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"Tess?" Dante came out right after her, a towel slung and knotted around his hips. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She gave a shake of her head, forced a smile that felt too tight for her mouth. "There's nothing wrong, really. Do you want anything? If you're hungry, I made chicken for dinner. I could--"
"I want you to talk to me." He caught her shoulders in his hands and held her still. "Tell me what's going on. Tell me what this is about."
"No." She shook her head, thinking about how desperately she'd kept her secret and her shame. "I'm just... You wouldn't understand, okay? I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"Try me."
Tess wanted to break away from his penetrating eyes but found she couldn't. He was reaching out to her, and a part of her needed so desperately to grab hold of something solid and strong. Something that wouldn't let her down.
"I swore I would never do it again, but I... "
Oh, God. She wasn't really going to crack open that ugly chapter of her life for him, was she?
It had been her secret for so long. She had protected it fiercely, had learned to fear it. The only two people who knew the truth about her ability--her stepfather and her mother--were dead. It was a part of her past, and her past was miles behind her.
Buried there, where it belonged.
"Tess." Dante eased her down onto the sofa next to Harvard, who clambered onto her lap, tail wagging with eager joy. Dante sat beside her, his hand caressing her cheek. His touch was so tender, so warm. She nestled into it, unable to resist him. "You can tell me anything. You are safe with me, Tess, I promise you.">She didn't know what came over her, but she did what he asked, bringing her teeth together as she sucked some of his flesh into her mouth. She didn't break his skin, but the sharp bite seemed to travel through Dante's body like a current. He gave a sharp thrust of his hips, dislodging the towel, which had long since become an annoyance to her too. He shuddered as she smoothed her tongue over the spot she 'd just abused.
"Did I hurt you?"
"No. Don't stop." He curled himself over her and dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. His muscles were clenched taut, his arousal surging even fuller in her hand. "God, Tess. You are such a surprise to me. Please, don't stop." She didn't want to stop. It made absolutely no sense to her why she should feel such a strong connection to this man--such a fierce need--but then, when it came to Dante, there was a lot she didn't understand. She'd only just met him and yet he'd been with her for so long, as if fate had paired them up ages ago, then brought them together now.
Whatever it was, Tess had no desire to question.
She nipped her way down his belly, to his narrow hip, then bent forward and took the head of his sex into her mouth. She sucked him deep, letting her teeth gently graze his shaft as she withdrew. He moaned sharply, braced before her as rigid as a column of steel. She felt Dante's pulse kick as she took him into her mouth again, felt the throb of his heartbeat traveling along the veined length.
She could feel the rush of his blood coursing through his body, scarlet-dark and ferocious, and for one startling, utterly insane moment, she wanted to know what all that power would taste like against her tongue.
The moonlit river was an undulating ribbon of black outside the tinted passenger window of the SUV. And it was quiet, no other cars on the empty, weed-choked stretch of concrete that used to be the parking lot for an old paper mill, condemned about twenty years ago. Ben Sullivan was guessing it was a decent place for a murder, and the stony silence of the intense, heavily armed man at the wheel of the vehicle wasn't giving him a lot of reason to hope otherwise.
As the SUV rolled to a stop, Ben prepared himself for a fight, wishing to hell he'd found a way to get his hands back on that .45 he'd lost at his apartment. Not that he expected he'd have much of a chance with this guy, even if he was armed. Unlike his dark-haired partner, who broadcasted menace in his voice and his actions, this one held his cards close to his chest. He was icy calm, but Ben could read the seething rage that ran underneath the surface of that polished Mr. Cool demeanor, and it terrified him.
"What's going on? Why'd we stop here? Are we waiting for someone?" The questions poured out of him, but he was too anxious to care if he sounded like a chicken-shit. "Your partner back there said he wanted you to take me to `the compound,' didn't he?"
No reply.
"Well, wherever that is," Ben said, looking around at the desolate lot, "I don't suppose this is the place."
With the vehicle idling in park, the driver blew out a long breath of air and turned a cold look on him. The guy's pale blue eyes were killer sharp, filled with barely restrained fury. "You and I are going to have a private talk."
"Am I going to survive it?"
He didn't answer, just stuck his hand into an inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. A photograph, Ben realized, catching the gloss in the dashboard light.
"Have you ever seen this inpidual?"
Ben glanced at the image of a clean-cut young man with tousled light brown hair and a broad, friendly smile. He wore a Harvard sweatshirt and was giving the photographer the thumbs-up sign with one hand, while the other held out a sheet of formal stationery emblazoned with the university's symbol on the letterhead.
"Well? Is he familiar to you?"
The question was a low snarl of sound, and while Ben was sure he'd seen the kid around, even dealt Crimson to him a few times this week alone, he didn't know whether or not that answer would be the one to save him or damn him right now. He slowly shook his head, lifting his shoulder in a noncommittal shrug.
Suddenly he was choking, his face caught in a bruising grip that crushed him so tightly he thought his jawbone would crack. God, the guy had struck like a viper--faster than that, because Ben hadn't even seen his hand move in the small space of the front seat.
"Have a closer look," Mr. Cool demanded, pushing the photo up into Ben's face.
