here, I watched you with Ace from my window, do you remember?"
"Yes," Dante responded, his voice hoarse.
"Do you know what I did right after that?" I kissed my way down Dante's neck and made my way to the other side. I was pleased when he turned his head to accommodate me.
"No," Dante managed to get out. His body was subtly shifting beneath mine, causing our cocks to rub against each other.
"I imagined you bent over my bed, begging me to fuck you."
"Fuck," Dante whispered, lifting his chin as I licked my way up his throat.
I paused long enough to hold his gaze as I said, "I came all over the floor. And I said your name while I was doing it."
Dante's eyes shifted to my mouth before he looked me in the eye again, his hunger clear as day.
"And that day in the cemetery … when you were helping me into the car. I wanted you to kiss me so fucking bad-"
That was all I got out before Dante surged up and captured my lips with his.
There was no being eased into my first kiss with another man because Dante just took exactly what he wanted.
And I loved every second of it.
His tongue plunged into my mouth as his firm lips moved over mine and pure lust exploded in my belly at the sweetness that flowed over my tongue. I was so awestruck by how incredibly good it felt, that it took me several long seconds to reciprocate and actually kiss Dante back. My already hard cock suddenly felt like a railroad spike in my pants and I drove my hips against Dante's in the hopes of finding some relief.
Kissing Dante was unlike anything I'd ever known or expected. There was no subtlety, no coyness … hell, it wasn't even foreplay in my book. It was like its very own sex act, though sex was too frank of a word for it. Because it was more intimate than that, despite the desperation and neediness of it all.
I tore my mouth from Dante's for a moment to try and catch my breath. His lips latched on to my neck and sucked hard and I knew I'd be wearing his mark for days, which only served to turn me on even more.
"Let go of my hands," Dante said harshly as he dropped his head back to the floor and tugged at where my hands were still pinning his to the ground.
I hesitated because I was afraid he wanted to stop and I just couldn't turn back now. And not just because I was physically more aroused than I'd ever been in my entire life.
"I'm not going anywhere, Magnus," Dante said gently. "I just need to touch you."
"Sorry," I said softly as I brushed my mouth over his and released his hands. "I've never … "
I shook my head because I had no idea how to explain how off balance I felt. I'd been with a decent number of women after Mel and I had split up, but I'd never felt this raw and needy before. Sex was always something I could take or leave and not care either way. With Dante, it wasn't that simple.
Nothing about what Dante made me feel was simple.
"I know," Dante said with a nod, and then his mouth was on mine again. The kiss was still desperate, but it was gentler too … not as rushed. Like now that he'd had his first taste, he wanted to savor the next. I felt his hands roaming over my back briefly before they pulled my shirt from my pants and then slid beneath the thin material, his palms hot on the skin of my lower back.
Since my own hands were free, I used them to push back Dante's hair so I could see his face. I stopped kissing him long enough to study him as I let my fingers roam through his hair, over his temple and along his cheeks. There was nothing feminine about him, but I still couldn't find any word besides 'beautiful' to describe him. His dark eyes held mine as he let me take in my fill of him.
"Tell me what you want, Magnus," Dante whispered.
Fuck, when was the last time anyone had asked me that? Had anyone ever asked me that? Mel certainly hadn't, not during our marriage and certainly not early on in our relationship when I'd been the rookie cop and she'd been the younger, wild party girl in her sophomore year at UT-Austin.
"You," I said simply, because it didn't matter what he was or wasn't willing to give me. If all I got was this moment of it being just me and him, I'd accept that.
One of Dante's hands cupped my cheek and then he drew me down for another searing kiss. After that, all bets were off and it really was just me and him. Because I lost myself in every touch, every kiss. I relished every sound he made, the way his eyes burned with desire every time we were forced to separate to catch our breaths and the press of his fingers as he explored every part of my body he could reach. Even the feeling of his hands gripping my ass as he ground our pelvises together didn't weird me out. Nothing we did to each other did.
"Take this off," Dante urged as he pushed my shirt halfway up my back. I sat up and straddled him so I could unbutton it, a task that inevitably took much longer than it should have because my hands were shaking. Dante's fingers began working my pants loose, but he stopped once he got the zipper down. His eyes met mine and I saw the unspoken question there. While I appreciated that he was giving me a chance to stop all this, I didn't give a shit that I was about to have a man's hand on my cock rather than a woman's. I'd stopped thinking about it that way the second he'd kissed me. Because it would be Dante's hand on me. I nodded, too on edge to be sure I could have even managed a simple "yes."