hair, smiling again when my eyes rolled back at the feel of it. This fucking heat. Coming didn’t ease me, it drew my attention to how good my body could feel, reaching for more pleasure, and right now, it was considering exactly what this big body could do for me.
“Because this is the most words we’ve ever said to each other,” I hissed instead. “Because I love Jai. Because I don’t even know you.”
“I am no threat to your existing relationships unless you decide it, so why don’t we get to know each other a little better?”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“No?” His eyebrow jerked up. “You want to enter my mind, yes?” I yelped when his arm went around me, tugging me close. I instantly felt like a child, lying in the shadow of his bulk. My hand went up instinctively, trying to keep some distance, my heart rattling in my ears as I fought to take a breath in and just caught lungfuls of sandalwood and smoke instead. My muscles tensed, ready to pull away, but his hand pressed hard into the small of my back.
“Be careful, little one. Predators love scared little girls.” His head dipped closer and he took a long breath in. “Take long even breaths. Slow your heart rate down. Listen to my purr.”
I startled when I heard the deep, rattling sound come from his chest. It only came on the out breath, but the low vibration spread from him outward. Down the hand pressed against my back, out through the chest I was lying against. I felt it resonate through me, like one great big sensuous stroke of my body. My eyes fell closed, an endlessly tranquil state bubbling up within me. My eyes ached when I felt it, something I had sorely missed while I was in this fucking hellhole—my power.
“Keep going,” I whispered.
“Gladly.”
One shouldn’t snuggle up to a man they’ve only just met, lay their head against his hard chest, breathe in his woody scent, and just let go, but I did. He shifted slightly, leaning back so I had a flatter surface to rest my head on, and his hand slid up to my hair. Without the purr, it would have been awkward and weird. New people are always exciting in the best and worst ways. They’re all potential. Kazimir might have been a generous and kinky lover or boring. He might have been husband material or abusive. He might leave his socks on during sex, get hard for guys as well as girls, get off on calling me names, or want to be spanked with a limp carrot. The swirling possibilities usually overwhelmed me, but that purr… It forced all that was jagged and sharp inside me to lie down and relax, giving up, giving in, and diving into the feather soft greyness in my head. Into him.
I reached for his mind automatically, like I did when seeing patients, and that kind of hurt a little. It’d been like having a limb pinned to my side or bound up in cuffs. It’d had no chance to unfurl, and I realised as I did so, that hurt me. I rushed towards him with an eagerness I hadn’t felt since I was first able to connect, but of course, it wasn’t that easy.
I could slip into animal brains with the ease of putting on new clothes. Their lack of consciousness meant they didn’t detect intruders or put up barriers to keep me out. Animals were experience, instinct, now, now, now. Kazimir, for all of his dual nature, was human. I could feel the complex workings of his brain dimly, a swirling dense mass where animals were diaphanous. I tried to dive in, like I would an animal, but that wasn’t going to work. Something firm and hard pushed me out, sending me spinning sickeningly in the grey.
Take long even breaths. Slow your heart rate. His words echoed in my mind as I fought to regain my equilibrium. My tailspin slowed, then stopped as I hung there, surrounded by my power, wondering how to do this. Dimly, I felt his hand slide down my spine, slowly, a question in the pace. Did I want him to continue or stop? It went down, down, down, until he reached the curve of my lower back, then paused, waiting, until it took my silence as tacit approval to cup my arse.
I grinned when I heard his groan, not due to the sexual torture, but because