"Moon damn it, Amara!!!Bloody foolish girl."
Dante cursed under his breath. The words tore…guttural…straight from his chest.
His strides were too fast…like somebody had hit the emergency button.Amara felt the world tilt and spin as the forest blurred past….each jump of his body sent her senses tumbling like she had downed an entire barrel of vodka by chance.
For some strange reason, Amara was starting to experience an abnormal surge in dizziness...and no, it was definitely not motion sickness… She felt like a drunkard.
Her head lolled against Dante's chest. Her nose brushed against the fabric of his shirt.
She inhaled without meaning to. His scent slammed into her senses.
And she giggled.
A soft, tipsy little giggle that startled even herself.
Dante's eyes snapped down, disbelief flashing across his otherwise furious face. "Are you for real? Laughing?Really?"
Her shoulders shook. Another giggle bubbled out of her throat as she tried to hide her mouth against him. "Mmhm."
"Goddess above, Amara." His jaw clenched, his grip around her tightening as though he could squeeze some sense back into her. "You nearly got yourself killed out there. Do you think this is a game?"
Her giggles only grew, higher, lighter, tumbling out in a way that made his chest feel far too tight.
"What…" Dante snapped, his voice as sharp as his claws. "What's so funny?"
Amara tilted her face up.
She bit her lips as they trembled with laughter, her eyes getting glassy with that growing giddiness now. She whispered through another wave of giggles, "Your smell."
Dante stumbled a fraction in his step. "My…what?"
Her fingers curled against his shirtfront, fumbling, clumsy from weakness but furiously determined. In one reckless tug, she popped the first button open. Then another. Then the third.
"Amara!!!" His voice thundered in warning, though the heat rising up his neck betrayed his anger.
She pressed her nose into the newly exposed skin of his chest, inhaling deep, unsteady but deliberate. A rush of warmth, of musk and wild pine, filled her head until she was now completely drunk on it.
"This smell is funny, Dante," she breathed, half stuttering, half moaning. "It makes me want to…"
Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parting on the words as she dragged them out…
"It makes me want to lick you,Dante."
Dante nearly missed his footing.
His face burned crimson.
His heart slammed against his ribs. His first instinct was rage…rage at her recklessness, at her wounded state, at her complete lack of control…and defiance…over and over again…
But gods help him, her words ignited a fire under his skin.
His throat bobbed hard. "Amara…" His tone broke between warning and something rougher, darker. "Do you even know what the hell you are saying?"
She blinked up at him, dazed, dreamy, her fingers curling tighter into his shirt where the fabric gaped open.
"I do," she whispered. "I like it.I wonder what you would taste like now…it's been a while...hasn't it?"
" Fuck! Amara!" Dante swore at the wind that did nothing to cool the blaze under his skin. He held her tighter…angrier even, as if restraining both of them.
"You stupid, reckless, maddening girl," he growled, voice low. "If you weren't bleeding out, I would…Oh…." Dante suddenly stopped. "Damn! Fuck, Amara! You have been poisoned." He grabbed her cheek and shook her hard. " Keep talking alright. Don't even think about closing your eyes! I thought they were using venom… but poison it is! "
He grit his teeth, chest heaving as his strides grew faster… and faster… until the terrains changed and the plains gave way to the steep, undulating mountainous landscape.
Steam hissed faintly in the distance, curling like pale ghosts above the trees.
A hot geyser came into view. It looked like a hidden spring, bubbling and restless…its warmth even seeped out into the chill air.
Dante stopped at the edge, chest heaving, his arms locked around Amara a little too careful for the split of a second…like as if she might slip from him and vanish forever.
He glanced down at her.
Her eyes were vacant, unfocused… yet they caught on him as though he were the only anchor left in her spinning world.
And then…she giggled again.
Her unsteady hands rose and caught his cheeks between her fingers.
"Oh, Dante…" Her voice came soft, sticky with fever, broken with longing. "You look so irresistible… I just want to kiss you… so bad."
Her lips quivered as her eyes brimmed. "I really, really missed you so much…"
Before he could react, before he could summon the fury that kept his restraint intact, she pushed herself up from his arms.
And pulled him into her.
Her mouth crushed against his…clumsy but desperate…all fire and salt and trembling warmth.
Dante's eyes flew wide…his body stiffened as her kiss seared across his mouth, sinking past the steel walls he had built around himself.
His heart pounded like war drums, heat sparking under his skin, threatening to consume him whole.
For one split second, the world vanished.
There was no past, no present, no danger, no rules…just Amara's mouth on his, her body pressed desperately close, as if she belonged nowhere else but in his arms.
But then…
Dante's eyes snapped open.
A snarl twisted in his chest.
With a violent jerk, he tore himself back from her lips…though every nerve screamed in rebellion.
His hands gripped her tighter…then, without warning, he shoved Amara straight into the geyser's steaming heart.
Her gasp cut through the air…her body hit the roiling surface with a splash before the warmth swallowed her whole.
Steam billowed upward, hissing loud, cloaking the moment in a shroud of mist as Dante stood at the edge, chest heaving, eyes burning like fire with seethe.
"Damn you, Amara," Dante growled. His voice cracked against the roar of the geyser. "You think you can throw yourself at me, bat those foolish eyes, and I will just fall in to pieces all over again?"
His fists clenched until his knuckles cracked.
The heat rising from the spring mixed with the heat still burning across his lips.
"You are nothing but a curse the Moon tied around my neck."
And with that Dante simply walked off…