Something in my chest sizzled like sparklers at the possibility he’d want to play with me the way I wanted. I just had to reach out and take it. Takehim. “Have you ever done knife play before?”
Grant blinked once, as if dazed. “Pardon?”
“Knife play. You know, someone gets a knife and—“
“I know what knife play is,” his snarky little tone came out again. Something about Grant being a little bitchy really revved my engine. Like melting the outer layer of a chocolate to get to the rich, gooey caramel inside. “I guess I’m just shocked you’d be into that, given your… history with knives.”
“What, ‘cause I stabbed someone in the throat with one when they tried to rape me for a second time?” My nonchalance seemed to throw him even more off-balance, and I took the moment he was stunned to lean down and trap both his wrists in my hands. He let me pull them over his head to press against the pillow with little resistance. “That’s whyI’mgetting the knife, puppy.”
“Oh, fuck!” Grant’s hips bucked beneath me, like he couldn’t stand being any further than skin-to-skin with every inch of our bodies. The thought was apparently doing something for him, too. “Shit, yes, Lore! I want that with you.”
I want that with you…Again with that word, ‘want’. Sure, I heard it all my life. But hearing it come from Grant’s mouth was a shot of oxytocin straight to the brain. He gave the option of whether to give him what hewanted. Not taking, not forcing, but grateful for whatever I was willing to share with him. Not being shy to say what he wanted. And I ate that shit up. My grip shifted to one hand, still holding his wrists, while the other reached to the nightstand on my left. I always kept a spare knife in the drawer of my filming room, just in case a guest on a livestream got the wrong idea. Grant’s gaze locked on it as soon as I straightened.
“What’s with the damn charms?” The question sounded half exasperated, half desperate. In response, I jangled them together, the pink see-through beads clacking against each other. It wasn’t until they stopped swaying that he got a good look at what the blocky neon letters strung on the nylon string spelled out. “‘Bitch’? Really? You’re cutting me with a knife that has ‘bitch’ dangling off of it?”
I laughed harder than necessary. The look on his face was priceless. Grant seemed torn between being insanely aroused and horribly judgmental. That judgment fell away entirely when I pressed the flat of the blade to his pec. He was barely holding himself together, staring up at me with those big brown eyes as his chest heaved with every breath. His hands shifted on my hips, and he dug his fingers in with the first thin cut. Bloody droplets welled like wet rubies and quivered before trailing down the side of his chest, catching my full attention until it made its way to the black duvet. The next two lines had himalmost falling apart beneath me as practically vibrated with restraint.
“Stay still,” I cooed. The devious grin on my face stretched even wider when he spat a curse and gripped tighter. I was like his personal stress ball. “Trust me when I say you donotwant me feckin’ this up.”
Grant sucked in a breath between his clenched teeth at the next precise cut. “Ah, fuck! I can't… Jesus Christ that's—” He seemed to be struggling with finding the words he wanted to say. A thin sheen of sweat broke out over his brow, making the dark strands of hair stick there and add to his disheveled appearance. It was so refreshing seeing someone so straight-laced falling apart like this, because of what I was doing to him.
I waited for him to settle his breathing a little, leaning back to grind myself on his stiff cock. “Mmm, that’s not what this part of you is saying. Methinks you like a little pain in your pleasure, hmm?” My voice was honey, sweet and smooth, running my free hand from his neck to brush down the middle of his defined chest and bump along his abs. “Can you handle a little more? I’m almost done with my art.”
“Art?” he scoffed, but it lacked the usual bite of sarcasm. “What are you carving into me?”
“Something that marks you asmine.”
The groan that left Grant’s lips at the admission had my toes curling, and his back bowing from the bed as he tried to reign himself in almost broke my already threadbare restraint. I had his dick pinned between his pelvis and my pussy, which I rubbed against to tease us both. I had to wrap this up quickly before I forgot what the fuck I was cutting into his chest.
I pressed the blade against his slick skin again, the charms from its handle just barely tickling Grant's skin and making him moan again. Gooseflesh sprouted all over his chest and up his shoulder that I chased with the fingertips of my free hand. Hewas turning into a bit of a bloody mess in the best possible way, his sweat mixing with the blood trickling from several neat lines I was etching into his chest. But that look of pure euphoria on his face, the fluttering of the muscle along his jaw and the lines of tendons straining against the skin of his neck, all of it called to my primal and brought her closer to the surface than I anticipated. The low snarl that rumbled from my throat, and claws sprouting from my fingers to prick his skin, had Grant cursing again. He shifted his grip to my ass with bruising strength to push me down on him even harder.
A handful of precise cuts was the extent of my self-control. Flipping the knife to catch by its tip, I turned and threw it blade-over-handle to embed in the far wall before I fell on Grant like a slavering animal. A part of me mourned the fact this mark would be gone by tomorrow. But maybe…
"Would you be willing to experiment a little more with me?" The words were more of a purr as they left my smiling lips. I hovered over the spot right above his heart where the fox head still oozed a bit of blood, my lips just barely brushing the raw wound as I peeked up through my eyelashes at his wrecked expression. It was already starting to heal. "If shifters' saliva is what helps mating bites scar, wouldn't the same logic apply to licking this mark to keep it from disappearing? Would you want to keep this little piece of me?"
If I hadn't been fully attentive to his every reaction, I would have missed the small whimper that eked from his full lips. Awhimper! I'd never heard anything so hot grace my ears. Grant's head arched back as his eyes squeezed shut, his hands sliding down to grip my ass so hard there would surely be bruises beneath his fingertips. "Fuckkkk," he drew the word out between clenched teeth. "Yes, Lore, I want that! Please, let me keep it."
I cooed, blowing a light stream of air over the cuts and making him shiver hard. "How can I say no, when you beg so prettily?"
My tongue ran across the stylized fox head cut into his chest, and the coppery burst of his blood went straight to my core. His responding groan vibrated beneath my palms. He gave back as good as he got, his hips thrusting just enough to rub the long ridge of his cock against my clit and send me through the roof with another overwhelming climax. This close to shifting, his marks on my skin healed over almost as soon as they’d appeared. As opposed to the fox I'd thoroughly licked, which seemed to form the same shiny, flat scarring as a mating bite with the slightest pink tinge of irritation around the edges.
It worked. I didn't expect this profound sense of affection to well up inside my chest when Grant's eyes finally opened to meet mine, and he looked as stunned as I felt as we just breathed together. Something wet trickled down my right cheek.
Of course he saw it before I could wipe the tear away with the back of my hand. "Lore…" Just my name murmured in his low voice made my throat tighten in a desperate attempt to hold back any more from falling. His hands moved to rub up and down my back in a soothing gesture, even as I sat on what had to be a painfully hard erection still pinned between us.
Why was I being so fucking weepy over this?
In a desperate attempt to regain control of my rampant emotions, I reached over to the nightstand and yanked the top drawer open for another condom. This time I was the one ripping it open with my teeth like a savage.
Grant’s eyes widened at the sight. His breaths came faster as I scooted back enough to let his dick spring up, positioning the ring over his weeping tip and pinched the end to roll the condom down. “God, Lore, please…” His voice trembled as he begged, watching me with a fire in his eyes I chose to ignore so I wouldn't get distracted. At this point I was torturing myself as much as him.
Kissing my way back up his chest and neck to lick into his mouth, I lifted myself up to line the tip of his very rigid dick to my channel and pressed down with a breathless gasp. Grant seemed to want to eat every sound I made when both his hands moved to hold my head in place and his mouth took on a ferocity as if he wanted to eat me alive. It was so fucking hot, I think my brain short-circuited for a moment.
I thought—or rather, hoped—that marking Grant's chest would soothe that roaring need inside me to bite him. His scent, his body, the way he looked up at me like I was the most precious thing in his life, all of it spoke to my primal that he wasthe one. He was our mate. It didn't seem fair to not reciprocate a mating bite. I just… couldn't stomach the thought of any man's teeth digging into my skin again. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“I’m not ready to carry your claiming bite,” I whispered against his lips. Grant moaned and pushed up on his elbows, trying to chase my lips as I pulled back out of reach. His hips rocked up into me with a torturously slow tempo. “But I can give you one instead.”
With one hand burying itself in his wavy, silky hair, I pulled it to the side and skimmed my lips, feather-light, across the side of his neck. A powerful shudder rocked through him, and Grant’s strong hands tightened their grip on my hips.
