Another tug pulled against her scalp as he turned his finger, winding her hair to draw her forward, until she stood close enough to feel the heat off his body. He let his gaze wander her face, both lazy and thorough, like he was staking a territorial claim.
She found herself studying his mouth, licking her lips.
His fist rested on her shoulder, still tangled in her hair. His thumb stroked along the artery in her throat, where her blood moved thick and unsteady.
“You have the most beautiful skin.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that and wasn’t given a chance. He dipped his head and opened his mouth against her neck.
This was what they did. They crushed their prey with their powerful jaws.
Except he only breathed hotly against her throat, licked once, sending her pulse skyrocketing. Her breasts prickled and stung inside her bra and a wicked dampness rushed into her loins. She forgot to inhale as he rubbed his lips against her skin. Heat suffused her body and her bones turned to melted wax.
He made a purring noise and scraped his teeth, then sucked lightly, soothing with another lick. The sensation was so enticing, she let her head fall back, fully baring her throat to him.
With another noise of satisfaction, he set a hand on her hip and drew her closer, lifted his head and took her mouth in a kiss that buckled her knees. Hot, thorough, hungry. His arms went around her, pulling her in. Holding her up.
Her arms were tangled in whatever she held, but she didn’t care that she couldn’t move them. She only wanted more of that raking pleasure of his lips across hers.
The swipe of his tongue against hers sent streaks of electricity through her. She met it with her own, moaning softly in her throat as a near-painful sting heightened every inch of her skin. As if he understood that, he ran his hands over her back and waist and hips, soothing but inciting, making her wriggle restlessly, wanting more.
Her shirt came loose from her waistband and his palms went under the edge, up and up, arriving to cup her breasts so they throbbed with sensitivity in the firm hold of his hands. It was too much and not enough. She could smell something feral on his skin and wanted to drown in that scent. She plucked at his shirt and drew on his tongue and wished she could breathe, but she only wanted him.
With a savage hiss of breath, he jerked his head back. The gray-green of his eyes was jungle dark, filled with mysterious shadows and the secrets of life.
Her heart thudded so hard she could feel it rocking her whole body, pulsing in her nipples against his palms and throbbing in the plump folds between her legs.
“Are you faking this?” he asked in a voice that made her scalp prickle.
She looked down at the way his hands were trapped against her breasts under the taut fabric, the clothes he’d given her rumpled on the floor at their feet.
“No.” She didn’t have a clue what she was doing, but she was lured by the feel of his palms on her breasts to lean in to his touch.
“Good.” The word was a satisfied rumble. His thumbs flicked across her nipples, and even muffled by the cotton of her bra, the caress caused a sharp spear of electric sensation to stab into her abdomen. “I’ll close the door.”
Consciousness began to seep back into her brain. “I was going to save it,” she remembered distantly.
“Save what?” His head lowered so the air between their lips became magnetized, tugging with invisible force.
It took all her efforts to remember what they were talking about and say it before he kissed her and erased every thought she could conjure.
“My virginity.”
* * *
Gabriel stopped a scant millimeter from claiming that luscious, clever mouth. He balanced on the knife’s edge between rational thought and the sweetest, blindest escape he could recall glimpsing in his lifetime.
He made his hands slide down to her waist and swallowed.
“You’re a virgin?” he asked carefully.
Her tense stomach muscles quivered against the heels of his hands. Her pouted mouth was still parted with invitation. “Yes.”
“And you kissed me like that?”
She blinked and the sultry haze of arousal in her sea-green eyes grew tepid and unsure. “Am I not good at it?”
He was hard as high-carbon steel, his flesh nearly searing its way through the layers of cloth between them to get to the molten center of her. He swore he could smell her arousal like nectar, beckoning him to burrow deep. He would give anything to taste her, to feel her arch with pleasure against his mouth.