Every taut fiber of his being ached with the need to put his mouth on her silken skin, to feel all of her. Taste all of her.
His hands obeyed that need, reaching up to gently ease the robe off Melena’s shoulders. It slipped down her arms, baring her to the waist. She was so lovely. Porcelain skin dusted with a smattering of sweet, peachy freckles and lush, feminine curves that begged to be savored.
The purple contusions and mending cuts on her torso and abdomen drew his eye just as intensely. Rage for whoever did it swirled through him like a fierce tempest. When he thought of how close she’d come to being lost in the explosion along with everyone else, that rage turned murderous and black.
But tenderly, he let his fingers light on a couple of her worst bruises. She flinched a little and some of his fury snarled out of him. “It hurts?”
“Only a bit.” When he drew his hand away, she caught it, placed his palm atop her bare breast. “I don’t want you to stop touching me.”
His c**k jerked in response, more than eager for him to oblige her. He filled his hand with her breast, then took her mouth in another deep kiss.
But feeling her, kissing her, only made him ache to explore some more.
His entire Gen One being throbbed with the need to claim, to possess.
He drew the robe off her completely. Let it fall in a pool at her feet. For one indulgent moment, he soaked in the sight of her through his amber-drenched, fevered eyes.
Then he lifted her off her feet and spread her out beneath him on his bed.
CHAPTER 7
Melena sank down onto the soft mattress and watched, wide-eyed and trembling, as Lazaro prowled up the length of her na**d body.
It wasn’t fear that gripped her. Nothing even close to fear.
Her every nerve ending had come alive—gone dizzyingly electric—under his careful, caressing touch and the sensual promise of his lips and tongue as he’d tenderly explored her skin.
Now, lying exposed to him completely on the bed while he remained clothed, she wasn’t uncomfortable in the least. And whether that made her a wanton harlot or a daring fool, she didn’t know. Nor did she care in that moment.
She wasn’t nervous or uncertain about anything she was doing with this man.
She wanted more.
He sent the boutique box to the floor with a sweep of his strong arm, making more room for them. She jumped, breath catching at the animalistic power that poured off Lazaro in palpable waves. She’d never felt so much energy and heat focused on her.
In her handful of failed relationships, no other man—Breed or human—had stirred her passion so easily, so masterfully. Difficult to please, more than one lover had called her. And they’d been right. None of them had taken her breath away. None of them had been able to hold her interest, in or out of bed, for more than a few months.
Then again, they weren’t Lazaro Archer.
She’d never been in the presence of a Gen One male with carnal hunger in his eyes.
And Lazaro’s hunger was intense.
His eyes were twin coals, locked on her as he positioned himself above her, braced on his strong fists on either side of her head. His fangs gleamed razor-sharp, enormous and fully extended.
And while his dermaglyphs were obscured by his black shirt and combat pants, she knew they had to be vivid with deep colors—not unlike the pulsating, blood-red aura that radiated from him as his consuming gaze drank in her nakedness from forehead to ankle.
He spread her legs with his thigh, nudging her open to him. As he covered her, the rigid length of his arousal ground against her hip. Her pulse sped up, tripping as he gave her a meaningful thrust of his pelvis, those smoldering amber irises burning her up.
He took her mouth in a slow but demanding kiss. He took her lip between his teeth, sucked her tongue deep into his mouth. Kissed her until she was panting and writhing beneath him, grasping at him with needy hands. “Now, I’m going to taste you, Melena,” he murmured against her slack mouth. “Every last creamy, delectable inch of you.”
And then, heaven help her, he proceeded to do just that.
He started with a maddening sweep of his tongue just below her ear. She shivered, even though her blood was on fire for the heat of his lips and the gentle, but unmistakable, rasp of his fangs as he dragged his mouth down to the curve where her neck and shoulder met. He suckled and nipped, working his way to her br**sts. Kneading them in strong hands, tonguing the tight buds at their peaks, he didn’t move on until she was moaning with pleasure and aching for more.
Her back arched into him as he began a slow and steady exploration of her rib cage and abdomen. He took care around her bruises, astonishing tenderness from a Breed male who had lived ten lifetimes and counting, whose own otherworldly body was virtually indestructible. Yet he navigated her minor wounds as though he were handling glass.
That moved her deeply, even more than his passion had overwhelmed her.
Melena reached down, cradling his dark head in her hands while his kiss traveled lower.
Across her stomach, onto each hip bone, over the quivering tops of her thighs. She trembled as his mouth blazed a slow path down the entire length of her right leg and ankle, then returned up her left calf, to her knee and the tingling flesh of her inner thigh.
If he wanted to make her wet and vibrating with the need to have him inside her, Lazaro could have stopped right after their lips had met for the first time here in his bedroom.
But it was patently clear from the wicked look he shot up the length of her nude body that he was only getting started.
His head lowered between her spread legs. When the heat of his breath rushed out against her sex, she shuddered. When his lips touched down and his hot, silky tongue cleaved into her slit, she let out a strangled cry.