Eager now, I shimmied down the length of his body, dragging my tongue along his neck. His hands slid over my waist and beneath my shirt, skimming my ribs, then circling to my spine. Leaving chills in their wake.
“Mmmm…” I mumbled against his chest, between nibbling kisses. I inched my way lower, trailing my tongue over the peak of his left nipple, then down the hard planes of his chest. Every inch of his skin was stretched taut over well-defined muscle. He was pure power, draped in human flesh and held in check by an iron will I suddenly had the desperate urge to test.
I nibbled and licked my way down his chest, delighting in every groan and inhalation, and the lower I went, the higher Titus’s hands pulled my shirt. By the time I dipped my tongue into the well of his navel, he was breathing in short pants, his hands fisted around the hem of the shirt caught beneath my breasts.
“Robyn…” he moaned, and the throaty sound of my name sent a lick of heat south of my own navel.
Titus sat up, pushing me back, but his hands steadied me as I stood. He pulled the borrowed shirt over my head with agonizing slowness, his fingers skimming my arms as they went. Finally, the shirt hit the floor
He let his hands glide down my sides, warm against my skin, but his gaze was the more intimate touch as it slid over my breasts, then found its way to my face. “God, you’re beautiful.” He pulled me into a deep, hungry kiss, as my hands explored his chest.
Titus groaned again and picked me up as he stood. I wrapped my legs around him, then he turned and placed me on the bed. “Pants,” I gasped.
Titus unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them to the floor. He stepped out of his pants and socks and stood in front of me wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs straining against the demands of his erection.
I started to untie my borrowed sweats, but he pushed my hands away with a growl, and I laughed as more chills slid down my spine. Titus lowered himself onto one elbow next to me. His mouth found my left breast, hot against my sensitive skin, and I buried one hand in his hair, arching into his touch.
His tongue flicked over my nipple, and my eyes fell closed. His hand glided over my stomach, and I caught my breath. His fingers slid between my thighs over my sweats, and when he began to stroke me through the cloth, my hand tightened around a handful of his hair.
“Oh…” I breathed, my voice hoarse with need. “Titus,” I moaned, and his patience evaporated in a throaty growl.
The bed rocked as he stood, and I opened my eyes when he tugged impatiently at the waist of my pants.
“Drawstring,” I murmured, too lost in desire to be more articulate.
Titus tugged the drawstring until the bow slid loose, and I lifted for him so he could drag the material over my hips. He pulled the sweats down slowly, in spite of the impatience clear in the hungry way he watched me. Chills followed his fingers as the material skimmed over my legs, then disappeared. The sweats landed across the room, then he appeared over me again, need burning in his eyes.
Titus put one knee on the mattress, but I sat up, my hand on the flat plane of his lower stomach. “Wait.” He stood and I slid my hands beneath the last bit of material separating us. I pulled his boxer briefs down, freeing that last bit of him, proud and thick, straining toward me even as the rest of him clung to a thin thread of restraint.
I looked up at Titus as I wrapped one hand around him. His groan was almost too low to be human. Encouraged, I slid my hand down his firm length, then grasped him at the base. An inarticulate sound of pleasure rumbled up from his throat, and he gasped as my mouth closed over him.
“Robyn…” His hands slid into my hair, encouraging, but not demanding.
When I felt him at the back of my throat, I pulled away, sucking a little harder, until I could trace a circle around his head with my tongue. Then I took him in again, as deep as I could.
He groaned again and again as I stroked and sucked, his hands tightening in my hair until—
“Robyn.” Titus pushed me back gently. I looked up to find desperate need firing like sparks behind his eyes. “I have to slow down. I was infected three years ago, and since then, I haven’t…”
“You haven’t had sex in three years?” I frowned up at him. “Why not?” I hadn’t slept with anyone since I was infected either, but for me, that was a matter ofmonths.
“Because of Faythe.”
“What?” I leaned back on both hands, staring at him in shock and confusion. “You andFaythe?” The married, pregnant Alpha of another Pride?
“No!” Titus sat next to me. “Faythe’s a legend, even to us out here in the former free zone. She’s the reason we all know about the partial shift, and she discovered that during a veryintimatemoment.”
My confusion must have shown.
“She infected her boyfriend during sex, when her teeth started to shift, and I couldn’t take the chance that that might happen to some poor human girl. Because of me. Especially considering that women don’t survive infection. Well, until you.”
“So you were going to, what? Take cold showers for the rest of your life?” Because there were no tabbies in the free zone, other than Abby. And until me, there’d been no real prospects. “Am I just…convenient?”
“No.” Titus pulled me closer, and his lips skimmed my temple as he spoke. “You areanythingbut convenient.”
“Ha, ha.”
“I’m serious. You are beautiful, and brave, and bold, and…uninhibited. And I love all of those things. But you’re the least convenient prospect I’ve ever had—and I mean that in the best way. You’re not just a sudden opportunity to be grasped, and I don’t want you to feel like one. If you don’t want this, we can stop right now.”
