Standing room only would have been a generous assessment of the packed conditions in the dining car. The press of people made Dante edgy. Consequently, she picked nervously at her salad, devoured her steak, and drank too much red wine.

At the table across the aisle sat a very handsome man who also devoured his steak and drank too much wine. Dante tried to keep her eyes on her plate, but he drew her gaze like a lodestone. He fidgeted in his seat, his broad shoulders hunched in the narrow space. The way his fingers fiddled with the stem of the wine glass told Dante he didn’t want to be in the crowded space any more than she did.

She wondered what bothered him. He’d been frowning since boarding the train in Prague that afternoon. Guilt nibbled at her for staring so much but she couldn’t help herself. She always watched people. It was easier than actually talking to them and dealing with their neuroses, psychoses, and selfishness.

The waiter cleared the plates and Dante slipped him a few Euros. He smiled gratefully and she rose and began to inch her way out of the dining car. A few feet from the door, an elbow slammed painfully into her side. Her gaze traveled upward to find a pair of worried green eyes. The handsome man from across the aisle stood there, an apologetic expression on his face.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “Did I hurt you? These kids…they have no respect.” He turned his head, glaring at the crowd of Goths who had pushed him.

Dante smiled, her heart beginning to race. He looked divine up close. All gorgeous eyes in a sculptured face.

She drew a deep breath and said, “I’m fine. No harm. No foul.”

Taking the deep breath had been a mistake, she realized. His scent filled her nostrils and permeated her senses. He smelled like melted dark chocolate. She swallowed hard. Most of the men she met never engaged her interest. Tonight, however, her libido decided to work overtime.

“Let me,” the handsome man replied in a low voice as smooth and rich as his dark chocolate scent.

He held the door for her and she stepped into the adjoining carriage car. Turning her head, she gazed at him from beneath her lashes. He stepped in behind her and shut the door. Shaking his hair back from his eyes, he smiled at her.

Her heart slammed against her breastbone. She suddenly understood her body’s crazy reactions, but not what made him so special. To most people, he would have appeared quite ordinary, dressed in faded jeans that molded his thighs and narrow hips. Beneath his caramel colored sheepskin-lined jacket, a grey designer t-shirt stretched across his broad chest. Totally unremarkable clothing and yet, he wore them as if they were his skin. His tall, lean frame excited Dante so much he might as well have been standing before her naked with every muscle and sinew on display. She wondered what it would take to get him naked.

She blinked, pulled from her reverie by his smile and the movement of his arm as he held out his hand. “I’m Ranulf Verlaine. Are you in this car?”

Dante shook her head automatically. She had a first-class sleeper car for two, even though she traveled alone. Her hand reached for his and as their palms met, her skin tingled. The tingle became a raging brushfire. Her self-control stretched paper thin as she fought not to grab him and pull his head down to hers.

“Dante Allerton,” she replied huskily, her senses going crazy as his scent and touch mesmerized her. “I’m in the first-class sleeper.”

She couldn’t look away from his eyes, but somewhere in her sex-fogged brain his name registered. Verlaine…The renowned pack outside of Paris. He was a wolf…a werewolf. For a moment, she tried to remember what she knew of Alphas, Betas, and wolf hierarchy, but the sexual lure he presented distracted her. She couldn’t make her brain concentrate when her body screamed to have him.

“Dante is an unusual name for a woman,” he remarked, his incredible eyes flickering as his gaze slid over her body, making her burn even hotter.

“In school, all the boys wanted to touch my inferno,” she joked softly, her voice tight with lust.

She tossed back her hair and a slow smile curved his lush mouth as he watched the movement. He rubbed one hand over his stubbly jaw. “Oh, I’ll bet they did,” he murmured, his tone becoming seductive.

His nostrils flared and she knew that his highly developed werewolf sense of smell had scented her arousal. Not that she wanted to hide it from him. He aroused her and the opportunity he presented would not be wasted.

“Would you like to join me in my compartment? Maybe you’d like to see if you can withstand the heat,” Dante told him boldly. Fleetingly, she wondered at her audacity. Acting the seductress felt awkward, but she hadn’t ever wanted a man this much before. When she’d first seen him across the aisle at dinner, her preternatural awareness had pinged. Now, standing so close to him that she could feel the heat of his body, that same awareness pinged so hard it was off the Richter scale. Such an fierce, instantaneous reaction told her instinctively that she needed to claim him for her own even if that meant kicking her usual self-doubt in the ass.

She breathed in Ranulf’s scent again. Her body officially raged out of control. In fact, her vampire had completely run away with her and there was no hope to put anything back the way it had been before Ranulf had touched her.

“It would be… will be… my pleasure.” Ranulf put his hand beneath her elbow, and she led the way to her compartment.

The possessive gesture ratcheted up her desire. Every time his lean body brushed hers in the tight quarters of the train, flames of desire licked at her. They stepped aside once to let several passengers pass and Ranulf put his arm possessively around her shoulders, drawing her back against the heat of his body. She ached to shove him onto a nearby seat, straddle his thighs, and sink down onto his hard cock. She burned with sexual heat. Never had she felt such need for a man. She had no experience with instantaneous, white hot lust. And even worse, she had an inexplicable emotional connection to him telling her he felt the same.

At her door, she slipped the keycard in and the lock slid open. The little cabin had a proper bed, albeit a small one and not much bigger than a twin bed. Dante didn’t think the size would pose much of a problem for them. Her eyes flicked to the travel clock. Six hours to Paris. Would it be enough to quench the raging thirst she had for him?

She turned, her body brushing his. He slipped out of his jacket, tossing it onto the chair. His hands came up, sliding along her arms from her elbows to her shoulders. “You’re beautiful and you’re wearing far too many clothes,” he whispered.

Her movements were so swift they must have been a blur. In mere seconds she stripped down to her pale pink thong and nothing else. Beneath his stormy gaze, her nipples stiffened. Dante wanted to scream. She wanted him to touch her, not stand there and stare. His golden brown hair fell over his eyes when he tilted his head down to take in her nakedness. He reached out and cupped one breast. Her lips parted on a sigh. She shifted foot to foot, feeling confined in the thong. She wanted to be naked, wearing only Ranulf…

Fuck it, she thought and reached for him, slipping her hands beneath his t-shirt. Holy hell, his skin felt wonderful! Her hands skated up his ridged abdomen to his pecs, the muscles hard as stone against her questing touch. She looked down at the front of his jeans, her heart thundering with anticipation. He was hard everywhere.

She licked her lips and tilted her head up to shoot him a provocative look. Then she slid her hands down his torso to the top button of his jeans. A soft popping sound signified the opening of all the buttons. Ranulf audibly sucked in a breath and the jeans inched down. Dante moved her hands inside the open waistband, over his hip bones, helping the denim make its way to the floor. His dark chocolate scent intensified as her fingers touched his bare skin. Her fingers stilled briefly as she discovered he wore no underwear. Good, she thought as her fingers found his thick erection. Flames licked at her body, fueled by his scent and the feel of his hard flesh in her hands.

Dante stroked Ranulf’s straining cock as he pulled off his shirt and kicked free of his shoes and jeans. She stared up at his sculpted body and her eyes dilated. Tribal bands in black ink decorated his upper arms and shoulders. Vaguely, she recalled something about wolf clan marks and pack bonds, but couldn’t remember the particulars. The swirling bands of black across his muscles were erotic and she instantly wanted to lick them, trace them with her tongue, and feel him writhe beneath her. Heat rushed through her veins, setting her on fire from the inside out. She knelt and would have licked the head of his cock, but Ranulf sucked in a harsh breath and cupped his hands around her head, stopping her.

“Who are you?” he murmured roughly, his green eyes holding hers intently. “And what the hell is this between us?”