Cecilia startled almost like she was finally understanding the situation. Her eyes widened in slow motion. “So you’ve just… decided that you’re going to live with that thing on until I decide I want to keep you?”
He dared to brush his thumb over the tiny bit of her clavicle that was exposed by her shirt. It was as delicate as the bones of a bird’s wing beneath his fingertip. “Yes.”
She leaned closer again, until she was hardly an inch from his visor. “What if I don’t?”
The muscles of his throat and jaw worked hard as he fought his instinctive response. “Then I’ll keep it on so I can do my job.”
Looking like she already knew the answer, she asked, “What’s that?”
“Protecting you.”
“You’d just… deny yourself a mate? Forever?” Cecilia’s incredulous expression didn’t sit right with him.
He knew what it was like to be denied free will. Sloane couldn’t claim to possess an abundance of moral fiber, but he would never do that to her.
“I would do what’s necessary,” he replied.
Cecilia touched the curve of his cheek, or what would’ve been his cheek if the visor wasn’t in the way. In a voice full of wonder, she murmured, “Just when I think I’m starting to get a lock on you, you throw me for a loop.”
Sloane didn’t know what to say to that, so he simply closed his eyes and bowed his head, seeking out the touch he couldn’t feel.
He sucked in a sharp breath as he felt her begin to strip his left hand of its glove. “I don’t know whether I’m ready for a mate this second,” she told him, “but I’ve always had a weakness for dangerous men. Maybe there’s a reason for that.”
He didn’t dare open his eyes when he felt her settle his bare hands on the curve of her waist. A part of him worried that if he looked at her, the moment would evaporate, too good to exist both in his mind and reality at once.
And when she began drawing his hands up, guiding him to trace her shape in a slow stroke, he shuddered with a mix of lust and disbelief.
“Normally I’d end a good date with a kiss, but since the helmet is in the way…” Cecilia drew her legs up and around his waist, abandoning all pretense of sitting on the motorcycle. Sloane grunted as the shock of the position ricocheted through him. His hands tightened around her waist, drawing her into his body with an instinctive jerk.
She gasped, hands flying to his chest as she rocked forward. Her lashes fluttered. “Easy,” she breathed, arching her back a little. “Just explore. Get comfortable with touching me. Find what you like.”
Sloane turned his visor into the sweet curve of her neck. It was deeply unnatural to not be able to smell the sweetness of her skin or gently scrape his fangs against her pulse. Even someone as inexperienced as him knew that. But it was still gratifying when she didn’t push him away from a place as vulnerable as her throat.
Cecilia tilted her head to the side, her hair falling in a dark wave over her shoulder, and cupped the back of his helmet. Instinct drew his right hand up to stroke the other side of her neck with greedy, ungloved fingers.
“I like everything about you,” he breathed. “You’re perfect.”
Her fingers fluttered over the clasp at the neck of his armor. “Can I touch you, too? Or would that be too much?”
There was no stopping the rattling purr that erupted in his chest. Sloane nodded into her throat, incapable of speech.
“Just tell me if you need me to stop,” she commanded him, flicking the clasp open. Cool air kissed the overheated skin of his throat.
Already on the brink of losing his mind, Sloane hissed, “I want to touch your skin.”
He felt her breath hitch more than he heard it. “Then touch it.”
He really, truly didn’t mean to destroy her shirt. It just seemed like the most efficient method to get what he wanted.
Cecilia let out a squeak of surprise as his claws turned her clothing to ribbons. She didn’t complain, though. Instead, she braced her elbows on the handlebars and thrust her chest toward him, one eyebrow cocked.
Sloane thought he knew what it was to be set aflame, considering it’d actually happened to him more than once. He was wrong.
Nothing compared to the sight of his consort lounging on his motorcycle, her legs wrapped around his waist and her breasts barely covered in a nearly transparent bra. Dark nipples hardened beneath the gossamer material, tightening with desire and beckoning him to touch.
He could barely comprehend the sight, let alone the smooth expanse of her stomach and the flush that suffused the skin of her chest.
It was a good thing he’d turned off all alerts in his helmet. If he hadn’t, he was fairly certain every single medical warning would’ve filled his ears as he brought his trembling hands to cup the delicate architecture of her ribs. Sloane glided his palms up over the soft mounds of her breasts, his breaths shortening as he circled his thumbs over those silky nipples.
