“Well, you seem to be reading my thoughts easily enough.”
He frowned. “That’s true. It’s never happened this much in this short a time frame.”
I preened, couldn’t help it, even though it was probably nothing to do with me.
“Does it bother you?” he asked, uncertainty creeping into his voice, and fuck no, I wasn’t having any of that.
I took his hand in mine, twining our fingers together. “No, it doesn’t bother me. I told you before, I have nothing to hide from you. Don’t ever feel like you can’t be yourself around me.”
He kissed me, soft and full of everything neither of us was saying, but I felt it in the space behind my ribs. It both seemed too soon to feel like that and also that we’d been dancing around it for months.
Not that it mattered.
We were here now, together, and that was enough.
I tugged him closer, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him flush against me. “I could stay like this forever,” I murmured, eyes falling closed.
“Mm, me too.” He sighed. “But I should call Dathal. He’ll have left me a thousand messages by now. Fuck, he’s probably on his way over as we speak.”
I should probably check in with Rys too.
And there was also the small problem of what happened to Axel now that his life was no longer in danger. I wanted to discuss Lady Sarhin’s suggestion with him, but that could wait.
Everything could wait.
I wanted to bask in the afterglow a little while longer.
* * *
I stayedthe night with Axel.
We took advantage of the fact everyone had chosen to give us some privacy and spent hours exploring each other’s bodies. We didn’t fuck again, but I made Axel come with my mouth on his cock and my fingers inside him, driving him wild until he screamed my name loud enough I’m sure my whole pack heard. He returned the favour once he’d recovered, taking great delight in the fact he made me lose control to the extent I ripped up his sheets even more than I had before.
It wasn’t until the next afternoon that we had to face the real world again.
Showered and dressed in only a towel, because nothing of Axel’s had a hope of fitting me, I sat at the breakfast bar watching Axel make food as I heard Rys’s car approach.
“Here they come.”
Axel glanced out the window, frowning. “I don’t see anyone.”
“They’re on their way, trust me.”
“I do.” He flashed me a smile so warm my heart stuttered.
The crunch of tyres on gravel stopped me from saying something I needed to hold on to for a little while longer yet.
Axel looked out the window again, craning his neck to see who’d arrived.
“Who is it?” I asked as car doors opened and closed.
“Rys and Dathal.”
“No one else?”
“Nope.”
Axel went to let them in, and I adjusted the towel around my hips, feeling more underdressed than if I’d been naked.
