“I think I’ll keep using your hoodie as a pillow. I love how soft it is, and how much it smells like you.”
A deep purr rumbled out of his chest, and it only got louder when he began to pull out her sweaters, t-shirts, and yoga pants — all the softest clothing she brought with her on her ill-fated trip.
Reverently, he pulled out her silky nightie and stroked it with careful fingers. The image of her fresh out of the shower dressed in it, of it hiked around her waist when he licked her cunt, would haunt him until the day he died.
Almost to himself, he murmured, “We’ll have to get all your other things later. I can’t wait to see all your nighties and panties and sexy little outfits in our closet back home.”
The light dimmed over his head. Kaz looked up to find Atria sitting on her knees above him, a wide-eyed look on her flushed face. “You want me to move in with you?”
She sounded so wary, sohopeful,that it almost broke his heart.
Vividly recalling howNormanhad never agreed to live with her, let alone give her the affection she so obviously needed, Kaz held the silk nightie to his lips and pressed a kiss to its silken folds.
“Yes,” he answered, gaze locked on hers. “I want you to dig your claws into me, remember? Intoeverypart of my life, princess.”
Atria looked down, smiled, and looked up again. “That sounds good to me. But, um, I don’t have much more than that.”
“Much more than what?”
She gestured to her open suitcase and the contents that were half-strewn across the floor around it. “That. I don’t have a permanent residence, so that’s about all I’ve got. Ruby has some keepsakes she holds for me, but…” She shrugged. “That suitcase is pretty much all I’ve got.”
Kaz glanced down. Assessing the amount of clothing and personal items stuffed into her little carry-on in a single sweep, he thought,Has she ever known a real home? What it’s like to be taken care of?
She lived in a Sanctuary where she was made to feel like she was not enough, and then she left with nothing, no money or assistance. Then she lived in a group home, and he assumed rented rooms with what little income she could scrape together as she supported herself in school.
And after all that, when she was finally in a place where shecouldhave a home, the man she wished to be with had callously dismissed her feelings.
Her little suitcase and its once carefully packed contents represented more than a roving academic’s life. It was the symbol of a lifetime of struggle and neglect.
No more.
Kaz’s eyes drifted up again. He took in the sight of her perched above him, her face cast in shadow.
Slowly, he rose up until he towered over her. One hand still gripping her nightie, he crawled forward on hands and knees until she laid back in the nest beneath him.
“Everything I have is yours,” he told her. “Everything Iamis yours — every fucked up inch of me. I’d follow you anywhere, Atria. I’d give you anything you asked. Money. Houses. Diamonds. Every thought, every feeling, every second of my time on this Earth. If you want it, it’s yours.”
He bent his neck to run the tip of his nose along her hairline and down her cheek. “I’m nothim,princess. I’ll never make you beg or grovel for anything. Snap your pretty fingers and it’s yours.”
Atria circled her arms around his torso and held on tight when she replied, breath hitching, “I don’t need those things. I’ve only ever wanted someone to be mine. You’ve already given me that.”
Kaz stretched his arm up to carefully array her nightie where he would lay his head later. Like her, he wanted to sleep with it pillowed beneath his cheek.
He also didn’t want it getting ruined by what he planned to do next.
Sitting up, he shifted his weight to his haunches and drew the dark blue curtain over the end of the bed, plunging the nest into comforting darkness.
He stared down at his sprawled mate hungrily. She was so beautiful when she was disheveled. A princess in disarray, her long brown hair knotted, her lips swollen, and her soft, floaty clothing hopelessly rumpled. Surrounded by the softness of at least a dozen blankets and just as many pillows — not to mention their scattered clothing — she was vision straight out of his dreams.
Watching her from under heavy lids, Kaz carefully placed his bolt gun on the stone ledge that ringed the interior of the nook before he slipped his holster off of his shoulders. Next came his shirt, which he deliberately placed beside his hoodie.
All the while, a deep, thrumming purr filled the nest. It joined the sweet sound of Atria’s increasingly shallow breaths.
Kaz settled his fingertips on the button of his jeans. Eyes gleaming, he ordered, “Clothes off and legs open, princess. Show me what’s mine.”
ChapterThirty-Five
She learnedin school and through her religious instruction that orcs came from the bowels of the Earth. In the great competition to make the finest beings, the god Burden reached deep into the world to pull out copper, shale, malachite, silver, and iron. He forged orcs in the heart of the Earth, amongst the swirling magma, and proclaimed them perfect in all ways.
