And again, I wondered exactly why she thought that was even a question. I craved her like nothing else, wanting to taste her, to feel her against me and wrapped around me.
So I took her hand in mine and pulled her toward the bathroom. While I’d prefer to have her in a place where I could really enjoy her, I’d take what I could get. I wanted to reacquaint myself with every inch of her, to lose myself in her, to remind myself of the reasons I was willing to risk everything and throw my entire life away just to have a little more time with her.
She was worth it. No matter the danger, I just wanted her. I wanted the life she offered me, the way she made me not feel so alone, as if I had a place in the world.
So I took her with me, pulling her into the small bathroom, flipping the lock before sitting her on the sink and kissing her with a passionate aggression, not hiding or controlling any of it. She’d accepted me, so she deserved to feel every bit of desire I had.
Because I loved her, and I’d make damn sure she knew it.
* * * *
Hera
Hours later, I stretched my hands out to ease the cramping in my fingers. Gripping the wheel for so long during the drive, when as tense as I felt, made my body ache.
Perhaps my time with Deacon had been a mistake, since I’d already been tired even before that, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. With everything so uncertain, his touch had made me feel at ease and accepted.
Being back in the town I’d lived my whole life in felt strange. No, it was more than that. As I drove down the long, winding street with Kit, my chest tightened. I hadn’t expected to ever return here, to see the familiar buildings and the streets I’d driven down countless times before.
“Are you all right?” Kit asked, his voice soft.
No, I really didn’t think I was. It was too strange. It bridged who I had been with who I was and forced me to confront both.
With my hands gripping the steering wheel, I couldn’t say that, so I shook my head instead.
Deacon drove the van with Knox, Brax and Wade in it. We didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves by piling so many of us into a car together. That meant we’d grabbed a sedan from a shady-looking bar. The person driving it hadn’t owned it—I’d easily heard it from his voice—so he hadn’t been willing to argue much when Kit had demanded he hand the keys over.
Kit set his hand on my thigh, the touch as comforting as it was stressful. Perhaps that was a result of us having had sex, because our relationship had changed after that. I’d gotten a look at the real him—not the wendigo, but the passionate man he hid—and I actually liked it. Still, it made me unsure about how to act.
He was so much older than I was, so different. I’d nearly believed him before, that he didn’t care about anything, but looking at him now I realized how wrong I’d been. He was deeper than others, had more years that had shaped him, but he wasn’t without feeling. Instead, those feelings rested under all that, so it took longer to reach them, but once I had?
I could easily drown in them.
So I offered him a tense smile in return.
He sighed but didn’t remove his hand. “Did I frighten you?”
At that, I frowned and lifted my eyebrow at him.
“You seem uncomfortable around me now. I understand I behaved rashly before, no doubt rough, but I hadn’t ever intended to frighten you. I wouldn’t want to hurt you, not like that.”
I pulled the car to the side of the road, unable to sit there while I couldn’t respond. Deacon had taken another route, which meant Kit and I could talk without worry about others getting involved.
“I’m not afraid.”I signed.
“You’ve behaved strangely toward me since we had sex. What else could it be?”
Heat crept up my cheeks at Kit’s blunt words. Why was it that having sex was so much easier than talking about it later?
“It’s not uncommon for people to get a little weird afterward.”
“You aren’t the sort of person to worry about things like that. You’ve had sex with Knox, Deacon, Brax and Wade, but you don’t have this same discomfort with them. That means this is about me specifically.”
I sighed.“I’ve had a while to get more comfortable with them. I haven’t had that with you.”
“You don’t need to spare my feelings. I know what I am, and I understand the reaction people have to me.”
He really wasn’t listening, was he? It was almost funny how hard Kit worked to make this all his fault.