33
Liv watchedZeke’s body jerk, as if his heart rocked to a sudden, jarring halt.
“Sword?” he asked, his voice razor-sharp.
“A longsword with wolf heads on the pommel and Family First inscribed on the guard. Been in your family since the sixteenth century.” She held his gaze. “Sound familiar?”
“How did you learn about it?”
“From you.”
His eyes flared for a moment before they returned to suspicious slits. “Not possible.”
“Five weeks ago, I spent the night in your hotel room.”
His stare could have set forests ablaze. “You went through my files?”
“You left a folder splayed open. I rarely sleep through the night. Even after such,” her attention dipped down to his mouth, remembering how attentive it could be, “rigorous activity. There’s not much else to do at three a.m. than read.”
She didn’t think it was possible, but his eyes narrowed more. “If you were looking for something to do, you should have woken me.” His voice lowered. “I would have been happy to give you something to do with those hands besides thumbing through my personal papers.”
An image of his hard, naked body against the white sheets surfaced, and her hands tingled with the need to run them over every hard plane and smooth crevice.
Something of her thoughts must have shone on her face, for his expression turned molten. Or was that fury?
She reached for levity. “Noted. The next time I’m in a hotel room with a stranger and can’t sleep, I’ll shake him awake instead of reading his luggage tag.”
Rather than breaking the tension, her comment made the atmosphere around them stretch tighter.
He stepped closer. “No.”
“No, what?” she asked carefully, though her voice remained firm.
“No more fucking strangers in hotels.”
Even while his possessive tone stirred something primitive and wanton deep inside, it contrarily tripped her independence wire.
“Until I have a ring on this finger,” she flipped him a ring finger, “I’ll fuck whoever I want to fuck.”
His eyes blinked twice in rapid succession, and Liv reviewed her angry words.
Shit.
“That’s not a hint or a suggestion or whatever else is scrambling your mind,” she rushed to clarify. “But my body is mine to give to whom I want until I’m committed to another.”
He reached out to cup her cheek. Warmth spread along the side of her face, compelling her to lean into his touch. Her eyes fluttered closed.
“Then commit to me,” he said in a guttural voice.
Her eyes snapped open in time to see his head descend toward hers.
When his mouth molded with hers, she could no longer remember the myriad of reasons it was a bad idea to sink deeper into Zeke’s kiss.
Why she shouldn’t bury her fingers in his soft, thick hair. Why she shouldn’t press her body into his.
Logic and reason and motherly instincts faded into the background as his hands blazed a path up the long curve of her back. His mouth seared her cheek, her neck, and the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat.
A moan escaped. She needed to be closer. Her leg followed the telepathic command and hooked itself around his hip.