“The only thing,” he repeated, dazed. At least, I thought he was, until he looked up at me through his lashes and I realized he knew exactly what he was doing to me. “Except you, right?”
I growled and dragged him closer. “Precisely that.”
CHAPTER 17
LANDON
Dean was like a drug.
He pulled me back toward his bed, and I felt my whole body relax, just giving over to the moment, to the feeling of being truly wanted, for the first time possibly ever.
I had thought Geoff wanted me, but he’d never looked at me the way Dean did—like I was the only thing that existed in the whole universe.
To call it heady was such an understatement.
He just backed me right up to his bed, one arm around my waist and the other on my cheek, guiding me backward.
“The shirts,” I whispered, like I actually wanted to stop and clean.
His low chuckle was more deep, terrifying predator than his usual vocal range, and I couldn’t hold back a shiver. “Forget the shirts. They can be washed.”
And he... he didn’t shove me back onto the bed, like I’d been half expecting. No, instead, he was so perfectly gentle. He leaned down and sort of half picked me up, one leg and my back cradled in his arms as he laid me across his bed, so that I hardly felt anything until his bed was beneath me.
True to his word, he left the Lucky Black Cat shirt on me as he slid my shoes and socks off, dumping them on the floor.
Straddling my legs, he looked down at me, his eyes intense and almost luminescent gold-green in the dim light of the bedroom. He lifted his hand to my zipper and met my eye. “You can tell me to stop any?—”
“I don’t want you to stop.” I grabbed his hand and held it to my zipper, but more, to where my cock was as hard as a rock behind it. “I want you. So much.”
His pupils blew wide, and he fell onto all fours above me, taking in a deep breath as he pressed his face into my neck. “Perfect,” he muttered against the sensitive skin of my clavicle, kissing his way across my neck as he once again reached for my fly, unzipping me and making quick work of my jeans. They, and my underwear, joined everything else on the floor.
He ran his hands under the shirt, up and down my sides, kissing his way back to my lips, and covering me entirely with himself.
It was funny, that someone who had never failed to make me feel like I was in the presence of a predator also made me feel safer than I’d ever been in my life.
Suddenly, I needed him naked. I started pulling at his shirt, and he didn’t hesitate, just yanked it off over his head and threw it aside. Then his jeans, and... well, he wasn’t wearing any underwear to take off to begin with. I shivered at the sight of him, completely naked.
And there I was, still in a shirt. His shirt. Somehow, it was perfect. He was entirely bare before me, and while I wasn’t, the shirt that was my tiny defensive layer was just a part of him.
It was him, protecting me.
“Condom?” he asked as he leaned over and reached into the nightstand for a bottle of lube, and that was... unusual. I didn’t think I’d ever been asked that before in my life. It was justanother protection from Dean. With our lightning-fast healing, shifters didn’t generally need protection like that, and it wasn’t like I was in danger of getting pregnant, but every layer of his care was like being wrapped in a blanket and offered soup and cocoa.
“You don’t need to bother,” I said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him close to me.
He let himself be tugged, leaning into me, almost laying atop me, our faces just an inch apart. “You sure?” he breathed against my lips, and suddenly, I could sense the tightly coiled predator once again.
Fuck me, but that was hot. He was ready to spring at me, but holding himself back to make sure I got what I needed out of him.
“I am so sure,” I promised. “Now get down here and fuck me.”
He sucked in a breath through slightly sharp teeth, and then nodded, his eyes never once leaving mine.
Then he left.
Okay, not really. He just sat up, and pitifully, I was bereft.
He just spread my legs and hitched my hips up onto his lap, so I was spread before him.
