“If even that,” I huffed and puffed angrily.
Moving closer, leaving the table separating us, he dipped to try and catch my gaze but I was having none of that.
“What do you want? Why are you here? Don’t you have other beast’s mates to refuse to sell whatever the hell it is you do to them? To the point they stalk me and bother me, hmm?”
The sound of something sliding across the table drew my attention. A thick, clawed finger tapped the paper I’d given Daisy to give to him. Daring a glance, the tip of his nail was on my note to him telling him to eat my fruit.
“It’s supposed to say kiss my ass. It’s an Earth insult.” Pursing my lips, I added, “Ufful was supposed to tell you I said to kiss my ass too, for good measure.”
Kehl tapped the paper. “Kehl rather do this.”
“Knock yourself out. See if I care,” I muttered, then shifted to turn away from him completely. This involved lifting the chair to move it. I looked ridiculous with my butt stillpartially planted in my seat, grabbing it and lifting it to turn it away from him, but I didn’t care. Not right now.
I knew he was moving as his scent thickened in the air.
His fur brushed the long sleeved shirt Dace had helped me put together. It was more of a thin sweater but it wasn’t too thick I got hot sleeping in it.
A rumble had started up in his chest. It stuttered out when he knelt down in front of me and realized I was glaring as tears glistened in my eyes. My hands were still gripping the sides of the chair. I was white-knuckling the wood.
“I don’t need you,” I growled out softly. I did, though. Being this close to him without touching him was pure hell.
It started with my lips, the tremors, but I pressed my lips firmly shut. Then it moved onto my limbs, until there wasn’t a part of me shivering and shaking in his wake, desperately wanting to close the distance between us.
“Kehl need my Purr-roo.” He said it so softly I could almost pretend he didn’t. The pained noise I made in response gave me away.
Leaning in, he stopped just shy of pressing his mouth to the top of my head or nuzzling into me affectionately. Instead, he let out one of his growls that had me gasping for air, shaking so hard the chair started to knock, wondering just how much longer I could hold out. Not very long at this rate.
“I can’t do this again,” I muttered as he blew a soft breath across the top of my head. Shaking my head, I admitted, “I can’t do it, being with you and then not being with you. You’re all I have, and I-” My voice cracked and I found myself gulping in air like I’d forgotten to breathe.
Kehl lifted his hands up to show me that he too was deeply affected by the distance we’d put between us.
I needed him. He needed me.
I was breathing so hard at this point, so close but not touching, I sounded like I was hyperventilating. The way my face started to tingle, I probably was.
“Kehl?” My voice trembled as I spoke, coming out choked, hoarse.
Kehl pulled back to look at me then.
“I need you.”
Kehl closed the distance between us then, nabbing me up from the chair and crushing me to him. My lips found his and his tongue thrust into my mouth.
Thick fingers gripped the material of my sweater shirt and he tugged at it. My hands, meanwhile, where everywhere, roaming his back, then lower, anywhere they could reach to dig in and grab on.
Kehl growled at the rough treatment, telling me just how much he enjoyed what I was doing to him.
Moving his mouth away from mine, he focused on my neck, then lower, and then lower still, shoving clothing out of his way as it suited him. By the time he’d made it all the way down to my pants, he paused long enough to glance for the perfect spot and lifted me up to set me on the table.
“We eat off of this,” I started to say as I pulled my shirt over my head, but the snarl Kehl let loose as his eyes started to change, and slowly the rest of him along with his shift, reminded me that tables were washable and after much scrubbing Dace would hopefully forgive me for defiling it.
Grabbing up my discarded sweater shirt, Kehl lifted me up higher and set the shirt I’d just whipped off for him down before setting me down atop it.
Good enough for me.
“Eat Purr-roo fruit,” he growled out.
He wanted towhatnow? My face flamed. The communal kitchen table was not the spot I’d pick for kissing that particular part of my body.
