But sitting next to him is like sitting next to an energy source. Sensation arcs in the space between us.
He’s so strong, so above everyone else. We’ve lived together all our lives, but his orbit has never intersected mine. But now he’s here.
It’s like sitting on a jetty in a stormy sea.
The power makes you feel small and magical at the same time.
My body is responding. My belly swirls. My nipples rub against the cool cotton, creating an achy heat. My pussy lips swell. I press my thighs together as hard as I can, but the next time he inhales, his nose quivers.
His lips rise until they’re almost curved. “You are, aren’t you?”
“No. I—” I shake my head, but inside, my body hums in agreement. I clasp my hands until my knuckles blanch white. This is a bad idea. Dangerous. Stupid.
My wolf isn’t feigning sleep anymore. She’s alert and pissed and letting me feel it. Bad male. Go to the other female’s cabin. She huffs and turns her back.
Killian twists his torso, reaches over, and gently lifts my chin. Then he bends down and brushes his firm, dry lips against mine.
Time freezes.
I exhale a sighed, “Oh.”
And suddenly, I can feel it all at once, his touch shining a floodlight on the emptiness inside of me, the years of touchlessness after Ma and Da passed when I was fostered, the cold ache that settles into your bones, and remains, no matter how much your friends care for you when you’re grown.
It’s the place left when Ma no longer brushes your hair for a hundred strokes. When Pa’s no longer there for you to rest your head on his furry belly and scratch behind his ears.
It’s raw, always—still—and Killian’s touch exposes it and soothes it at the same time.
It’s what I needed.
What I missed.
And the thoughts don’t make sense, but it doesn’t matter because I’m rapt.
He draws his nose along the side of mine and then kisses my forehead. His hands stroke over my shoulders and down my back. He draws me closer. My fingers land on his bare chest. It’s hot to the touch.
My heart pounds. We’re both breathing heavily, and it stirs the air between us, creating a heat, an urgency.
An intimacy.
I let my fingers explore, slide up his pecs, and they twitch and tense. His lungs hitch.
I did that.
There’s a rumble in his chest, and I lay my cheek against it to see if I can feel it.
I can.
He smooths my hair, dropping a kiss to my hairline, the tip of my nose. I sigh and cling tighter, winding my arms around his neck, lifting myself so I can kiss him back.
This is perfect. This is designed. This can make up for it all if I let go, if I just give in to the mysterious swirling rising inside me.
He’s exploring, traveling from my lips to my temple to my jaw, as if he’s tasting the differences, as if he’s swept away, too.
We’re thigh to thigh, the shawl bunched and tented as we twist to reach each other. I want more. I want to touch everything. I grab his shoulders to lift myself, but my leg is stiff, and I can’t get a good enough grip. I growl, frustrated.
He chuckles. “I got you.” He picks me up and resettles me sideways in his lap, returning my hands to his shoulders and then massaging the thigh of my bad leg.
He kisses me, eyes closed, as he cradles me, and I feel floaty and surrounded and gobsmacked. I feel held.
He’s so strong. I run my fingers down his bulging arms, the veined tops of his hands, his hard knuckles. He has a fighter’s hands, a fighter’s body. But he’s docile beneath me. Patient. Coaxing.
Waiting for me.
For what?
He nips my bottom lip with his sharp teeth, and something inside me bursts open.
Oh, now I know. For this.
I want. Heat courses through my veins, and I squirm.
I don’t like this position. I want to be able to climb, crawl, roll.
I dig my fingers into the bunched muscles of his shoulders and lift up. This is too slow motion. I know what I need. He knows too, that’s why he matches me, urges me closer, cradles my neck in his palm.
I lick his mouth, and when he parts his lips, I devour him. I clutch him, plastering my breasts to his hard chest, inhaling with him because he’s air, he’s home, he’s everything.
I need, and he has what I want. The deprivation is a chasm inside me, and he can fill it, he has it, and I can make him give it to me, with my mouth, my hands.
He folds his arms around me, tight, and rubs my lower back, soothing me and murmuring, “You taste so good, baby. Let’s go back to my place. We’ll get this out of our systems.”