“Don’t make me drain you in your sleep. ”
He pfft’d at me and angled me back to the couch, leaving the gun on the hall table for the time being. I had to admit, once I’d gotten used to having Desmond here, I remembered how pleasant it was to have someone next to me when I woke up every night. It was different than living with Gabriel had been, because with Desmond I could keep blood in the fridge and he wouldn’t find it weird.
Though I liked Desmond’s presence, I had played up my annoyance with Lucas a little longer than I should have. I told him I would accept a live-in guard, so long as it meant Lucas didn’t make any further decisions about my life without discussing them with me. He’d agreed on the condition I had to become a more active part of the pack. We were trying to work things out, but Lucas and I were like gunpowder and a lit match. Sparks flew whenever we were together, and it wasn’t always for the good.
With Desmond it was different.
I sat on the loveseat, and he knelt on the floor in front of me, pushing up my dress to look at the scar. I no longer tried to stop him when he did things like this. One, he was only trying to help, and two, I sort of liked it.
His warm hands brushed over the snow-white scar running in a three-inch line below my fifth rib. On my back the scar was only an inch and a half long and almost completely healed. A similar mark trailed ten inches down my forearm. They were all getting better, but with the aching slowness of silver wounds it felt almost like healing at a human pace.
I would never take my speedy recovery skills for granted again.
All the glass cuts were only memories, and my eyes were back to normal again. I had looked like a human punching bag/pincushion the day after the incident, but the smaller wounds healed within a day.
Seemingly satisfied I hadn’t ruptured the scar, he bent down and kissed the white mark. A telling shiver thrilled through me. He must have felt it, because his eyebrows rose and a dangerous smile was on his lips. We hadn’t had sex since the night of my fight, owing to the precarious manner in which I was healing. I’d been willing, but he didn’t want to risk hurting me.
I ran my hand through his hair and gave him my best seductive smirk.
“Are you sure?” He was already starting to second-guess it.
“Desmond. ” My voice was loaded with heat. “You’re not going to kill me. ”
He rose on his knees, hands seizing my face and pulling me in for a soul-jarring kiss. It was the kind of kiss long-lost lovers share when decades of time have passed since they were last together. He buried his fingers in my hair, and I held him close while his tongue explored my lips, gently at first, and then finding them willing to open for him, he deepened the kiss with a breathless intensity.
His cheeks were rough, having not been shaved in days. I dragged my fingernails against the short hairs, then down his neck, over his back and to the hem of his shirt, which I tugged upwards and off.
He broke away from the kiss to allow for the shirt to be removed, then reclaimed my mouth as he pushed me backwards on the couch. He held my thighs firmly, pushing my legs upward, and his fingers trailed with teasing lightness down the outside of my thighs, before backing up as he raised the skirt of my light cotton sundress.
I was so interested in touching his skin my fingers fumbled stupidly with the fly of his jeans, until I was able to release the snap and lower the zipper. Without hesitation, I slipped my hand inside and cupped his erection within my hot palm. He growled against my lips, lowering his mouth from mine to let his teeth graze my neck. This brought a gasp from me, and he teased my pulse with the flick of his tongue.
I clawed at his back, and he arched his hips against my grasping hand. I released him, which made him bite down harder on my neck. Ignoring his protests, I pushed him backwards off me, and before he could question why, I climbed onto his lap, hiking my dress up so I was nestled against the hard length of him.
I looked down, smiling, and kissed him again while I rocked my hips against his. Reaching one hand in between us, I released him from his underwear. He pushed my panties aside with rushed, deft fingers. Neither of us was interested in wasting time undressing. I raised up on my knees enough that he was positioned below me, then lowered myself onto his shaft with a painfully slow restraint that made his head roll back against the couch and a low moan escape his throat. I went as low as I could, until he was lodged as deep inside as I could take him, then I began to lift up again, but he grasped my hips and held me.
He was looking right at me, and what I saw in his eyes made my heart pound.
He released me so he could brush a strand of hair off my face, and he drew my mouth to his for a kiss that was almost too delicate, given our current position.
“I love you,” he whispered against my parted lips.
My pulse quivered, and my heart beat faster than I’d ever felt before. It was what I’d wanted to tell him before I left that night, and what he’d told me not to say. Now my words were coming out of his mouth. I stared at him dumbly, robbed of my ability to speak. Any movement threatened to take me out of the moment by reminding me what we were in the middle of doing.
“I love you too,” I said when I was finally able to form words.
He smiled, kissing me softly, his hands brushing over the bare skin of my arms, making me shiver all over. When he held my waist again, the rhythm had changed into something slower and more deliberate than our previous frenetic efforts. We were building towards a perfect finish when the first knock came.
Desmond paused, but I wasn’t so willing to stop.
“Ignore it,” I begged, my teeth worrying at the sensitive skin of his throat.
He began again, but the second knock came. Followed by a much louder third.
“Fuck,” I breathed hotly against his neck. “Hold that thought,” I directed before climbing off him and smoothing out my wrinkled dress the best I could.
My hair was in disarray, and even with the blanket pulled over his lap my disheveled boyfriend and I left nothing to the imagination for whoever had come calling. Oh well, I wasn’t going to pretend they weren’t interrupting.
I yanked the door open in the middle of the fourth knock with an unimpressed, “What?”