Chapter 16 #2
The smoke-and-leather scent of him surrounds me as he shucks off his shirt. Coming in here was a mistake. My fingernails bite into my palms as the mattress depresses beneath his weight as he finds where I’ve curled on one side of the bed.
I want to stay. I want him to want me.
And I want to be free.
I slip beneath the blanket he holds up, settling beside Cord but not touching him.
Air escapes me as I lie as still as possible, unwilling to unleash the predator in him that I glimpsed that night.
A part of me craves that, the darkness in him that showed me a sexual partner I’d never experienced before.
But also, I want the man who loved me back at the mountains, who worshiped me that night.
His formidable control lasts all of a moment before his arm slides beneath me in a quick movement, crushing me breathlessly to his chest.
“There’s no world I can be in and not want to touch you,” he breathes, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart aching in my chest. Hope.
The dangerous glimpse I thought I saw in him before.
Maybe I’m stupid for letting this start up again but…
I don’t want to let him go, either. I trace the hard muscle beneath my cheek, swirling patterns on his smooth skin.
Cord’s hand comes down hard on my wrist.
Shock rips through me as I jerk in his arms. My eyes fly to his face, though I can only see a sliver of glittering eyes in the shadow. Cord stares down at me. “Sleep, Lanie.” His voice deepens, and he kisses my temple chastely.
His fingers around my wrist loosen to press gently over my hand on his chest instead. I sigh into his embrace as his other hand tangles in my hair, holding me to him. Our breaths fall in time with each other, the night slipping away.
Safe.
My head thumps with an ache that comes from somewhere outside, thankfully. Or maybe not so thankfully, as the thumping continues. I prop my forehead on something hard that smells faintly of salt and smoke. Grit clumps my eyelashes together. I swipe at them with the back of my hand.
“Morning, babe.” Cord’s fingers turned circles in my hair, which I just know will resemble an eagle’s nest.
“You’re still here?” I stretch, discovering our legs are tangled, and I have no objection to that predicament. “This is new.” Not that I’m objecting. I’m also impressed my brain is working this morning, at least somewhat.
“I spent too many hours in the office when I should have been spending that time with you. You are what matters.” His voice is filled with lazy contentment. His warmed touch trails along my spine to rest in a natural place at the small of my back.
“It’s nice to wake up with you. I don’t think I have, before.” I try to think back, but my caffeinated brain refuses to function on cue.
“Maybe that night on your doorstep.” Cord’s chest rumbles beneath my cheek.
I frown, propping myself on his chest. Deep azure eyes gaze back, drinking me in like a starved man. “I didn’t sleep then. I don’t think.”
“You snored. It was cute.”
“Cute?” I squawk, swatting at him.
Cord catches my wrists easily, rolling us to pin me beneath him. My breath stutters, everything dozy about my few waking moments sluicing into overdrive as my body heats, ready for him. Dammit, he’s already trained me to want him.
“Cute,” he murmurs, dipping his head. Cord’s mouth hovers over mine for a long moment—a moment he gives me to protest, to wriggle out from under him.
If that’s what I want.
I lean up, brushing my lips across his. “Not cute.”
“Too cute.” He drags his knuckles through my hair, cupping my head, angling me back. Then his mouth is on mine, all need and urgency, overtaking the desire to argue whatever the hell we were talking about.
Cord leans back, breaking the kiss to stare at me.
I gasp at the absence of his lips on mine.
Then his mouth settles over mine again, but his kiss is different this time.
Still confident, with an edge of what he demands, but gentler.
Sweeter. Asking, rather than taking, and I discover that I love this side of him, too.
Both sides of the same thoughtful man who helped me hunt for wolves, who let me drag people into his home, when I essentially caused the base of the conflict that we are weathering together.
Two aspects of the man I might just love.
“I’m sorry about J—”
Cord slides his tongue along mine until I moan. “Shut up, Lanie, and let me kiss you.”
“But I need to te—”
“Lanie.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
His kisses change. Not hard, but somehow more intimate than when he was rough before, though twice as arousing.
Possessive. His weight settles over me, our limbs tangling into a knot I never want to undo.
A deep sigh leaves me as I stretch beneath him, my hips undulating against the press of his weight, aching for more.
Cord squeezes my hip hard with one hand. “Still, babe. We have plenty of time. I’m not rushing this with you anymore. Let me apologize for how I treated you. Beg your forgiveness for a bit, okay? Work out if you want to stay?”
I reach up to graze my fingertips over the rough shadow along his jaw. “I want to stay. If you—”
“I do.”
Cord dips his head, cocooning me in his arms until the world becomes nothing more than us…
And it’s all I want.