They both looked toward the sliding glass door.
"It'll buy us some time," Elise said, pulling him toward the entrance. "If I think it through for a few hours, I can figure out some way to trick this spell."
He would trade years of his life for a few hours more with Elise. They went inside and approached the front desk.
"One king bed," he said quickly before the receptionist could even ask. Next to him, Elise smiled. He reached for his back pocket to pull out a credit card and realized that he didn't have any money, or ID, oranythingthat could allow this transactionto take place—he didn't even have his phone—and he knew why: they were all back at the pack house.
It was standard operating procedure to not take any identification including a phone on a secret mission through enemy territory.
But Elise was pulling out her phone from her back pocket, and she had one of those cases that was also a wallet. She set the device on the counter and used her thumb to pull one of her credit cards out of the case and handed it over. It was a little awkward to do one-handed, but the receptionist didn't seem to care.
Elise got her card back, and they had their two room keys. They took the elevator up to the room, quiet the entire time. They walked down the hall to room 1221. Elise used the key to open the door. She set the key and her phone on the small side table and turned toward him.
They stared at each other for a beat, and then they crashed into each other and kissed.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Elise wantedto kiss Nico more than she wanted to breathe. She clutched him tight and opened her mouth as his tongue swept in. The taste of him flooded her senses, and she felt the desperate press of his chest against her as he pulled her so tight it almost hurt.
She hadn't been thinking about sex when she chose the hotel as the destination for the Uber. She really hadn't planned to come with him until she sensed the tracking spell.
But she would be lying if she said that no part of her had been excited at the fact that shehadto go, that she had to remain with him longer, that she had to steal these private moments away with him.
Nico's hands were in her hair. He loved playing with it, she realized. Even tugging on it a little, but never too much. His fingers were possessive, but there was a tenderness to it that did something swoopy to her stomach. And when he tightened his grip just a little, just enough to tilt her head back, she felt tingles all over.
He seemed to know by instinct exactly what she wanted when she wanted it, and he was eager to give it to her.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, and his hands cupped her ass, keeping her close. She could feel his length hardening between them. The friction that made her rock against him involuntarily, seeking more pressure, more contact,anythingto ease the ache building between her thighs. He stumbled back, and they found the bed with him crashing down over her and kissing her like his life depended on it. They bounced on the mattress before settling, and the solid mass of him settled down on her, pinning her to the bed and under him like she was made to fit there.
He took hold of her hand once more and peppered kisses over her jaw. His lips left a trail of heat on her skin. The scratch of his stubble rasped against her cheek, rough and wholly intoxicating.
"I missed you," he said. "Oh god, I never thought I'd see you again."
Her words were just as desperate. "I can't believe my sisters did that. Are you okay? You must hate me."
Though that anxiety was quickly belayed by the way he sucked on the sensitive skin on her neck, Elise arched into it and let out a throaty moan that could probably be heard in the room next door. She didn't care. His teeth grazed the tendon there, not quite breaking skin but hard enough to make her gasp.
"I need you." Nico groaned the words against her pulse point. His whole body was trembling, muscles tight with restraint even as he pressed his hips against hers with barely controlled hunger.
Elise tightened her grip on his hand. "Same. Oh God, same."
She ripped at his shirt and tried to take it off, but Nico wouldn't let go of her hand. He must not have realized that he had dropped it earlier while he was carrying her to the bed.
"I thought you said we had to keep holding hands," he said.
"As long as we're touching it's good," she assured him, "and we could probably just stand really close and it would be fine."
He kissed her again. "I'm not going to test that. I never want to stop touching you." His free hand slid up her side, thumb brushing the underside of her breast through her shirt. She shivered at the promise in that touch, at the way his fingers weren't quite steady, as if he was fighting not to tear her clothes off.
And if that was the case, yes please!
His hips were pressed firmly against her as he ripped his top off, and Elise shimmied out of her own outfit. It was a frantic kind of stripping, hands fumbling and throwing blindly. It was kind of a blur, and then they were naked in bed together. The shock of skin-on-skin was freaking perfect, his chest hard and warm against her, his cock hot and heavy where it pressed against her inner thigh, leaving a smear of moisture that promised everything to come.
Elise's mind briefly flashed back to that last night in the pack house, their one full night together after every secret had been revealed. After the complete impossibility of their situation had crashed down on them.
How could it be that things were even worse now?
