“Dex!” Yeah, that didn't sound convincing at all.
“Please go back to sleep.” The heat of his mouth only intensified by a ratio of a thousand to one as he mumbled in reply. My poor body couldn’t handle having big, warm Dex cuddling up to me.
“I’ll go sleep on the couch.”
He growled a response, making me break into goose bumps.
“Dex, c’mon.” I tried to plead but didn’t budge an inch.
He didn’t say anything, his thumb just continued its languid circles right smack in the middle of my cheek. If anything, I think his upper body got even closer to mine. “Relax, babe,” he finally mumbled.
Like that was going to happen. My entire body was tense. Telling myself that this wasn’t right was like fighting the pull of the ocean’s tide. It felt unnatural. “I can't.“
"You can." Dex's smooth palm cupped my cheek and I sucked in a breath. Why the hell was I fighting this?
“I don't know what I'm doing," I blurted out, slamming my eyes shut.
His chuckle was smooth and dark. "I know, my sweet baby."
I should have just given up living after that. Living, fighting, existing. All of it.
BeforeIrealized what he was doing, his hand was out of my panties, the weight of his body was peeled off my back. Two large, familiar hands clasped onto my ankles immediately afterward, flipping me onto my back.
And then he was over me.
On his hands and knees, his beautiful, rugged face full of thick, black stubble was right there. Supple lips, Crayola Blue eyes and Uriel all greeted me.
If all that wasn't enough to grip my spine, he was shirtless. His smooth,sunkissedskin was taut over hard, carefully crafted muscles he worked on most of the week in hishomegym. Butthen he loomed over me, without the rust of a new friendship like it'd been in Austin. Hell, it wasn’t the same from the week before after his niece’s birthday party…
Oh boy. Oh. Boy.
I’d seen him shirtlessnot too long agoand it didn’t matter at all because his upper body was one of those things that got better every time I saw it.
The first thing I noticed again were the small stainless steel hoops through his perfect, dark nipples. Little nipples on a muscular chest and above aflawlessly ridgedsix-pack. A six-pack that led to thesweetslabsof v-shaped muscles that disappeared beneath black boxers...that didnothinghide to the massive tent his groin waspitching.
And then I remembered he had his dick pierced.
How the hell I didn’t pass out would be an unsolved mystery. What wasn’t an unsolved mystery was why my mouth went dry.I’m sure that I stopped breathing. Any man or woman would have done the same.
Dex was… better than anything I'd ever seen on print or television. I could even say celestial if he didn't look like he'd work for the devil instead of the good guys. The dark and colorful lines that spanned nearly all of his upper body heightened his hauntingly ethereal beauty. Over the course of the last couple of months, I’d never seen him wearing anything less than jeans and a t-shirt at all times besides our stint in Houston and the other time we slept in bed together.
And in that moment I was thankful it had taken so long for me to seehim so up-close. Each of the sleeves I’d seen day in and day out bled up and over his shoulders, traps, and pecs. Only his stomach was left without the thick black, blue, gray, and red ink that painted his skin. Uriel, his tattooed octopus, welcomed me in with his big, beautiful details and classic, striking red flesh.
I dragged my eyes from the sharp colors down to his crotch, and then back up again. I found him watching me with those heavy-lidded bright blue eyes.
“Goddamn.” His voice had taken on a husky tone that sounded like it was more than just sleep dragging it in. "In what fuckin’ universe did I think I could listen to your brother?"
Holy lord.
Apparently, even though I was able to keep from passing out at the glory caging me in, my voice had died a thousand deaths at the perfection that Dex Locke was. So I had to answer him with a shaky, nervous smile.
“Iris.”
Oh dear god.
“I'd never hurt you, baby,” Dex murmured.
Jesus. This was unreal.
