Chapter 4 #2
Excitement filled me as I jogged through cavern after cavern, until I finally reached Lothar’s door.
Without knocking, I slipped into his quarters and stripped out of my leathers.
Crossing the room as quietly as I could, I lowered to the edge of his bed, but before I could get in properly, his long thick fingers locked around my throat from behind and he tugged me against him, so my back was pressed tight to his front.
His arms wrapped around me, and he buried his face against my throat.
“About fucking time, kitten,” he growled against my ear.
My eyes snapped open, and I blinked up at the darkness above me. I hadn’t dreamed about him in a long time, and oh gods, didn’t want to now.
That’s when I became aware of the hard, solid body under me, radiating heat like a furnace. That’s when I also realized it wasn’t darkness above me, it was below me. I was staring at a black T-shirt, and I wasn’t lying on my pallet, I was lying on top of Lothar. I froze. Oh fuck.
Oh fuck.
As slowly and carefully as I could, I lifted my head. Please let him be asleep.
My gaze slid over his chin, up to his nose, then higher, locking on heavy-lidded, golden eyes that were staring back at me.
I was definitely going to stab myself in the brain. There was no other option. “I’m not sure how I…” I looked around me. Urs and Gus were asleep on their own pallets, and I’d traveled a good distance in my sleep, to crawl all over Lothar. “…got here.”
“No?” he asked, his voice all sleep roughened.
I hated how much I liked that. “I mean, I occasionally sleepwalk.” I chewed my lip, and Loth’s gaze dipped to my mouth. “I must have…”
“I was on watch,” he said.
“Okay.”
“You stood up, eyes rolled back in your head like you were fucking possessed, strode over, shoved me to my back, and crawled on top of me.”
My face exploded into flames. “Right.” When was the last time I blushed? I had no idea, but I was now, so hot I had to squint from the heat waves coming off my own face. I gave him one of my bubbly giggles. “I must’ve been cold or something.”
“Or something,” he muttered.
Oh, sweet Lucifer, no. My fake smile froze on my face “What else did I do?”
I felt him more than saw him shrug beneath me, then he flashed me his fangs. “Let’s just say, I’m happy to be your scratching post any time, kitten.”
My world spun, my heart stopped, then my soul left my body and shattered into a million pieces. Kitten? There’s no way he’d know that name. No fucking way. Then the rest of what he’d said registered, hitting me like a six-ton elephant. “Your scratching post?”
His nostrils flared, and he nodded.
My swallow was audible. “Are you saying…” Oh my gods. Oh my gods. “Are you saying that I…that I…”
“Dry humped me?” He winked and lifted his hand, his thumb and finger a centimeter apart. “Little bit.”
“What?” I shrieked. “Why didn’t you shove me off?”
He chuckled. “You held a blade to my throat.”
“I did not,” I burst out.
He tilted his head to the side and there was a faint red mark. His grin broadened. “I didn’t dare move.”
“And you find that funny?” I yelled as I scrambled off his massive body. “I held you at knifepoint and dry humped all over you in my sleep, Lothar! That is not funny!”
“You did,” he said, still lying there as if the most humiliating thing ever to happen to me hadn’t just happened.
“I sexually assaulted you!”
He laughed then, that deep, rumbling laugh that made my toes curl.
“If I really thought you’d take my head, I would have overpowered you.
” He sat up, his stomach flexing as he did.
“You obviously needed to let off some steam, and it wasn’t like I had to do anything.
I was playing solitaire on my phone through most of it. ”
I screamed in horror, and Ursula jumped to her feet, her knife already in her hand, searching for danger. Gus only a second behind her, jumping to his feet, fists clenched.
“Stand down,” Lothar said. “There’s no danger.” His gaze slid to me. “You good?”
“No.” I spun to Ursula. “I had a nightmare,” I said through clenched teeth, my eyes widening as if I could communicate the horrific thing I’d just done with one look. “I really wish you’d woken me before you went to sleep, like I asked you to.”
“You were out cold,” she said. “I thought you were good.”
“I wasn’t. I wasn’t good, Urs.”
“Shit,” she muttered.
“Let’s just pack up and get the hell going,” I said too loudly as I shoved everything back in my pack. “We have a full day’s travel to get to the keep.”
When we’d eaten and were packed up, Gus shifted into his beast and I strode toward him, cutting off Ursula again.
“You don’t wanna ride me, Rox?” Lothar asked, laughter in his voice.
I flipped him off, and he was still laughing when he shifted. I’d never heard a hound laugh in his beast’s form before, but I was pretty sure I had now. I ignored the question in Ursula’s eyes and quickly climbed onto Gus.
What the hell was I going to do when Urs and Gus left? I couldn’t be trusted alone with him. Definitely no more freaking sleep tincture for me.