Well, okay, then. When he put it like that…
As I lifted my shirt too, I almost choked on air because Hunter and I weren’t the only ones undressing. Slade was also.
CHAPTER 22
EMME
In my time with the Reeves pack, I’d seen Slade dressed in sweats, leather, or his enforcer getup. In all outfits there was only a hint of his tattoos peeking out from the neckline and sleeves of his shirt, with most of his bronze skin hidden away. There’d been the time in the clearing of Silver City too, but I’d been too distracted by the pierced cock hanging over my head to take in any other part of him.
Today, though, I got the full show.
I forgot to take my pants all the way off as I stood in shock, staring at the glorious planes of his chest as they emerged.Shifter saints have mercy.
None of the alphas in this room were slouches in the muscles department. Hunter, who was also shirtless at this point, was big, beautiful, and a work of art I still couldn’t afford, while Kellan had the smooth, muscled physique of a professional athlete.
Slade, though. Slade freaking Riverson. There was no way he was real.
Firstly. He. Was. Huge.
The actual breadth of his chest and arms were…a lot.Awholelot. Topped off by the fact that he hadboth freakingnipples pierced.I hadn’t noticed that the last time, but clearly this alpha enjoyed a dose of pain and piercing.
My gaze caught on the silver bars through both brown nipples and held for longer than was probably healthy. Eventually I continued down the lines of his chest, over intensely carved abs, and along the defined V that led to the waistband of his black pants. There was a trail of dark hair directing me to the center of his V, and I was reminded that his nipples weren’t the only part of him pierced. The monster in his pants was as well.
With a shake of my head, I forced myself to stop staring and breathing heavily, which was no doubt getting weird for all of us involved.
“You’ve got a little drool,” Hunter said, and he sounded amused rather than annoyed, which was a lovely change. No one outside of our pack was allowed to so much as breathe in my direction, but within our quintet, there was very little jealousy.
“I mean, can you blame me? How the fuck is he real?”
Slade’s sinfully full lips curved into a devastating smile. I’d seen him smile before… No, wait, had I ever seen him properly smile? Either way, it had my legs trembling as I clutched my sweats around my thighs like they were a lifeline keeping me standing. “Dragon genetics,” he rumbled with a shrug of perfect shoulders.
Speaking of dragons, his tattoos needed their own moment…
“Your tattoos are not what I expected.” They were even more spectacular than Hunter’s, and that was saying something.
I fought the urge to step into him so I could trace my fingers along the lines. “Who does your work?” I said, more to myself than anything, because the beasts across his chest were so incredibly lifelike.
Two large dragon heads spanned across either side of his broad pectoral muscles, facing each other. Their bodies trailed up and over both shoulders, their tails curling around his biceps.
On the right side, the dragon was predominantly green with heavy, black-tipped scales, and on the left was its opposite: a mostly black beast with just hints of green to emphasize scales and size. This darker dragon had smoky shadows spanning its form, while the right was lighter, with sparks of what looked like starlight around it.
The greens of both were the exact shade of Slade’s eyes and dragon, and I was drawn to the way the pair faced off against each other, jaws wide and snarling, flames curling around their razor-sharp teeth as they met in the center of his chest, foes about to battle.
“A psychologist would have a field day with that tattoo,” Hunter said, his gaze also locked on Slade’s chest. I nodded, having formed a few theories already.
“What do you see?” Slade asked, tilting his head a touch, which wasn’t his predatory move. It was his curious one. “What does it say about me to you?”
Swallowing roughly, I tried to loosen my grip on my pants as my fingers were starting to ache, but none of my limbs remained under my control. “You war against your dragon. Both sides of you are not at peace, the dark and the light, which makes existing between them the most dangerous place of all.”
At the center of the two beasts, there was this hollow gap with just a spattering of dark ink—a tear in the fabric of existence that could never be breached.
Slade didn’t comment, but his gaze was heavier as he watched me like I was the greatest curiosity in the room.
When Kellan made a slight noise, it broke the moment, and all of us snapped into action to help our pack mate. I yanked my pants down, leaving myself clad in a matching black bra and panties set. Crawling across the bed to Kellan, I draped myself down his left side, gasping as Hunter, who had followed right behind me, lifted me on top of Kellan’s chest.
“We all have to fit,” he reminded me as I tried to adjust myself so I wasn’t quite so intimately sprawled across an unconscious male. “He won’t mind, trust me.”
Slade sat on the right side of the bed, dipping it with his weight. “Oh, he’ll mind alright. But only that he’s missing it. I’ll have to show him the video footage when he wakes up.”
