His task done, Clark turned his gaze back to her. The look in his eyes sucked the air right out of her lungs.
Gone was the boyish wonder. It was replaced by a heavy-lidded look she’d never seen before.
It wasn’t just hungry. It was predatory.
Nelly drew her blankets up and over her thin sleep shirt and shorts, her breath quickening.Uh-oh.
Clark dropped onto his hands and knees. Even crawling, she got the impression that she was being stalked.
She thought she was being cautious when she told him he had to wear his underwear in bed, but now she realized how silly that was. What was a scrap of fabric supposed to hide when he had a monster swinging between his legs, hard and ready?
A throbbing heat took up residence between her thighs. Nelly held her breath as he neared. With every inch he covered, his expression grew more tense. His jaw was set in a rigid angle and his brow furrowed. By the time he reached the head of the bed, where she’d stacked a heap of pillows, he looked strung tight enough to snap.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
To her slightly buzzed, infatuated mind, it all seemed so smart. She’d get to have her hot neighbor in her bed because the bed itself was huge. There was plenty of room for them both without running the risk of their skin touching, so long as they stuck to their respective sides. She’d even planned on wrapping herself up in her own separate blankets, just in case.Foolproof.
Looking up at Clark’s shadowed face made her confidence wither.
She was in bed with an orc in the grips of a hardwired, evolution-forged mating imperative. Did she really think that a blanket and a little bit of space would keep things totally platonic?
“Clark?” She meant to whisper, but it came out humiliatingly close to a squeak.
He stopped when his head was level with her stomach. Bracing one hand on the other side of her, he leaned down to press a kiss to the blanket draped across her middle. The muscles of her abdomen tightened when he looked up at her through his lashes.
“We’ll need to discuss how to set up a proper nest in the morning,” he murmured, lips moving over her stomach in a way that made her toes curl. “But I’m damn happy to be here regardless.”
Nelly swallowed. “Yeah?”
He gave her stomach another slow kiss. This time, he stayed there long enough to suck in a breath so deep, it made the muscles of his shoulders flex. “Smells so damn good in here. Like sugar cookies and soft skin.”
She wanted to respond, but words failed her. Nelly could only stare at him, her heart pounding, until he clenched his jaw and pulled away. His movements lacked the fluidity of before as he crawled to the other side of the bed — which now seemed much, much smaller.
Only a couple of feet separated them. It felt like both a thousand miles and also nothing at all.
A minute passed. They lay in complete silence, the tension so thick between them that she feared any words might be caught in the air, never to find their destination.
She wanted to say something. Anything. Unfortunately, the only words that came to mind wereplease come backandis that why you call me sugarandgods, I want to kiss you.
In the end, it was Clark who managed to break the tension. His voice was as rough as gravel when he said into the dark, “I expected more plants.”
Nelly exhaled a shaky breath. “I… What? Why?”
She didn’t dare look over, but she felt him move and knew for a fact that he’d turned on his side to face her.He’s probably doing that sexy thing that men do in movies, when they prop their heads up on their hands like…
She couldn’t help it. She looked. Even in the deep shadows, she could make out his corded forearm and dark palm supporting his head as he watched her.
Just like that.
“Plants,” he repeated. “I thought a greenwitch would have more plants all over the place.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Nelly looked away. Pretending to adjust her blankets, she prepared to fib, as she always did, but the words wouldn’t come.
I don’t want to lie to him.
Magic crackled in her veins, rushing through her and into him, then back again in a loop that would sustain her for centuries. When she turned her head to look at him once more, that same magic practicallyfizzed.
He was her bondmate. He would hold her magic for her until the day they died. She didn’t want to lie to him like she lied to everyone else. He had a right to know who she was. What she was.
