Chapter Twenty-Two
Macgrath
I’d been awakefor a while but I didn’t want to move.
Ava’s body was pressed against mine and her face was buried in my throat. Her slow, warm breaths brushed my skin. Once I’d pulled her against me last night, she’d settled in and gone immediately to sleep. It hadn’t taken me long to join her.
She remained motionless except her hand. She began the night gripping my waist but eventually her fist relaxed and her palm moved up to rest over my heart.
I woke as the first rays of the sun came over the horizon and I was more content than I’d ever been in my life.
In this moment, in this bed, we felt like the only two people in the world.
As dawn lightened the sky, Rhiannon didn’t exist, my forgotten, cursed past was no longer an issue. All that mattered was the woman I held in my arms.
I wanted to hold onto this serenity for as long as I could. There had been precious little in my past and I doubted there would be much in my future if I couldn’t convince Ava to remain with me.
She shifted. I felt the heat between her legs against my thigh as she moved closer and dropped her calf between my knees. She sucked in a deep breath and the expansion of her lungs crushed her breasts against my side.
My dick hardened as she sighed, a small sound escaping her mouth. She stretched slowly, rubbing against me in a sinuous motion, and I bit back a groan.
My contentment morphed into something far more visceral. My hand clamped down on her hip in an effort to hold her still as she made another sound, this one far throatier.
Each movement of her body, each sound she made, was another slice in the bonds of my self-control.
“Macgrath?” she murmured.
Her voice was low and husky with sleep. She sounded sexy as hell.
Her body shifted restlessly and her smooth inner thigh slid along my leg. As she moved, I could sense her arousal. For vampires and shifters, all emotions had a scent. The changes in hormones and pheromones were too minute for the human nose to identify but I could smell them. It was a delicious scent in the air, an invitation to do more than hold her body against mine.
The hand resting against my heart flattened on my chest and slid downward over my abdomen. I grasped her wrist before her fingers could make their way beneath the waistband of my shorts.
“Ava, you need to stop.”
She made that damn sound again and her thigh nudged my dick as she moved once more. It was tempting to just give in and let her touch me however she liked. To take what she was offering me.
But I didn’t want her this way. I wanted her to reach for me with both eyes open, not half asleep and drowsy. At least not the first time.
Her head tilted and her nose brushed the underside of my jaw before she spoke. “I don’t want to,” she whispered.
I felt the movement of her lips against my jawbone and ground my teeth together. The witch was determined to test my ability to remain in control this morning. She tried to twist her wrist out of my grip but I refused to release her.
“You’re half asleep and you don’t know what you’re doing.” My voice sounded strained, even to my own ears.
She laughed and the sound was wicked and velvety in my ear. I couldn’t contain the groan that rose in my throat. Ava laughed again just before her teeth nipped my ear.
“If I’m sleeping, I don’t want to wake up,” she said. “I love it when I have these dreams.”
Her hand wiggled out of my hold and dipped beneath the waistband of my shorts as she spoke. As her fingers curled around my dick, it took me a second to process her words.
It hurt to do it, but I tugged her hand away from my cock and rolled us so that she lay beneath me. When she lifted her other arm, I captured that wrist as well, pinning them both above her head with one hand.
“What dreams?” I asked, staring down at her. Her golden hair streamed across the pillow and her cheeks were pink from arousal and sleep. I wanted to nip her bottom lip and breathe her in, but I stayed focused on my question. I had to know if she was dreaming of me as often as I was dreaming of her.
“I dream of you,” she replied, her eyes heavy-lidded as they met mine. “Only your hair is longer and the way you look at me is so different from the way you usually do…” she trailed off. Drowsiness faded from her face. “You look at me as though I’m the center of your universe.”
My hands tightened on her wrists. She winced and I released her suddenly, sitting back on my calves and staring down at her.
