was the way I wanted it. The way I’d always wanted it.
When he lifted me into his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist. He held my face, so I couldn’t move, and he devoured my mouth as though it were the only thing he’d eaten in days.
I wanted to be devoured.
I wanted to devour him.
I reached for his cheeks but stopped before I got too close.
As though he could sense it, he pulled his lips away. “Touch me.”
I glanced over the spots that had been tortured. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
“But—”
“You won’t,” he repeated. “The only thing that will hurt is not having your hands on me.”
As our connection deepened, it felt as though our thoughts had mixed in the air, our pasts hanging above us and our fears hanging below. We weren’t in this cell. He didn’t have bruises and cuts and scabs. We didn’t have memories of Breath and Beard. Our mouths didn’t taste of plastic.
It was just us.
Our needs.
Our wants.
It was a moment I had been waiting for most of my life, and it was finally here.
And it was either the start of something monumental that would change me permanently, or it was the terrifying conclusion of our story.
I pressed my hand gently against his cheek, brushing my thumb across his coarse whiskers. He closed his eyes and nibbled the side of my palm. That minimal movement, that simple bit of affection, seemed to give him whatever he needed.
But it was softness that I needed.
The softness was gone the second his lips touched mine again. He used his weight to hold me against the wall, and he lifted my tank top over my head. He unclasped my bra with one hand. Then, he moved me over to our bed and laid me on it. Before I had time to even take a breath, he had my pants unbuttoned and swept them off my legs. The cold air hit my naked skin, but before I could even shiver, he’d thrown a blanket over me.
“If we weren’t in here, I never would have covered you.” He looked at me as though he could see through the blanket because no man would ever look at a piece of wool with that much hunger in his eyes.
“Why not?”
Maybe it was the anticipation of him touching me or the dampness in our cell, but I felt something tingle across my neck and over my face.
Kyle.
“I want you naked when you’re around me, and I want nothing between us, except air.”
“How about when I need…” My voice trailed off the second he started unbuttoning his shirt.
There was something about Garin’s skin that was unlike any other man’s. Even in the dim light, it looked so shiny and smooth. So overly masculine. Every piece of hair, every freckle, every pore was outrageously sexy.
“When you need to do what?”
My eyes followed his fingers as they worked their way through each button, and he eventually dropped his shirt on the floor.
“I don’t remember what I was going to say.”
His shoes came off next and then his pants until he was left in just his boxer briefs. I was willing those off with my stare.
“Garin, waiting for you is almost painful.”
I suddenly found myself wrapped in his arms, his face inches from mine, his body pressed on top of me.
His hand was circling my throat, squeezing. “Now, you know what it feels like. That pain. That torture.”
“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” I said.
I did it to hurt me.
As his gaze moved back and forth between my eyes, I could practically taste his tongue. He knew how much I wanted it, and I could feel how much he wanted me. His erection rubbed along my pussy. Every time I shifted my hips to cause more friction, he stilled me.
He nipped my bottom lip, and when he tried to pull away, I wrapped a leg around his waist.
“Don’t leave. Stay right here, and give me what I want.”
“I’ll hurt you.”
He was going to make me pay for running away from him. I should have expected that, but maybe if I begged hard enough, he would change his mind.
“I’m hurting enough already. Please, Garin, I want you.”
A line appeared between his brow, and his gaze intensified. “I’ve wanted to fuck you for more than half of my life. Do you know what that kind of want does to you after a while?” There was a grittiness to his voice, and it made me shiver. “It