Authors: Lynsay Sands
Mary made a sound in her throat that could have meant just about anything. Even she didn't know what it signified other than her confusion at that moment.
Concern on his face, Dante began to chafe her hands. As he did, he said, “My brother and I were born in 1906. I am over a hundred years old. I cannot read or control you. Among my people that means you are a possible life mate for me.”
“What's a life mate?” she asked with bewilderment.
“The one person we cannot read or control and whom we may be happy with for all our days. Our mate for our very long lives,” he said solemnly.
“And you think because you cannot read or control me I'm this life mate for you?” she asked
“It is one of the signs,” he said simply.
“What are the other signs?” Mary asked uncertainly.
Dante stopped chafing her hands and met her gaze. “Shared dreams . . . like the ones we experienced last night.”
“What?” Mary stared at him blankly. “You mean you know what I wasâ?”
“I know what
we
were dreaming. Yes,” he interrupted solemnly. “I was there with you every time. I held you in my arms and made love to you while we slept.” Pausing, he grimaced and added, “Well, I tried to, but every time we got close, Bailey would wake you andâ” He stopped and eyed her warily when her hands jerked in his and she made a choked sound in her throat. Squeezing her hands gently, he said, “Shared dreams too are
a sign of a possible life mate. Along with shared passion.”
“What's that?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know. This was all madness. She'd gone off her rocker, she was sure.
“When I kissed and touched you earlier . . .” Dante paused and then added dryly, “When we were actually awake before Dave interrupted . . . I was experiencing your pleasure as I gave it to you.”
“You were?” Mary asked shakily, and when he nodded, frowned and asked, “How?”
“I am not sure,” Dante admitted. “As much as we understand it, it seems that the pleasure between life mates is shared somehow. It bounces back and forth between them, growing with each pass back and forth until it is overwhelming, and when the couple finds their release it is usually so overwhelming they both briefly lose consciousness.”
“Oh,” Mary breathed, and then simply stared at him for a moment, unsure what to think. After a moment though, she said, “But you keep saying possible life mate. It's not for sure?” she asked, trying to grasp what he was telling her. “It's just possible?”
“Yes, well . . .” Dante hesitated and then sighed and said, “The truth is that for me, you
are
a life mate. But the decision is yours as to whether you agree to be that life mate I can share my long life with.”
Mary's eyes widened. He said the word
life mate
as if it was something special, even sacred.
Raising her hands, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles, then met her gaze and said solemnly. “You are my life
mate, Mary. And I would like to claim you. Will you accept me as such?”
Dante sounded like he was reciting some kind of marriage vow and Mary stared at him, her heart in her throat. She was tempted to just throw herself at him and say yes, then rip off his clothes, but . . . shaking her head, she whispered unhappily, “But I'm so old.”
Her words brought a tender smile to his face and he pointed out. “You are almost half my age.”
“Oh, right,” she muttered, doing the math in her head. Born in 1906, that made him almost fifty years older than her. It boggled the mind. He didn't look a day over twenty-five and she said, “But you
look
young.”
“Oh, Mary,” Dante said with exasperation, then smiled slightly and said, “I have lived a long time and seen much. I have learned not to judge a person by the number of wrinkles they have or a few gray hairs.” Shifting her hands to one of his, he used his other hand to tilt her face up until she met his eyes and then said, “To me you are beautiful. Your laugh lines and crow's-feet say that you know how to enjoy life, and the scars and marks left by time show that you have
lived
life.”
That was so sweet, Mary thought weakly, but . . . “I have stretch marks,” she admitted with embarrassment.
Dante shrugged. “They show that you love life and enjoy the pleasure it offers.”
“Yeah. Too much,” Mary muttered under her breath. She'd long ago given up her battle of the bulge, and had never regretted it so much as in that moment when faced with the possibility of Dante seeing her naked.
“There can never be too much pleasure,” he assured her solemnly, drawing her attention back to him.
Mary narrowed her eyes at the smooth line and said a little acerbically, “That sounds like an argument the snake would have used in the garden of Eden to tempt Eve.”
Releasing her hands, Dante placed his hands on either side of her legs and slid them up to clasp her by the hips, then asked huskily, “Are you tempted?”
God help her, she was, Mary realized. It was madness. He was telling her vampires existed, that he was old and just looked young. And there he knelt before her, a beautiful olive-skinned Adonis, claiming that he didn't care that she wasn't some sweet young thing with a perfect body and bouncy boobs. He wanted her.
“Please, Mary,” he said softly.
She shifted her gaze from his perfectly muscled chest to his face and gave the slightest nod. Truly, Mary wasn't even sure her head lowered more than a quarter inch, but it was enough for him. He lunged upward like a wave, his mouth covering hers as he caught her in his arms, lifted her up and bore her back on the bed before lowering to lie half on her and half on the bed beside her.
Mary moaned at both the combination of his kiss and the feel of his suddenly roving hands. They were everywhere, one holding her head in place as he ravished her mouth, the other sliding from one breast to the other and then sliding down to press the cloth of her shorts against her core. Mary gasped and shuddered and moaned by turn, arching into his caresses
even as her own hands reached eagerly for him, first grasping his shoulders in an effort to pull him down on her fully. When that proved impossible, she trailed her hands down his chest and stomach and then finally between his legs to find the spot in his jeans that was again bulging outward as if eager to get to her.
Dante groaned into her mouth and pressed more firmly between her legs as she touched him through his jeans. But just as she reached for the snap of his jeans, he suddenly broke their kiss to shimmy down her body, removing that option from her. Before she could protest, he'd jerked her top out of her shorts and tugged it up.
Gasping in alarm, Mary gave up on trying to get to him and instead turned her attention to trying to push her shirt back down. Kissing was one thing, but she was still not pleased at the thought of his seeing her old body.
However, Dante would not be denied. Catching both of her hands in one of his, he held them out of the way and jerked her shirt up again, then tugged her bra to the side, freeing one breast. He paused briefly then, drinking her in, then raised his eyes to hers and murmured, “Beautiful.”
Mary gaped at him, then sucked in a startled breath as he lowered his head and latched onto the revealed breast, drawing eagerly on the nipple with his mouth as his hand squeezed and kneaded the soft flesh around it. Mary bit her lip and twisted her head on the bed at the fire he was breathing over her tender flesh, then cried out, and arched on the bed as his knee sud
denly slid between both of hers and began to press against her core.
“Dante, please, let me touch you,” Mary begged, struggling to get her hands free. She wanted desperately to hold him just then. Actually, she wanted to rip his pants off, grab him by the hair and drag his head up to kiss him again as he plunged into her, but he was having none of that. He continued to hold her hands over her head with one hand, but the other now left her breast to his mouth's attention and lowered to undo her shorts. She felt the snap giving way and the zipper sliding down, and then he tugged her shorts down around her knees.
Mary cried out as his hand replaced the cloth.
“
Si, cantare per me.
Sing for me,” Dante muttered around her erect nipple as he began to caress her. But his words made Mary realize that they were in an RV with flimsy walls and that anyone passing might hear. Instead of “singing” for him, she turned her head to the side and bit into the flesh of her own upper arm to try to silence herself. And then she screamed into the flesh she'd just bit as his finger slid smoothly into her.
“God, Mary,” Dante growled. “
Sei cosi stretto
, you are so tight. I want to be inside you.”
“Yes,” Mary gasped, but instead of rearing up and doing that, he continued to thrust his finger into her and caress at the same time, building the tension until Mary thought she would die if he didn't make love to her.
“Dante, please,” she almost sobbed, her hips dancing under his caress. “Please, I need you.”
“
Si
, Mary,” he muttered, lifting his head. He paused
to kiss her again, then straightened to kneel over her and reached for the snap of his jeans, just as someone knocked at the door.
They both stilled then, eyes locking.
“No,” Dante breathed, but the knock came again and Mary bit her lip and glanced along her body toward the door as Bailey leapt off the dinette's bench seat and moved to the door to rear up and paw at it with a bark. A sure sign that it was someone she knew at the door.
“If that is Dave again, I swear I will do more than make him bark and drink out of Bailey's dish,” Dante growled, shifting off the bed. “I will make him lick his own balls.”
“You will not,” Mary gasped, scrambling to get off the bed and pull up her shorts.
“You are right. He probably could not reach them,” Dante said grimly, snapping up his jeans.
Shaking her head, Mary did up her shorts, and then ran her fingers quickly through her hair as she rushed ahead of him to get to the door first. If it was Dave, she was going to make sure he didn't step foot in the RV . . . for his own good.
“There you are,” Carol said cheerfully as Mary opened the RV door. When Mary smiled and stepped back for her, Carol stepped up into the RV carrying a large box, then stopped abruptly as she got a good look at her. Her eyes immediately went wide and her mouth made a perfect O of surprise. “Oh, you'reâdid Iâyouâ”
“I was doing my calisthenics,” Mary blurted, not sure
what the woman was seeing, but hoping that would explain away whatever it was.
“
Si
, she was working very hard,” Dante added, completely straight-faced. Then he stepped between them, placing his back to Carol as he quickly shifted Mary's breast back into her bra and tugged her shirt down. And he was grinning, dammit.
Mary closed her eyes on a sigh and wondered when she had lost control of her life. Or was it her mind she'd lost?
“She will not remember what she saw,” Dante murmured softly by her ear, his voice affectionate. Then he stepped aside and she saw that Carol had the same blank look on her face now that Dave had worn earlier. Mary sagged with relief, then straightened when Carol suddenly took on expression and movement again as if someone had pushed a button on her back to activate her.
“I went into town to pick up mail, and two boxes were waiting for you there,” Carol announced cheerfully, nodding down at the heavy-looking box she carried before adding, “The other one is still in the golf cart.”
Dante immediately moved forward to take the box Carol carried. He set it on the dinette table for her, and then went out to fetch the second box from the golf cart as well.
“Oh, thank you, Carol,” Mary murmured as Dante quickly returned with the second box and set it on the table as well. She eyed the boxes curiously, wondering what they held, but she was also thinking that Dante
had obviously been telling the truth. Carol hadn't been in the office to visit. Dave had been lying.
“My pleasure,” Carol said easily, and then asked, “Have you seen Dave? He was heading out to handle an issue with one of the campers when I left, and still isn't back.”
“Oh . . . er . . .” Mary glanced to Dante with alarm, worried that he'd done something to the man. Or made the man do something to himself under his influence.
“I believe he mentioned going down to the river,” Dante said mildly in response to her look. When Mary narrowed her eyes suspiciously, he added, “To feed the birds.”
Mary relaxed a little and turned to offer Carol a forced smile as the woman said, “Well then I guess I'd better go find him. He'll forget to eat lunch otherwise.”
“Is it lunchtime already?” Mary asked with surprise. It seemed like they'd just had breakfast.
“Just about,” Carol said lightly as she turned to head out of the RV.
Mary waved her off and closed the door behind her, then turned to peer at Dante suspiciously. “Did you really send him to feed the birds?”
“Yes.”
“And that's it?” Mary asked, eyes narrowed.
Dante scowled, but then grimaced and admitted reluctantly, “I may have put the suggestion in his mind that while he was down there he should perhaps fall in . . . a couple or three times,” he muttered and when she opened her mouth, added quickly, “He needed to cool off.”
“He did, did he?” Mary asked with sudden amusement. He looked so much like a little boy caught being bad in that moment.
“Yes, he did,” Dante assured her. “Besides, it is better than he deserved for his thoughts. You are mine.”
“Am I?” she asked softly.
“Oh, yes,” he assured her and drew her into his arms. His head was just lowering toward hers when Bailey whined and pawed at the door.
They both closed their eyes briefly, and then Mary reluctantly pulled gently out of his arms. “She has to go out.”