He was ashamed of his ignorance, she realized. Or perhaps he thought she would think less of him.
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
She braced her hands on his shoulders and leaned close, whispering the letters of her name one by one into his ear, spelling it out, elongating the sounds to make him understand.
“R-U-I,” he repeated after her.
“Rui.”
She nodded and said her name again, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear.
He shivered in reaction and turned slightly so that their mouths almost met. They were so close, their eyelashes seemed to tangle together.
“Rui,” he murmured huskily.
She nodded again, rather dumbly, held immobile by his closeness and heat, his intoxicating scent. She was practically straddling his lap. His hands had moved to clasp her hips lightly.
When did that happen?
He leaned back a little to scan her face.
“How old are you, Rui?”
She sat back on her haunches in the V of his thighs and flashed both hands at him.
“Ten!?” his eyebrows shot to his hairline and his voice broke on a high note.
Grimacing, she hastily flashed her hands again.
“Twenty?” he asked a bit breathlessly. But at least his voice was lowered back to its usual timbre.
She nodded up and down slowly.
Sort of. She was twenty multiplied by a few hundred years old. But that was just details.
He released a breath as if relieved.
“Good,” he muttered. “That’s…good.”
What did her age matter? She wondered.
With a mental shrug, she refocused on Wolfe’s beautiful, manly face. She cupped his bearded jaw with both hands and pressed her mouth to his.
He jerked a little against her, but otherwise remained still, letting her have her way.
It felt better than she imagined. This big, hard man was surprisingly soft here. The bristles around his lips tickled her. Both sensations made her curious to learn more.
Hungry to explore.
So she pressed closer to do it again.
But he took her wrists in his hands and leaned slightly back, holding her gently but firmly apart from him.
“Easy, little one,” he said, his voice low and soothing, as if he was speaking to a wild creature.
Perhaps she was one. She felt wild.