That hand went up her ribs, so close to the bottom of her breasts. She wiggled her hips a little, alight with tingling urgency. Things she’d never felt before. Safe, wanted, desired, but her sleepy mind was waking up, trying to remind her that giving in could only end badly.
“Micah.” She needed to tell him to stop—to let her go.
“So fucking soft and perfect.” His lips brushed her cheek with little touches. He was kissing her. This shifter man lavished her with his attention, pulling her into him, kissing a spot beneath her eye, her cheek, the corner of her lips. Each seductive press left an undefinable tattoo on her skin.
Sophie whimpered, wanting more.
Soft, shining, clean—the remarkable things he said challenged all her self-perceptions, but she knew he did not lie. Shifters were terrible liars. Everyone knew that. Besides, he had no reason to lie, no reason for his hand on her stomach, no reason to want her in his bed like this.
He said he wanted to keep her. The man, his hunger, words and touch, baffled and seduced her. Even in her wildest imaginations, she’d never dared dream there might be a man like Micah willing to give her pleasure.
How did she reconcile this unwelcome seduction with the heated desire growing inside of her?
“Give me that mouth.”
Turning toward his lips, she obeyed. Bringing a hand up to hold her throat, he taught her about kissing with patient, erotic instruction.
She’d never been kissed. Breath, lips, mouth, tongue, pressing in—she couldn’t catalog the wealth of information. She needed his mouth. She needed to know, to understand. She wanted his taste. His tongue touched her bottom lip as his hand moved from her throat and heat opened up over her breast as he cupped her, learning the shape and feel of her. She made a noise between distress and pleasure, arching into the touch.
With the shirt she wore rucked up, he touched her freely, cupped and shaped her breasts, brushed his thumb back and forth over her nipple. “You were made for this, baby. Made to be touched like this. You like it. Need it, don’t you? Thought yourself a virgin ice princess for the vampir, when all along you were just a frightened girl trying to hide. Now you’re my girl. These are my tits. This is my innocence. I know how to treat a girl like you, not like those dumb fuck vampir. Gonna own it. No one can take it from me. No one.”
Sophie whimpered as that thumb brushed back and forth over her nipple, awakening nerves she didn’t know she had. “Do you like this?”
She didn’t want to say.
“Sophie.” His voice held that dangerous warning, a command.
“Yes!” The answer burst free in a reluctant hiss, angry that he would force her to speak.
“Baby is being rude, making me wait. Don’t do that. You answer me when I ask you a question, understand?” A dangerous growl to his words threatened punishment, and Sophie’s stomach tightened.
“Now, do you like this? Do you like my hands on your tits? Does that feel nice?”
“Yes. Feels nice.” It was so hard to say. She hated the sound of her weakness in the air, the answer condemning her.
He cupped her, squeezing, making the plump white flesh overflow. “What does it feel like, Starlight? Tell me.”
She moaned. How could she describe it? She didn’t know what to say. Her breasts were big even in his hands, the dry calluses of his palm rubbing, fraying her senses. “Cradled. You hold me like that—I feel cradled.”
He growled, leaning over her, burying his face in her hair, pleased with her answer. He palmed one, then the other, deft but gentle, holding her. Cupping her under and over until his right hand was back at her nipple, tugging at it.
She gasped.
“And this?”
“It zings. I don’t know. Something happens in my stomach, and lower.”
“Lower?” She could hear his smile. It made the zing stronger.
Nodding, she said, “Yes.”
“And this?” The smile fractured into the growl, split-second fast. As he opened his hand and squeezed, scraping his teeth against her neck—his hips thrusting the hard beam of his cock at her side.
It surprised her, shocked her. She tried to pull his hand away. “You’ve never been owned before, don’t know how to take whatever I give. Being rude again, Sophie.”
Whines escaped behind her clenched teeth as he squeezed once, twice, tight and uncomfortable before capturing her nipple and pinching it.
“Oh!” It was a cry, a scream, as she tried to get away. His leg slid up to pin her hips at the same time he grabbed her hand, slamming it to the bed at her side with ridiculous ease. He could do anything he wanted, demonstrating it by pulling on her sensitive flesh, pinching, twisting, rubbing.
