Lucas settled behind me, his knees curled with mine and my back flush with his chest. His arms wound around me and his hands spread over my stomach.
He hadn’t commented when he’d emerged from the bathroom to find me tucked in bed wearing only my pyjama bottoms and a soft T-shirt. I didn’t want to sleep wearing a scarf. Added to the nagging fear that I would accidentally strangle myself, I didn’t want to hide away from him. It was strange and difficult to be around someone with a part of myself I struggled to accept on display, but I trusted Lucas to handle it carefully.
His nose pressing into the back of my neck felt like a reward for pushing myself to be brave.
‘Sleeping in a bed with you is going to be so much better than sleeping in one with Callum and Aster,’ he murmured.
I laughed. Lucas had moaned about the sleeping arrangement in the mountains during every one of our phone calls. ‘Why didn’t you sleep on the sofa?’
‘My reasons were two-fold.’ He extended a couple of fingers on my stomach. ‘Firstly, because that sofa might be fine for sitting, but as soon as I tried being horizontal on it, it became a bumpy freak. And secondly, if I wasn’t the filling in a Callum and Aster sandwich, then they would hump each other all night long. My delicate ears would never have recovered from the horror.’
I grinned into my pillow. ‘Plus, sleepy cuddles with Callum are the best, right?’
‘It’s very annoying that I can’t lie,’ Lucas grumbled. ‘Fine. Callum’s arms around me were wonderful. I didn’t want to sleep on the sofa. I wanted to cuddle with him every night.’
‘It’s something about being bitten by him.’ I shuddered. ‘Can you imagine if Bonnie was the one doing the biting?’
‘Oh, no. Ew.’ He smushed his face into my hairline. ‘She’s scary enough as it is. It would be terrifying to have a weird desire to snuggle with her.’
‘Callum might look scary, but at least he’s a fluffy mashed potato under all those muscles.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘Bonnie is all sprout inside. Smelly and green.’
‘Cuddling you is better than cuddling Callum,’ Lucas murmured, then tensed behind me. ‘Shit. That wasn’t exactly a natural response to talking about the menace who is our Alpha. Can you pretend I said something normal and not weird?’
‘I like cuddling you more than Callum too.’ I didn’t tell Lucas that I liked his brand of endearingly weird.
‘Okay, then. If we both like it, then that’s hunky dory.’
I smiled into the dark. ‘Night, Lucas.’
‘Sleep well, Kit.’
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Lucas was a line of warmth behind me from his lips on my nape down to where his feet nestled with mine. I’d not often slept with a partner before. Apparently, that was another symptom of my asking too much. I wasn’t sure I would be able to sleep much tonight. Having Lucas here was too much after weeks of telling myself nothing like this could ever happen.
I expected Lucas to hug me more once he passed his werewolf initiation training, but him in my bed now after we’d kissed and shared orgasms together was mind-boggling.
Lucas shifted. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered.
‘I can’t sleep.’
He sighed. ‘Me neither.’
I moved closer to him, then realised his reason for being restless was different to mine. His hard length pressed against my arse.
‘Ignore that.’ He bent to create space between us. ‘It’s ridiculous. I’ve come three times today. I’ve never come that much before.’
‘One of the perks of being a wolf.’ I arched until I was pressed against him again.
‘Oh, fuck.’ Lucas mouthed the back of my neck. ‘I want you so much. I feel like I could explode.’
Heat rose to my cheeks. I turned in the circle of his arms. Our eyesight was good in the dark, but I hoped his wasn’t accurate enough that he’d be able to see how his simple words affected me. I had to work hard to hear them as they were and not attach extra meaning. Lucas wanted me now, wanted me a lot, but that didn’t mean he would want me forever and always. Like I wanted him.
I kissed him before I said something stupid or before he said anything else that would melt down the solid steel walls I’d constructed around my heart. Lucas was good and kind, but that didn’t mean he was any less able to hurt me. In fact, it meant he was more able. I wouldn’t make him stay with me a minute longer than he wanted to, but when he left it would be crushing.
Better not to think about that. Better to think about Lucas’s hands scratching the skin of my waist. His lips moving with mine and his hips jerking in restless stutters.
‘What do you want to do?’ I asked when he slid away from my mouth to kiss along the length of my jaw.
He growled, then caught himself. ‘That was a lot more wolfy than I expected.’
