His lips remained firm, his tongue a dominant presence in my mouth. Embers seemed to dance over our skin, his palm trailing a fiery path down my side before grabbing my hip to still my movements. I hadn’t even realized I was lifting myself against him until he stopped me, his touch a welcome claim.
“You feel like heaven beneath me,” he murmured, his lips tasting my cheek before moving to my neck. “Fuck, Claire.” He nibbled my racing pulse, sliding down to my collarbone and then back up to my mouth. “We need to sleep, sweetheart.”
“I’m not tired,” I replied, arching into him on a luscious sigh.
He chuckled, his lips brushing mine. “Trust me, I wish that were true. But we both know you’re exhausted, and pushing this any further wouldn’t be right.”
“It feels right.” The words were a soft exhale, my body melting beneath his. “It feels amazing.”
“It does,” he agreed, his voice husky and hot. “Too damn right.” His tongue slid into my mouth again, the taste of him searing me from the inside out. I couldn’t think beneath his onslaught, the sensations too great, the fire brewing inside us a combustible element awaiting our permission to erupt.
I whimpered and writhed beneath him, a
wanton woman unleashed beneath a passion I didn’t fully understand. His name fell from my lips, a chant and a plea, my nipples chafing against his hot, hard chest. I needed more. I needed him. I needed this.
“Enough,” a deep voice said, reverberating the walls around us, yanking me from the chains of desire. Dark blue pools met mine as I glanced upward into a face so beautiful my heart threatened to combust.
Exos.
“I told you to train her, not fuck her,” he growled, his words dousing me in a wave of cold water. “She doesn’t understand our rules, our world, or the bonds that bind. Think with your head, Titus, not your dick.”
Titus cursed, his face falling to my neck as Exos stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. “Fuck.”
I suddenly felt cold despite the blanket of heat on top of me and shivered as he rolled away, his palms digging into his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Claire,” he whispered. “I… I… I wasn’t thinking.”
Neither was I, I wanted to say back to him, but couldn’t, too flabbergasted by what just happened. I’d almost begged him to take me. Had wanted him to more than anything in the world. It’d been a temporary escape from the craziness of this realm, of this new life, and he’d almost given it to me.
Except Exos had interrupted.
I didn’t know if I wanted to thank him or punch him.
Confused and overwhelmed, and slightly embarrassed, I curled into a ball, tucking my knees to my chest and fighting for the heat of seconds ago to flicker through my veins.
Titus responded by pulling the blankets up around me, his silence a burden at my back.
I didn’t know what to say to him. Did he want an apology as well? A compliment? A request for that to happen again?
I had no idea because I didn’t know him.
Yet I’d been about to let him inside me in the most intimate way.
All to escape a reality I wasn’t ready to face.
And because it had felt all too right.
He pressed a kiss to my spine, right between my shoulder blades, then higher against the back of my neck, and slowly slid his arm around my waist. “Is this okay?” he asked softly, a hint of wariness in his tone. “Or do you prefer not to be touched?”
I swallowed, considering his words, another shudder rattling my limbs. How had I gone from feeling so hot to so cold?
Because he took away his heat, I realized.
He began to remove his arm again, taking with him the last vestiges of warmth around me, and I dug my fingernails into his forearm, desperate to keep him close. Needy, yes. But I couldn’t stand the thought of being frozen and alone.
Titus provided a comfort that felt familiar while also serving as a new experience. And I craved both.
“Stay,” I whispered. “Please.”