Shit. He hadn’t meant it to sound like a jab toward her. Far from it. “Do you really need to ask that?”
“Yes. I really do.” She swallowed, inhaling a breath that seemed to fortify her. “I need to ask it, Knox. I need to know if you’re only here out of some aggravating sense of duty, or because you want to be. I need to know if I’m the only one feeling like there’s something building between us, or if I’ve just been alone too long to tell the difference. Because if I’m wrong, then I—”
Knox speared his fingers into her loose hair and pulled her against him, silencing her doubts with his kiss.
Leni melted into him on a moan. That throaty, uninhibited expression of pleasure and need went straight to his cock. Behind his closed eyelids, his vision bled amber. His fangs lengthened as he teased the seam of her lips with his tongue. She let him in on a shivery gasp, her mouth hot and wet on his, open for his taking.
With one hand cupping her nape, he let his other glide down the graceful curve of her spine. He took hold of her hip and dragged her closer, needing her to feel what she did to him. How hard she made him.
His blood raced like wildfire in his veins, throbbing and molten, just like the rest of him. It took all he had to break the contact of their mouths. His breath sawed out of him, desire all but ruling him just from a single kiss.
The glow from his transformed eyes lit her face as he looked at her. “Does that answer your question, Lenora?”
Her jagged sigh left no room for doubt, but he kissed her again, just to make things clear. This time, he claimed her mouth with all the heat and hunger he’d been struggling to hold at bay since he arrived in Parrish Falls and first saw her.
Her hands roamed over his back, her short fingernails raking across the bunched muscles that twitched and jerked under her touch. He wanted to feel her hands on his bare skin.
Fuck, he wanted her naked beneath him. If he didn’t put the brakes on this kiss, that’s exactly where they were heading.
He drew back on a rough growl. “You should’ve told me to go. Christ, you still should.”
She shook her head as she gazed up at him, her lips kiss-bruised and glistening. “I don’t want anyone else, Knox.”
Were they still talking about keeping her and Riley safe? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything but the feel of Leni in his arms. He didn’t want to let her go, but if he held on another second she wouldn’t be going anywhere for the rest of the night.
“Your friend’s going to be disappointed to hear you didn’t agree to a substitute.”
Leni gave him a confused look. “You mean, Carla?”
“She and her virgin carotid,” he said, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, my God. You heard that?” She gaped at him, and he could almost hear her mind replaying the entirety of her entertaining, and rather illuminating, conversation with her friend. “Please tell me that’s all you heard.”
He grinned. “I will, if that’s what you need me to say.”
She groaned. “You heard everything, didn’t you?”
“Every last word.” He arched a brow. “Almost six years, eh?”
She winced, then let out a laugh. “Dammit. I’m going to kill Carla next time I see her.”
He lifted her chin on his fingertips, barely resisting the urge to kiss her again. “Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.”
“What about the rest of me, Knox?”
A promise lit on the end of his tongue. Solemn words he didn’t have the right to be thinking, let alone give voice to. He held back his reply, but only with the force of both his teeth and fangs.
Pleasure, he could give her. Physical security? Without question.
He would even give his life for her, if it came down that.
But promises like the one she asked of him now felt far out of his grasp.
His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth as she stared up at him. Silence spread between them, awkward and heavy.
Back at the house, the kitchen door squeaked open. “Aunt Leni, where’d you go?”
She flinched, blinked. Cleared her throat. “I, um . . . I need to get back inside.”
