AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Fourteen
- Noemi -
DANTE’S LIPS MOVEDforcefully against mine, the weight of his body pushing me up against the column. His hand wrapped around the back of my head. One arm pinned me against the length of his body, lean and hard against me. I whimpered when he moved, thinking he was going to lift his head again. The first kiss was as sweet as any I’d ever received. Gentle. Light.
And not nearly enough.
It was just a taste of him, and I suddenly realized I was starving. Relief washed through me when he didn’t stop kissing me. My hands moved from his arms to slide up the breadth of his chest. Sinewy strength passed under my hands. My fingers curled over his shoulders.
I’d been kissed before; some would say passionately. But Dante’s kiss was like he wanted to consume me. His lips were firm and soft at the same time. Taking. Devouring. I was so caught up in the kiss it barely registered whether I kissed him back. Doubt and insecurity hit me, colder than the night air we stood in. I didn’t think he’d kiss me like this. I wasn’t sure I knew how to kiss him back the way he kissed me. No one had ever kissed me that way before.
I felt the cold air on my mouth as the warmth of Dante’s lips deserted me.
“No,” I moaned. Why had he stopped? “Dante,please.”
Yes, I wanted his kisses so much I’d beg for them.
“Stop overthinking it, baby girl.”
His lips traveled down the side of my throat to the crook of my neck. He nipped that sensitive spot and I jumped but moaned again as he soothed the area with his tongue.
I don’t know how he knew that I was so caught up in my own head that I was ruining a moment I’d dreamed of since I was sixteen. It didn’t live up to those dreams; it surpassed them. My stomach fluttered and my knees weakened. I didn’t know that this was how a kiss was supposed to feel. Like it was a permanent invitation for more. Like survival. Like if he didn’t kiss me again, and often, I’d wither away.
I always knew I wanted Dante Calegari, but I never knew Ineededhim.
Dante’s kiss on my neck dislodged my coat from my shoulders. The cold air hit my skin sending a shiver through me. Instinctively, I sought the warmth of his body to replace the wool of my coat. I snuggled against him as his mouth sought mine once more. He let go of the back of my head and adjusted me so that I was cradled in his arms, his body sheltering me from the December air. Every happy-ending, earth-shattering, big screen, epic-movie kiss I’d ever seen paled in comparison to that kiss.
Dante’s lips remained firm and insistent. I heard him groan the word “open,” but he didn’t really need to say it. I parted my lips for his searching tongue. My next shiver had nothing to do with the cold. It was all about him and how he made me feel. Like he wanted to know me from the inside out. His tongue traced mine, running smoothly along the inside of my mouth, making me moan with pleasure. Another shiver coursed through me, this time in reaction to the need growing inside me.
Dante misread it.
He cursed, raising his head quickly as my body spasmed.
“You’re cold.”
I shook my head. Yes, I was, but I wasn’t. Not as long as he kept kissing me like that. I wanted him to kiss me again, but now that my head started to clear from the effects his kiss had on me, I didn’t have the courage to ask him.
I opened my eyes and met his gaze. Dante looked down at me with an expression I hadn’t seen on his face in almost a decade, and even then, it was so brief I thought I’d dreamed it.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
He closed his eyes and stood up straighter, taking me with him. We stood there for a minute, his arms around me still but slackening with each second that passed. What was he doing? Why was this ending? I didn’t want it to end!
Tell him, my heart screamed.Let him know what you want!
But my mind and the fear that battled within it won out. What if he said no? What ifhedidn’t want to kissmeagain? What if Lilly was right? Maybe my lack of experience turned him off? Maybe I wasn’t good at this and he had no desire to continue?
I could convince him, perhaps? Seduce him?
Who was I kidding? I’d never seduced anyone in my life. I had no idea how to do it and would probably end up looking like a fool. I only knew how to be myself and there was absolutely nothing seductive about me. It wasn’t hard to bend to my fear’s reluctance when the truth was right in front of me.
Dante’s arms fell and I was left with the cold surrounding me. In response, I reached for my fallen coat and pulled it tight around me.
Looking up at him, the air around me wasn’t the only thing that had gone icy again. Dante’s eyes were the coldest I’d seen them since my return. Not disinterested like the night of the party. Not angry like this afternoon. But cold - devoid of any emotion whatsoever.
So that was it. The kiss that would define all kisses for the rest of my life, given to me by the man I’d always dreamed of sharing it with, had not reached him at all. In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect, not just dampening his desire but completely stamping it out and leaving a dark void in its absence.
I wanted to run. I needed away from him. Moisture pricked my eyes.
