His lips curve into a smile as he leans closer. “Cooking for you. That oddly protective cat.” My chuckle earns me one from him. “You… Your praise of me… The way you enjoy hearing me.”
The memory of him moaning my name, spilling across my hand, has my dick tingling.
My groan is feral, and I wrap my arms around him, holding him tight. “Yeah?”
He nods while giving me a mischievous smile.
“I want you screaming for me. Don’t hold back. There’s no oneout here to hear you but me. And even if there were, I wouldn’t give a single fuck.” Leaning forward, I catch his bottom lip between my teeth, tugging, before rolling us hard to the side. His back sinks into the couch cushions, his cock sliding against my groin as I settle on top of him. “Now,” I growl. “Let’s talk a little filthier, hmm?”
He wets his lips, his hips rising to meet mine. “Yes, please.”
I pin his wrists above his head, about to press him for his hard limits when something stops me—his tattoo.
“First,” I murmur, gaze dropping. “Answer me something.”
His head lifts, following my eyes. “Oh.” His cheeks are beginning to flush the deepest red I’ve ever seen.
God. That blush. My heart drops straight into my cock, and suddenly there’s no dividing line between passion and lust.
“Do you want to know about the tattoo?” he asks softly.
I nod, dragging my palm slowly down his forearm until it hovers over the ink. A bold rectangle filled with a lion’s face—amber eyes, that look exactly like mine, burn against the black-and-gray fur.
“Your name,” he whispers.
My heart kicks back into my chest, stumbling over itself, flipping and twisting in every direction.
“It meansGod is gracious; your mom shared it with me one night after you left for college. I think she could tell I was missing you. But…” His chin drops but he keeps his gaze locked on mine. “It also means powerful; a name tied to kings. A crown didn’t fit you, not in the way I saw you, but a lion did.” His voice falters, reverent. I can’t believe the goosebumps that rise across my entire body. “Myking… in a world as wild as the savannah. Every time I felt weak, I’d look at it. And you were there, giving me the strength I needed when I was alone.”
Grabbing the back of his neck, I drop my mouth to his. Heat crawls across my temples as tears build behind my eyelids. With his free hand, he threads his fingers up through my hair and holds me to him.
I suddenly laugh and drop my forehead to his chest. “Goddamn…”
His breath shudders as he asks, “What?”
“Do you know what your name means, Ayden?”
“Um… no?”
I kiss my way up between his pecs, one of his legs curling tighter around my thigh as I reach his ear. In a whisper, I tell him, “It meanslittle flame.”
His chest rises sharply beneath me. The moment his hand clamps onto my arm—right over the ink there—I shake my head, grinning through the rush in my chest. “Unbelievable. My god…”
“Your tattoo…” His voice cracks, thick with disbelief. He brings his hand up my inked arm, dragging his fingers across the tribal design that I specifically had made. Every section meaningful, all of them integrated with fire. “Shut the fuck up.”
Everyone thought it was about my career.
They were wrong.
It was about him—the flame in my life that burned so hot, eight years later I could still feel the scorch of it.
I sit up, hovering over him, smiling down at the shock painted across his face. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life never telling my mom how badly I liked you the day she introduced Grant to me. I should’ve been selfish. Because I knew then you were mine.”
He lets out a laugh that’s soaked in unshed tears. “We were supposed…” His breath hitches around the words. “Supposed to be talking filthy. Not fucking crying.”
I can’t help but laugh with him, the sound breaking through the heaviness of it all.
It doesn’t last long. I brush my knuckles along his temple, catching the tear that slipped free. “I don’t plan on letting you go anywhere, sunshine. We’ve got plenty of time for filth, for tears, for laughter…”
