When his eyes found mine, Viper brought a thumb to his mouth and brushed it across his swollen lip. As he sucked it inside, tasting the evidence of my lust that I’d left behind, I swallowed.
I’d never been so aware of my own body in my life, or another’s, for that matter. But as I lay there barely able to move, all I could think about was how the first thing I wanted, when I could again, was to touch him.
Viper reached down to undo and remove his jeans. But when all he did was move up alongside me, I felt a wave of disappointment wash over me. As he stretched out on his back, I turned my head on the pillow to see him looking at me.
“Go to sleep, Angel.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” Viper said. “What I want, I can’t have right now. That sexy ass of yours needs to recover after last night.”
Oh, shit. I licked my lips, and he groaned.
“But I swear, if you sneak out of here before I wake up, don’t think I won’t come up there and drag your ass back down here to my bed.”
I wasn’t sure what it said about me, but that threat, that fierce look of determination in his eyes, sparked something rebellious in me, and as he turned away to look back at the ceiling, I felt a grin hit my lips. Because that threat almost made me want to leave, just to have him come and claim me again.
Seven
Halo
IT WAS STILL dark when my eyes flickered open in a room that wasn’t mine, and it wasn’t until I heard the quiet breathing of the man lying next to me that I remembered where I was.
I rolled my head to the side to look at Viper, where he lay sprawled out on his stomach, his arms shoved up under his pillow, hugging it beneath his head. In sleep, and without the acerbic comments that usually came out of his mouth, Viper looked like a sleeping panther—beautiful and peaceful, but deadly. Tendrils of dark hair fell onto his cheek, stopping short of his full lips. Those same lips that had ravaged my body for the second night in a row, the stubble along his jaw leaving their mark along my inner thighs.
I quietly moved onto my side, curling my arm beneath my head as I looked at him. With the sheets down around his waist, I looked over the smooth olive skin of Viper’s back, his powerful body on display for me. I’d expected to feel changed in an irrevocable way by sleeping with—and now waking up next to—a man, but I hadn’t felt any different yesterday, and the lack of morning-after regret was still missing now. Though I’d been ready for him, though I’d wanted Viper to the point of practically begging, a small part of me had still wondered if once the adrenaline rush subsided, I’d feel like I’d made a mistake.
But looking at him now? There was no way I’d ever consider what was happening between us a mistake. The only regret I had was leaving his bed yesterday, and Viper had rectified that fast.
I glanced back up at his face, his breathing still even, still dead to the world. My cock stirred with his nearness and with the way the sheet stopped just above the top of his ass, taunting me with what I couldn’t see. Slowly, so he wouldn’t wake—and because I was a creeper—I peeled back the sheet, pushing it down so that his smooth, rounded ass came into view.
Damn. How was it that I was mesmerized by just the look of him? I wanted to run my fingers over the curve of his body and explore all the hidden places, the ones he’d made me so curious about that I’d had to have him. I’d had to taste him, touch him, let him inside me in the way no one had ever been. I’d always been the one to dominate during sex, but letting Viper take control? Fuck, it was hot. Even hotter? That he’d confessed his foul mood yesterday had been because of me. Me. All because I thought I’d been doing him a favor by leaving.
But I’m not leaving now…
“You’re thinking so hard it woke me up,” came Viper’s slow, gravelly voice, thick with sleep, and my eyes shot back up to his face.
A smile crossed my lips. “Maybe I wasn’t thinking anything. Maybe I was just lookin’ at you.”
“Mmm.” Viper adjusted the pillow beneath him so both eyes were on me. “Still like what you see?”
I pushed the sheet down farther, exposing more of his body. I was already busted—may as well own up to it. “I think you know I do.”
“I think you like more than looking.”
“Mhmm. That too.”
“Glad I don’t have to fuckin’ drag your ass back here.” As his eyes fell shut again, he reached for me, running his hand along my hip before trailing it down to the curls nestled around my dick. He moved leisurely, like he was still half-asleep, not gearing up for another round, and I relaxed back into the pillow, content to let him explore.