Chapter 9 #4
She hums, completely unbothered, and turns her face into my neck.
I feel her breathe in, and every thought in my head narrows to a single point.
My blood runs hot, and my arms tighten around her before I can stop them.
I want, very badly, to put her against the wall instead of the guest bed.
I want to find out what sound she makes when I put my mouth on her throat.
I want things I have no business wanting from a woman who has had a shifter brew and doesn’t know what she’s doing to me.
“You smell really good,” she says, her voice muffled against my collar. Her fingers curl into the fabric and tug lightly once, and I exhale through my nose like a man holding on by a thread.
“You’re making this very hard,” I tell her, and I mean it in every possible sense.
She lifts her head and looks at me, face tipped up, close enough that the gap between us is nothing. Her eyes are soft and dark and heavy-lidded. Her mouth is right there.
I want to press her into this bed and take my time with every inch of her. The only thing stopping me is that my arms are full of her because if they weren’t, my hands would already be somewhere they shouldn’t be.
“You’re not as horrible as I thought you were,” she tells me, her breath ghosting against my neck.
“That’s generous of you.” My voice is rough.
“I thought you were very horrible. Like a seven.” She holds up fingers. “But you’re maybe a four now.”
“I’m a four?”
“Three and a half.” She says it like she’s doing me a favor. “On a good day.”
I push the guest room door open with my shoulder, cross to the bed, and lower her onto it, which requires leaning in close enough that her breath flows warmly against my jaw. I stay there a half-second longer than I need to before I pull back.
Her arms are still around my neck.
I start to straighten. Her hands tighten.
Then she rolls, pulling me off balance, and I come down with her. She’s already pushing up to sit on my hips before I’ve registered what happened.
I could move her. Easily. My hands settle on her waist instead.
She looks down at me with her hair loose and that careless, half-lit smile on her face. I am completely at her mercy, and she absolutely knows it.
“What exactly are you planning?” I ask, helpless against this side of her.
She tilts her head. “I like you a lot better when your mouth is shut.”
I open my mouth to answer, and she closes the gap before I can get a single word out. Her hand fists in my shirt, she leans down, and then her lips are on mine, and every clever thing I was about to say dissolves completely.
One soft kiss. Then another. Then another, each one slow and unhurried, like she’s sampling something and finding it worth returning to.
Her mouth is warm, and she tastes faintly sweet.
Every time she pulls back, I feel the absence of her like something physical.
When she comes back, my grip on her waist tightens.
My blood is loud. My hands want things my brain is still attempting to veto.
She’s too drunk. This doesn’t mean anything.
She parts her lips, and I stop thinking entirely.
She’s warm and soft, and her legs are on either side of my hips. She shifts, just slightly, settling against me, and I groan into her mouth before I can stop it. My hands find her hips and pull her down hard against me so she knows exactly what she’s doing. She gasps.
I flip us.
My weight comes over her, and I feel her sharp intake of breath against my mouth.
I swallow it, gripping her jaw in one hand, tipping her head back and kissing her the way I have been not thinking about kissing her for weeks.
Deep and thorough, no softness in it, my other hand fisting in her hair.
She arches into me and makes a sound low in her throat that does nothing good for my self-control.
I want more of it. I want every sound she has.
She’s too drunk. I know she’s too drunk. I know this is the pack brew and the late hour and the open wound of a terrible evening all sitting in her bloodstream, and that knowledge is the only thing that keeps me from making a decision I can’t take back.
I pull back.
She makes a soft sound of protest, her tongue touches my bottom lip, and then she moans my name. “Grayson.”
Every last piece of my self-control detonates at once.
Fuck it.
My hand finds the hem of her dress and slides under it, her skin warm and soft beneath my palm, and I get about three inches up her thigh before she laughs against my mouth. Soft and breathless.
She plants both feet against my side and shoves.
I hit the floor.
I lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling.
When I sit up, she’s already pulling the blanket up around her shoulders, turned onto her side, eyes closing.
“What was that?” I say, bewildered.
“Mm.” She’s already halfway gone. “I want to sleep.” She presses her face into the pillow. “Go away.”
“You just—”
“Go away, Grayson.”
Standing up, I look at her for a moment, this woman who has managed to knock me off my feet in every possible way tonight, including literally, and something between exasperation and helpless amusement moves through my chest.
I pull the blanket up over her shoulder where it’s slipped. She doesn’t stir.
I lean down and press my mouth to her cheek. “Go to sleep, you little tease.”
She’s already gone.
I close the door behind me and stand in the hallway with the back of my head against the wall.
I’m never letting her drink again.