Dallas hiked the tank top he was wearing up slowly, revealing inch by inch of his stomach and the smattering of the images permanently painted on his skin.
“Why did you get so many?” I asked as I accepted the shirt for my nest, pressing it to my nose and inhaling his apple whiskey scent deep into my nose.
Dallas lifted his shoulder into a shrug before untying the string of his running shorts. “It started when I was eighteen on a dare and then whenever we had extra money I’d go. It was something that no one could ever take away from me—it would always be mine.”
I nodded, liking the way that sounded as I looked down at my completely bare skin, save for the three new bondmarks that would soon be joined by a fourth one. His.
“Would you get one with me?”
Dallas paused. “Like a matching one?”
I nodded.
“Would your mother banish me to Antarctica if we did that?”
“Who cares?” I asked, realizing that I actually didn’t care what she thought anymore.
Never in the almost twenty-seven years of my life had I not cared what my mother felt about any decision I made. She’d always been my sounding board.
But now the idea of having a matching tattoo with Dallas made me feel… excited? Like a true adult? I wasn’t quite sure yet.
“Let’s think about it for a bit,” Dallas said. “When you aren’t still high on pheromones, and when I can feel what you feel. Then we’ll talk.”
I narrowed my eyes at him for a moment before shrugging. He’d understand me soon enough.
Dallas held his shorts out to me and I stared at them for a moment before reaching out and gripping his wrist, tugging him over the edge of the nest and into me.
Our first kiss was an awkward knocking of unsure lips and murmured apologies, Dallas’s fingers weaving through my messy hair.
Then we found the right angle, Dallas’s lips hesitantly moving with mine before deepening hungrily, his tongue sliding slowly along mine in a slow, needy twist.
This was what I had been waiting for from the stubborn alpha. This all encompassing fire.
Reaching up, I pulled his glasses off of his head and clumsily folded them, placing them on the edge of the nest so we didn’t accidentally crush them before pulling him deeper inside.
The mixture of scents was headier as we moved closer to the headboard and I felt him growl against me as I settled back against the pillows.
“How does this not drive you crazy?” he asked, his chest heaving when he finally pulled away from the kiss so he could catch his breath.
I grinned at him. “Oh, it did. I was insatiable earlier. I just promised to be gentle with you.”
Dallas’s green eyes burned into mine. “I don’t need you to be gentle with me, Lennon.”
Then, as if to prove my point, he yanked my thighs apart with one hand and held both hands over my head with the other, pressing them into the plush headboard.
“And I assume,” he said as he took in the love bites on my body and the slick already leaking from my pussy. “You don’t need me to be gentle with you either?”
I shook my head hard. “Gods, no. Please don’t even think about it.”
“Then put your hands on my head,” he ordered, bringing my hands to the top of his head. “And hang on, while I taste you.”
“What—?” I started to ask but he didn’t give me a chance to even finish my question because he was dipping his head in between my thighs and pressing his tongue to my weeping slit.
A gargled moan left my lips and my fingers naturally curled into his hair as my hips lifted to meet his seeking mouth.
“Dall-as!” I choked out as his grip on my thighs tightened.
“Grab my hair tighter,” was all he said and he shuddered when I did as he asked, my grasp sending a shiver of pleasure down his spine.
