“Are you expecting me to beg for it?” She would. Despite the Powerbar and the tea, she was still hungry and feeling off her game. Sugar, espresso, and chocolate would give her a needed short-term boost.
“Just a kiss.”
Her gaze shot to his, startled enough to search his eyes for extra meaning. His tone had been teasing, even flirty, but in his eyes was a seriousness that belied everything else. That one look brought everything from last night rushing back. Not just the hot times in this very bed, but also the way he’d apologized to her at the hospital before slamming her into the car upholstery and zip-tying her hands and feet. She remembered him as a black bear teaching Sammy how to speak like the best big brother ever, but also the way he ripped apart the hybrid in front of her. All of it came rushing back with a force that had her reeling.
His hand shot out to cup her elbow and she closed her eyes.
“Too soon?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“Give me the chocolate and you’re forgiven.”
He pressed the morsel against her lips, but she pulled back without eating. It was too intimate to eat from his fingertips, so she used her free hand to take it from him.
“I, um…I can do it. Thanks.”
She watched his expression tighten, but he didn’t fight her. He released the chocolate morsel into her hand and then a second later gave her the full bar. She could see that he didn’t like it. In fact, she suspected he was hurt by the barrier—however tiny—that she put up between them. It was like he expected their one explosive night together to have cemented an entire relationship, but she barely knew him. Plus, she was a neophyte in this world of shifters. She had to get her bearings before she started eating out of a man’s hands. Or, um, did it anymore.
She swallowed expensive chocolate and espresso beans, breakfast of champions. Then she broke of another bit and offered it to him. She thought he’d take it from her hand, but before she could change her mind, he leaned down and wrapped his tongue around it and her fingers.
Wet. Hot. Sensuous. She felt his tongue caress her knuckle and the skin before her nail. Then his lips pressed down as his tongue slipped between her thumb and forefinger, and he sucked the chocolate free.
Her breath caught, and memories flooded her mental landscape. Suddenly she wasn’t sitting here mostly dressed with a gorgeous guy and chocolate. She was naked and writhing as his tongue swirled everywhere between her thighs. She felt it delve inside her before sweeping up and around her clit. She felt the suction on her fingers the same way she’d felt it last night.
Too much. Too intense. She was not a physical woman. Or at least not until last night. And certainly not first thing in the morning. She wasn’t used to this wet, clutching in her womb or the throbbing in her clit. Not when she was trying to wake up and werewolves were on the way. Werewolves! And damn her nether parts were doing nether things that they weren’t supposed to. Not first thing in the morning.
“Cecilia?”
She’d pulled her hand back, and now her head was tilted away with her eyes shut. She was trying to get a hold of herself, and he was too present in her mind. In her mind, her body and in everything.
“Dr. Lu?”
She swallowed. She heard the withdrawal in his tone and knew for sure that she’d hurt him. But damn it, she couldn’t worry about his feelings right then. She had to get her own equilibrium back. Which meant she had to focus on the important stuff. Facts. Situation. Science, if possible.
“Tell me about the werewolves,” she said.
She waited without looking at him. And when the silence got too strained, she pulled the mug of tea up to drink more. Then their eyes met over the rim of her cup. She couldn’t help it. He drew her gaze no matter what her brain told her to do. And once she’d met them, she couldn’t look away.
Just like last night. He had brown eyes, slightly narrowed to give them a nearly almond shape. They sat above strong cheekbones in a broad face. Last night they’d seemed to swirl with emotions she barely understood. This morning, she was the one swirling and he looked at her quietly. How could eyes be gentle? How could they hold her safe with steady compassion?
She wanted to look away. She’d always found her balance on her own, usually in a science textbook or a computer screen. But she didn’t. She held his gaze and in the quiet, she felt a kinship build between them. Like a tiny note ringing softly but with increasing power. Too quiet to hear, but yet strong enough to feel. It connected them both and she was as terrified of it as she was comforted by its strength.
She wasn’t alone anymore, she thought. Not when he was a tangible presence in her…what? Mind? No. She didn’t need to think of him to feel him. Spirit maybe, and now she had to believe in that along with shifters and magic.
That terrified her most of all because her entire life was built on science. She worshipped the tangible, not the invisible. And yet here he was, a part of her though he didn’t speak, they didn’t touch, and she was about to walk away from him.
“It’s okay, Hank. I’ll just go downstairs and find out.” She pushed to her feet and he backed up to give her room. She spotted her bra on the floor and grabbed it. There was a bathroom close by. She wanted to use that and a hairbrush if she could find it. And—
“We’ll talk later,” he said.
She paused, but didn’t turn around. “That’s not a euphemism, is it.” Not a question. “You really do mean we’re going to have a…” What? “A relationship conversation.”
“Yes.”
Oh hell.
“Werewolves, first. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She nodded and fled. And when had werewolves become less scary than Hank?
