“My back is fine. I swear.” She yanked his mouth back to hers and arched her back until her breasts pressed against his chest. At the feel of her softness, his resistance broke. He plunged his tongue between her lips and moaned when she returned his kiss. Such fierceness.
Desperate to feel more of her, he stroked the skin at the small of her back where her shirt rode up. She gasped, and the delicious sound sent a shiver across his skin.
“You like that, do you?” he said at her ear.
Gently, he ran his hands up her back, cripplingly grateful that her wounds had healed and she would mend. She was so soft. Too soft, too precious, to be torn so gruesomely. He wanted to kiss every inch of her back, to make it all go away. From his mind, from hers, so that neither of them had to relive these painful and terrifying last days.
He dragged his mouth from hers and ran his lips along the side of her neck, inhaling her scent while savoring the feel of her beneath his lips and hands. Soft and curved against his hardness, but with muscle and strength that protected her. Cleverness that protected her.
He loved her strength, her daring and courage—the traits that made her put her life in danger every day. As she’d done for him. After every terrible thing he’d said to her. He hadn’t meant them, not truly. But she believed he had.
She deserved better than he, something he’d been too stupid to realize when he’d been bothered by her species. When he’d been avoiding her because of what she was. Now he couldn’t care less.
She was all he wanted. This.
Esha shivered at the feel of his big fingers skimming across the sensitive skin of her back. Goose bumps broke out on her arms as he dragged his tongue along the side of her neck.
“You’re so beautiful.” His gravelly voice at her ear made it so she could barely think straight. She should stop this. When they finished, he’d eventually look at her with derision again. Today or tomorrow, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t bear it. This was different from the one-night stands she used to keep the loneliness at bay.
This would hurt her. This was something.
He dropped to his knees in front of her. All thought of self-preservation flew from her mind.
“Wh-what?” she stuttered, her hands flying immediately to his strong shoulders.
She looked down at him. When she met his eyes, she gasped at the intensity of the desire within them. His big hands ran up her sides, supporting her and raising her shirt all at once.
“What are you—” She gasped when she felt the heat of his tongue against her stomach. Her head dropped back against the wall, her eyes sliding closed at the delicious feeling of his rough hands against her sides, his hot tongue tracing its way along the waistband of her pajama pants.
He was so close to her sex that she ached with anticipation. For something she’d never had, not when sex had always been about racing to the end and leaving. But with Warren…
His mouth pressed lower, dragging her soft pants down until she felt the heat of his tongue through the lace of her underwear. When his hands ran down her sides to the edge of her pants, her eyes jerked open. Startled, she looked down at him and met his gaze.
“Let me. Please.” His fingers curled beneath the waistband of her pants, awaiting her permission. She’d never seen anything like him, this golden god kneeling at her feet as if to worship her. With his hands. His mouth.
“I want to feel you. To
taste you.” There was such need in his voice, such desire.
Her mind buzzed. No one had ever said anything like this to her before. No one had ever looked at her like this.
Her mind raced. A kiss was one thing, but this… If he did this and rejected her, it would break her.
“I—I—” She couldn’t think straight with his big, hard body pressed against hers and his gentle hands poised to bare her to him.
“Let me do this for you. For me.” His eyes were hot on hers. “Trust me.”
Did she? Could she? She wanted this so badly. With the same fierceness that she saw in his eyes. Wordlessly, she nodded, unable to turn away from what he offered. Even if it was only for tonight—even if it broke her.
She bit her lip as she watched him bend his head to her. How had it come to this? Sex had always been on her terms. But now, Warren had her pressed up against the wall while he stole her mind and her self-control. It made her vulnerable to him in a way that terrified her.
But not enough to stop.
She dropped her head back against the wall once more and closed her eyes, the anticipation so unbearable that she couldn’t look.
Cool air brushed against her thighs, her calves, as he lowered her pants. With a press of his mouth to the front of her underwear, he looped his fingers through the sides and dragged them down as well.
“Beautiful.” The word, so singular, yet so evocative, made her snap open her tightly closed eyes.