“You’re the boss,” he growled.
“Not for the next half hour.”
His groan sank through every inch of my skin, warming it. Lighting me on fire. “You just remember that.”
Bishop lifted me and my legs wound around his waist. The rough denim from his jeans chafed my most intimate parts, and when I tried to pull away from it, he clutched me closer, grinding up into me as he carried me across the living room.
I hissed at the abrasive sensation, and he growled, his grip tightening around my hips until I gave in and rode out the rough sparks of pleasure. A second later, his grip shifted, my only hint of a warning before I was suddenly airborne. Falling.
My brief shriek ended as the bed caught me and my mouth snapped shut.
“Don’t move,” Bishop ordered as he unbuttoned his jeans. So I watched as he shoved them down, followed by his underwear, and suddenly he was standing naked in front of me, in unparalleled shifter glory.
No human man could possibly attain such physical perfection. Not for long. Not without grueling work and a careful diet. But most shifters were hot, and Bishop…well… If the standard shifter hotness scale began at “bonfire,” he was a goddamn nuclear explosion.
When he bent to dig into the pocket of the pants he’d just shed, I pushed myself backward, reaching for the lamp to turn it off. I could see him just fine in the dark, and no one driving by needed to catch his silhouette in my window.
But I only made it a couple of inches before a hand closed around my ankle. “I said,don’t move,” Bishop growled. He hauled me to the edge of the bed, and I hissed at the friction between my back and the sheet. When my butt hit the edge of the mattress, he pulled my underwear off, then he crawled over me, dropping blistering kisses in a line up my torso and neck until his face appeared, the heat from his body radiating against mine, though he held himself a couple of inches above me. “You don’t listen very well.”
“Says the man with impulse control issues.”
Bishop chuckled, and the gravely sound echoed through me, triggering sparks in unexpected places. “Hey pot, kettle calling.”
That time I laughed, but the sound ended in a soft gasp as he lowered himself, closing the scant distance between our bodies, and his warm breath brushed my ear. “Be good, and my impulse control won’t become an issue.”
I squirmed as his mouth closed over my earlobe, sucking gently. His mouth captured mine again, teasing, his tongue stroking against mine so smoothly, with such intensity that I hardly noticed him sliding my arms, first one, then the other, across the rumpled sheet. Until they met over my head.
“Stay,” he growled, his chest rumbling against my breasts. Teasing my nipples. Then he kissed his way down my body again, stroking every inch of me as I arched into each touch, silently begging for more. But his contact was tormentingly light. A taste, when I wanted a feast.
Bishop’s tongue dipped into my navel as his hands slid beneath my hips, cradling my ass. Repositioning me. I gasped when his teeth grazed the point of my left hip, briefly digging into my flesh. Claiming the spot, just for a second. Before he settled onto his knees on the floor.
I wriggled as he nibbled my inner thigh, soothing tiny bites with quick licks, as if he weren’t sure whether he’d rather taste me or consume me entirely. I arched into him as his tongue trailed up my thigh, ending tantalizingly close to where I wanted him.
Yet still shy of the mark.
Bishop growled. The sound hummed against my skin, rumbling into my very soul. Echoing with a desire for something I couldn’t quite bring into focus.
Something aggressive and primal. An emotion so fundamental—so centered in who he was and how that man came to exist—that it couldn’t be put into words or stuffed into a category.
It was as sharp as a blade, hot as flame, and as hard as that bolder he called a skull. It was both sword and shield. Offering and command. The driving force that dominated every moment of his life.
That needwasBishop Mattheson, and in that moment, I was nothing more than a raft riding the current of his passion. Surging with each wave. At the mercy of the tide.
He licked my thigh again, and the sensation felt suddenly raspy. Not actually painful, but…intense. I could feel each individual, tiny bump on his tongue.
No, those weren’t bumps. They were hooks.
His tongue had shifted, at least a little.
Before I had time to consider the ramifications of that development, or to even think about pushing him away, he hooked a hand beneath each of my knees and spread them wide, pressing my legs flat against the mattress. Exposing me fully.
I started to sit up, and he snarled. His head popped up, his fierce gaze warning me not to move. To keep my arms over my head, where my fists clenched handfuls of my own sheets.
My heart leapt into my throat and every muscle in my body tensed. “Tongue,” I whimpered, unable to resist the caution, despite his warning growl. What if he didn’t know his tongue had shifted? A cat could literally strip the flesh from its prey’s bones, and he was very near a very sensitive part of my body.
Bishop growled again, and his grip tightened on my legs. Then his head disappeared.
A strangled cry ripped free from my throat at the first touch of his tongue between my legs, and for a second, I couldn’t tell whether the sensation was pleasure or pain. All I could be sure of was that it was rough.
