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.
Fingers gripping the coverlet on each side of her, she held on for dear life as Lazaro licked and kissed and f**ked her senseless with his ruthlessly skilled mouth.
She came in mere moments, pleasure shooting through her in wave after glorious wave. She didn’t know if she sighed or screamed or both. She only knew that while her body was still floating in a million tiny shards of bliss, Lazaro started climbing back up to her on the bed.
He stroked her face, watching her—smirking in obvious satisfaction, for God’s sake.
Then his grin was gone as quickly as it had arrived, and he covered her mouth with his, kissing her hard and deep and wild.
He drew back on a curse, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. He stripped off his clothing and boots in mere seconds. Then he pivoted back to her, gloriously naked. He found his place between her thighs again and held himself there, unmoving, watching her. Considering her in some way.
His big body threw off waves of heat and power. The glyphs that traced his bulky shoulders and muscular arms continued onto the contours of his chest and rippled abdomen. They pulsed vividly on his skin, alive and flooded with color.
Those Gen One skin markings trekked farther south as well. The thick, long shaft of his c**k was circled with glyphs, their hues flushing even deeper as Melena admired him with unabashed approval.
God, he was immense. Magnificently so.