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He kept saying her name, and every time it rolled off his tongue, she felt some of her anxiety melt away. "Look, I'm, uh... I came here with someone," she blurted out, reaching for the easiest excuse that came to her.
"Your boyfriend?" he asked, then turned his shrewd gaze unerringly toward the crowded bar where Ben had gone. "You don't want him to come back and see us talking?">He loved her now, as always.
It shamed him, how much she affected him. Just thinking of her, his skin felt tight and too warm. She made him burn inside, and she could never know the truth of that. She would despise him for it, he was sure.
But that didn't stop the clawing itch to be near her.
To be naked with her, even just once.
Chase stopped his pacing and dropped down onto the large sofa in his den. He sat back, thighs spread, head back on his shoulders, staring up at the tall white ceiling some ten feet above him.
She was there, in that bedroom over this very space.
If he breathed deeply enough, he could catch the faint rose and heather scent of her. Chase sucked in a long draft of air. Hunger coiled in him, stretching his fangs from his gums. He licked his lips, almost able to imagine the taste of her.
Sweet torture, that.
He imagined her padding barefoot across the carpeted floor of her room, unlacing the ties of her flimsy nightgown. Letting the silk fall near the bed as she climbed onto cool sheets and lay there, uncovered, uninhibited, her nipples like rosebuds against the paleness of her skin.
Chase's throat was desert dry. His pulse kicked into a hard drum, blood flowing hot through his veins. His cock was stiff within the confinement of his black jeans. He reached for the ache of his sex, palming his erection over the thick fabric and straining buttoned fly. Stroking himself the way Elise never would.
He rubbed more urgently, but it only made the need worse.
He would never stop wanting...
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, disgusted with himself for his weakness.
He yanked his hand away and got up with a hiss of anger, denying himself even so much as the fantasy of bedding his perfect, unattainable Elise.
Heat licked along the length of Dante's bare legs. It climbed higher, over his hips and torso, snaking up his spine and around his shoulders. Relentless, consuming, the heat pressed deeper, like an unstoppable wave crashing over him in slow-motion torment. It burned ever stronger, growing ever hotter, all but engulfing him.
He couldn't move, no longer in control of his limbs or even his own thoughts.
All he knew was the fire.
And the fact that it was killing him.
Flames were twisting all around him now, smoke churning black, searing his eyes and scorching his throat with every futile, gasping breath he tried to take.
No use.
He was trapped.
He felt his skin blistering. Heard the sickening crackle of his clothing--his hair too--catching fire while he registered it all in stark, debilitating horror.
There was no way out.
Death was coming.
He felt the dark hand descend on him, pushing him down, toward a vortex of seething, endless nothing --
"No!"
Dante came awake with a jolt, every muscle tensed to fight. He tried to move, but something held him down. A slight weight draped across his thighs. Another lying limply across his chest. Both females stirred on the bed, one of them making a purring noise as she nestled against him and stroked his clammy skin.
"What'sa matter, baby?"
"Get off me," he muttered, his voice raw and thready in his parched throat.
