“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said.
“Why?” I studied his face, confused by his insistence. “If you’re trying to prove you don’t think only women are suited to domestic work, you can relax. I’ve already seen you wash dishes, prepare food, and help strip the bed. You’re scoring points for feminism left and right.”
Titus smiled. “It’s because you’re my guest. I’m supposed to protect you and show you hospitality, yet I’ve dragged you out of my home, rather than making you comfortable in it, and I let some strange stray pounce on you in the woods. I’ve failed in every duty a host has, and if I let you make your own bed, that’ll be one more failure.”
I stared at him for a moment. Then I burst into laughter.
“Why is that funny?”
“Because you didn’t drag me out of your house. You didn’t even invite me into it. I broke into your car. I slammed into your life like a fucking missile, throwing up shrapnel. But you fed me and gave me somewhere to sleep. Hell, you gave me your clothes. If that’s not proper hospitality, I don’t know what is.”
Titus’s gaze strayed to my shirt—tohisshirt—and stuck there. Heat flared behind his gaze. “You smell like me,” he growled, but his tone wasn’t angry. It was the floodgate holding back some primal need churning behind his eyes.
“Yeah.” I ran one hand over the front of the shirt, holding his gaze. “It’s distracting, honestly. I can smell youall over me.”
Titus dropped the sheet and pulled me closer by a handful of the borrowed shirt. I laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck, as his hands found my hips, over the bunched waist of the drawstring pants. He kissed me. And his scent swallowed me whole.
“Wait, I thought we weren’t supposed to do this,” I said when his mouth trailed down my neck.
His deep chuckle sent a thrill through me. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
“It is,” I groaned, fighting the urge to abandon words entirely as his mouth traveled over my shoulder, pushing the broad neck of the borrowed shirt out of the way. “But I need to know it’s whatyouwant. In spite of the consequences.” I’d made my point—it was none of anyone else’s business if I wanted to kiss Titus, Alpha or not. But I couldn’t cause him any more trouble, especially considering everything else he was already dealing with.
Titus stood straight, and the heat in his eyes nearly roasted me alive. He pressed the length of his body against mine, and I could feel how badly he wanted me. “Any more questions?” The gravely quality of his voice resonated deep inside me, and I wanted to roll around in that sound. I wanted to hear it in the dark, in the middle of the night.
I wanted to hear it in my dreams.
But…
I put one hand on his chest and took a step back. “Wanting this right now isn’t enough, Titus. I don’t want to be what keeps you from leading your Pride. From getting it officially recognized. From helping all the people who need you.”
“You aren’t the problem,” he said. “The council is the problem. Their rules don’t allow for the fact that strays face a different reality than natural-born shifters. For the reality of mistakes made before we even know they’re mistakes. But at some point, they’re going to realize that their world is changing. That a political power structure that doesn’t support the majority of its citizens—whether or not they’re acknowledged as citizens—can’t stay in power for long. I believe that time is coming, with or without me. With or without you. And I’m no longer willing to pretend I don’t want to touch you just so theymightconsider acknowledging a populace they have no right to reject in the first place.”
I smiled up at him, my pulse racing in response to his. “You’re hot when you get political.”
His arms slid around me, and the stubble on his chin caught in my hair. “I can recite the US presidents in chronological order,” he whispered.
“That’s a shame,” I whispered back. “You might get laid if you could do it alphabetically…”
“John Adams. John Quincy Adams.” He pulled his shirt off and dropped it on the floor, his heated gaze challenging me to make good on my word. “Chester A. Arthur. James—”
SIXTEEN
Robyn
“—Buchanan.”
I laughed as I pushed him onto the bed, suddenly glad we hadn’t made it past the fitted sheet.
Titus looked up at me, and his grin kindled a fire in low and sensitive places. “Do you need to hear more, or are you convinced?”
I settled onto the bed over him, straddling his hips, and the position gave me a tantalizing sense of control. And another intimate brush with the very warm, very hard evidence of his arousal. “I’m convinced of your alphabetical proficiency, Mr. Alexander. But I might need you to demonstrate a few other critical skills…” I rocked forward, pressing myself into him.
Titus groaned beneath me, and that sense of control swelled into a provocative sense of power. What other noises could I get out of him?
Intrigued, I leaned forward slowly, holding his gaze as long as I could, until my cheek brushed the stubbly length of his jaw. I bit his ear with just enough pressure to draw a little gasp from his throat. Pleased with the sound, I rolled my hips again and sucked his earlobe into my mouth, grazing it with my teeth.
Titus moaned softly. His hands found my hips, and he guided them back, then rocked me forward again, pulling me firmer against him. Tearing a groan from me.
