He still had no idea what he was going to do with her, but he felt… softer now. A shade less resentful for the hand he’d been dealt. It wasn’t even the tears that did it.
It was the way she’d looked up at him when he asked Theodore for more time. When her eyes turned all big and soft and warm like that, he couldn’t breathe.
No one had ever looked at him like that before.
People lusted after him. People evenlovedhim. But no one, as far as he could recall, looked at him like he was a hero. Generally speaking, they knew better than to think he was anything other than what he was: a bastard with a marked talent for violence.
He was used to it. He’dearnedit. But when Atria looked up at him with those big, wet eyes, he felt like he was… more.
And when he was between her thighs, wringing an orgasm out of her as she clutched him, she looked at him like he wasn’t just her hero.
He was hereverything.
Fuck,he wanted to do that again. Not just because she went all soft and greedy for him, and not because it had thrown gasoline on the fire of his lust, but because kissing her, touching her skin, made him feel grounded. Connected.
Maybe that should have been obvious. She was his mate, after all. Feeling connected to her was probably a prerequisite for the bond to even begin to form.
But he had never allowed himself to think about what it really meant to bewithher before. He’d imagined breaking her. He’d fantasized about fucking her. He even dreamed of what it might be like having her in his home.
Connection? No, he’d never considered that. Sex was just sex — pleasurable exercise and, when needs be, a handy tactic for manipulation or advancement of one’s goals.
It was neither of those things with Atria.
When he watched her come, it was like he was glimpsing Grim’s riverbank.Paradise.
When she tangled her fingers in his hair, the sting in his scalp was bliss. When she whispered his name in his ear? Kaz had to lock his knees to keep them from buckling.
He’d broken his flimsy promise not to touch her, and now he feared he’d broken something inside of himself, too.
While he contented himself with touching her hair, it took all of his willpower to keep from crawling up the bed and rubbing his naked skin against every inch of her. His nerves crawled with the desire to mark her, to suck her sweet little tongue in his mouth, to feel her soft arms around his back as she whispered how much she needed him in his ear.
She had a gorgeous, delicious cunt and lips made to wrap around his cock, yes, but he wanted her because she made him feel like that elusivemore.
And that was why he was so torn up about marching her back to their territory. He didn’t want her to look at him like he was the enemy. He wanted that soft look back. He wanted her gentle hands, her reverent touches, her greediness. He wanted her smiles, her laughter. Her trust.
Heneededit.
The beast in him craved her with a fierceness that he struggled to contain, but the man hadn’t ached until that moment. That starved part of him gasped for that doe-eyed look of trust she’d given him. That was how Margot looked at Theodore, how Delilah looked at Winnie, how Valen looked at Andy and how Camille looked at Viktor. Kaz had never dared to dream that he might be the subject of such soft adoration, brief as it was.
The muscles of his abdomen clenched at the memory of how soft she was when he touched her. It was like watching a sunflower turn to the light. She’d soaked up even his rough handling with such obvious bliss that it had completely disarmed him. It was a miracle that he didn’t go further than they did. He was absolutely certain that she would have let him have everything — and gods, hewantedto take everything she had to give him.
He desperately needed to kiss her again. He wanted to sip until his thirst was quenched, then come back for more. Even knowing it was a product of the bubbling hormonal brew in his blood, he wanted it.
Was his personality being rewritten and he was simply too far gone to care? Possibly. Probably.
Did it matter now that he knew Atria — her fire, her sass, her vulnerability? No, he decided. It didn’t. If this was but a small taste of the benefits of losing himself to the pull, then maybe he could handle it.
The thought made him sweat with fear and excitement both. He might have even felt a little sick.I have no fucking idea what I’m doing, but I need to do this. I can’t go back to how I was before.
How could he get that look, that openness back? She’d been so pliant and trusting, then the wall had come back, built higher than before. Atria had looked at him like hebetrayedher.
She was right. He was betraying her. He was going against her wishes because it was the only way he could keep her safe. No matter how much she enjoyed his touch, that fact would always be there.
Kaz pressed another kiss to her hair, half-apology, half-experiment in tenderness. If he could fix everything for her, maybe she would gaze up at him with a smile?
Though he felt foolish for it, Kaz’s breath quickened at the very idea.
Even better, perhaps if she thought he was herhero,she wouldn’t go so pale when she looked at his hands. There was a chance she might welcome his touch again — perhaps even his now permanent, non-negotiable place in her life.
