"I'm going to make tea," he announces. He moves toward the kitchen with that characteristic deliberate grace, his broad shoulders nearly brushing the doorframe as he passes through. "You should eat something. You barely touched the gallery refreshments, and based on your current state of agitation, your blood sugar is likely contributing to your emotional dysregulation."
I can't help but smile at that, his way of pointing out I'm a mess while simultaneously taking care of me. He's right, of course. Between the anxiety leading up to tonight and the adrenaline crash from the Martin confrontation, I'm running on fumes and spite, which is never a sustainable combination.
"Because the gallery refreshments were sad crackers and warm brie," I counter, following him into the narrow kitchen space. "But yes, tea sounds perfect. And maybe those cookies you made yesterday? The ones with the cardamom?"
He's already pulling down mugs from the cabinet, his broad back to me, and I lean against the counter watching him move through the space with that surprising grace he always displays despite his size. Everything he does is deliberate and controlled,from the precise way he measures loose-leaf tea into the infuser to the careful adjustment of the stove flame beneath the kettle.
"Thank you," I say again, more vulnerable than before. The words feel inadequate for what I'm trying to convey, but I push forward anyway. "Seriously, Faugh. What you did tonight... what you said to Martin, the way you just... stood there and didn't let him diminish what I've accomplished." I pause, swallowing past the thickness . "Nobody's ever actually stood up for me like that before. Not like you did. Not with such absolute certainty that I was worth defending."
He turns to face me, and in the confined space of our small kitchen, his size becomes even more overwhelming. I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes, and I'm suddenly hyperaware of how close we're standing, how the counter is pressing into my lower back, how the heat radiating off his body seems to fill the entire room.
"You are too soft for this city," he says quietly. His eyes have shifted, the dark brown taking on an amber quality in the dim kitchen light, and the way he's looking at me makes my breath catch. "You let people diminish you when you should be taking up more space, demanding more recognition. Your work deserves better.Youdeserve better."
I swallow hard, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I'm trying. It's just... hard. When you've been told you're not good enough for so long, it's difficult to believe anything else."
He takes a step closer, and then another, until he's right in front of me, his body radiating heat and that earthy, masculine scent that makes my head spin. His hands come up to rest on the counter on either side of me, caging me in, and suddenly I can't breathe properly because he'severywhere, surrounding me completely, his massive frame blocking out the rest of the kitchen entirely.
"You are good enough," he says, his voice rough with something I can't quite identify. His eyes have gone fully amber now, predatory and intense, and the way he's looking at me makes every nerve ending in my body light up. "You are talented and brave and remarkable, and I will not allow anyone to convince you otherwise. Not Martin. Not your landlord. Not the voices in your own head that tell you to make yourself smaller."
My hands come up automatically, pressing against his chest, and I can feel his heart beating strong and steady beneath my palms. "Faugh," I whisper, and I don't even know what I'm asking for, but his eyes drop to my mouth and darken further.
"Say it again," he growls, and the sound vibrates through my entire body.
8
FAUGH
The word falls from her lips again, breathy and uncertain, and something fundamental shifts inside my chest. "Faugh."
She stares up at me with those wide hazel eyes, her pupils blown dark with something that mirrors the primal hunger currently tearing through my carefully maintained control. Her small hands are pressed flat against me, and I can feel the rapid flutter of her pulse through her fingertips, can smell the shift in her scent from lavender and turpentine to something warmer, headier, laced with arousal that makes my jaw clench around my tusks.
I have been fighting this pull since the moment I stepped into her chaotic apartment weeks ago. I have maintained rigid boundaries, kept my distance, channeled my increasingly possessive urges into domestic tasks and protective gestures that gave me plausible deniability. But standing here in this cramped kitchen with her trapped between my body and the counter, feeling her heat and smelling her want, I am rapidly losing the ability to pretend this is simply a convenient living arrangement.
"Chantel," I rumble, her name emerging from deep with far rougher than I intend, each syllable weighted with the barely restrained hunger coursing through me. The way her name sounds in my own voice, raw, territorial, stripped of the careful civility I have maintained for weeks, sends another surge of need through my veins. "You need to be very certain, absolutely certain, about what you are asking for right now. Once I cross this line, there is no returning to the comfortable distance we have maintained. I need you to understand the full gravity of what you are inviting, what I am capable of becoming when my control finally breaks completely."
Her throat works as she swallows, the movement with predatory focus, imagining what it would feel like to press my mouth there, to feel her pulse racing beneath my tongue. "Maybe," she whispers, and her voice trembles slightly but her gaze holds mine with surprising fierceness, "maybe you should protect me. From everyone else. From myself. From all the voices telling me I'm not enough."
The last thread of my control snaps cleanly.
A growl tears from my chest, low and feral, and I see her eyes widen fractionally before I move. My hands leave the counter to grip her waist, my fingers spanning nearly the entire circumference of her soft middle, and I lift her effortlessly onto the countertop. She gasps at the sudden movement, her hands flying to my shoulders for balance, and the height difference is corrected enough that I can look almost directly into her face instead of down at the top of her head.
"If I start this, I will not be gentle. I will not be civilized. I will not treat you like something fragile that might break."
Her breath catches, and instead of fear I see heat flash across her expression. "Good," she breathes. "I don't want gentle. I wantyou. All of you, not the polite version you show the rest of the world."
That permission is all I need. I close the remaining distance between us and capture her mouth with mine, and the taste of her explodes across my senses like nothing I have ever experienced. She makes a small, desperate sound against my lips and her fingers dig into my shoulders, clinging to me as I devour her mouth with single-minded intensity.
Kissing her is a revelation. Her lips are impossibly soft, yielding beneath the demanding pressure of mine, and when I trace the seam of her mouth with my tongue she opens for me immediately, welcoming the invasion. My tusks force me to angle my head carefully, but she adjusts without hesitation, tilting into me and kissing me back with a fierce enthusiasm that makes my cock harden painfully against the confines of my tailored slacks.
My hands roam her body with possessive urgency, mapping the generous curves that have been tormenting me from a respectful distance for weeks. She is all soft warmth beneath my palms, her body yielding and plush everywhere mine is hard and unyielding. I span my hand across her lower back and pull her closer to the counter, fitting her hips against mine, and the feel of her heat pressing against my aching erection makes me groan into her mouth.
"Faugh," she gasps when I break away from her lips to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of her throat. Her head falls back, granting me access, and I take full advantage, tasting the salt of her skin and feeling her pulse hammering wildly beneath my tongue. "Oh god, that feels?—"
"Tell me," I demand roughly. I drag my teeth with deliberate care along the sensitive, delicate skin just above her collarbone, mindful of my tusks even as my grip on her waist tightens possessively. "Tell me what you feel. I want to hear every word, every thought, everything that is running through that beautiful, chaotic mind of yours. Hold nothing back from me."
"I feel—" She breaks off with a shuddering gasp as I find a particularly sensitive spot just below her ear and focus my attention there, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. "I feel like I've been waiting for this, foryou, and I didn't even know it. Like every other person I've been with was just... practice. Preparation. This feelsright."
A possessive snarl rumbles through my chest at the mention of other men touching her, and my hands tighten on her waist with enough force that she whimpers. "No one else," I growl against her skin. "From this moment forward, no one else touches you. No one else gets to see you like this, gets to hear these sounds you make, gets to feel your body respond like this. Mine."
