much."
"After what you've done to us in just one afternoon, I understand Jacob's rule."
"What have I done to you?"
"Divided us. If Silas hadn't come in when he did, we'd have fought over you."
I traced the edge of his face under the fall of hair. "You wouldn't have had to fight if Jacob shared as well as you do."
"He's our Rex. Kings don't share well."
"My leopard king does."
"Leopards aren't lions," he said.
I pushed him back toward the ground and he let me do it. That was one test passed. I needed to know that he wasn't so dominant that he'd crash my life around all our ears. I raised my skirt up enough so I could straddle him, and the feeling of him hard and ready pressed against me, bowed my spine, and made me shudder above him. God, he was so hard.
His hands found my waist, helped steady me above him. I leaned over him, but the height difference forced me to stop straddling the business end and move up to his waist. I waited to feel the guns at his waistband but it was smooth, nothing there to find.
He answered the question as if he'd felt my hesitation. "Jacob took the guns after the fight. I don't think he trusts me anymore."
"I'm sorry," and I meant it. They were bad guys and they were murderers, but still his life was about to change forever, and you should always apologize if you know you're about to fuck someone's life over.
His hair had fallen back when he went to the ground and I could see all of his face. "You're beautiful."
"Isn't that my line?" he asked, and then he turned his head so that his missing eye was more in shadow. I remembered when Asher used to use shadows and his hair to hide from me. I'd broken him of it, convinced him he didn't need to hide anything from me.
I touched Nicky's face, turned him back to look at me full-face. I leaned over and began to kiss his forehead. I covered his face in kisses, one inch at a time. I kissed first one soft eyebrow, then the place where the other eyebrow would have been. He tried to turn away, but I held his face between my hands. He let me lay a gentle kiss on one closed eyelid, then on the soft slickness of the scar tissue on the other side. I kissed my way down his face until I found his lips, and there I stayed longer. I kissed him until his arms came up and held me back. Kissed him until he rolled me over so that he was on top and I was on the floor. But he was too tall for missionary. I needed to see his face, his eye, for this to work.
I pushed at his chest. "You're too tall! I don't want to stare at your chest the whole time; I want to see your face."
He laughed. "You just don't want your ass on the bare ground."
"That, too, but I need to see your face."
He rolled to the side and looked at me. "Why?"
"I want to watch your face while we make love."
"I don't think Jacob will wait for us to make love."
"Fine," I said, "I want to watch your face while we fuck."
He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. "You aren't like any woman I've ever met."
Chapter 11
"You have no idea, Nicky, not yet."
"Show me," he said, and he rolled back closer to me.
"Strip," I said.
"What?"
"When the ardeur raises, the clothes will come off. We can either take them off now, or we can rip them off each other and have nothing to wear afterward."
He frowned at me, looking skeptical, but he went to his knees again and lifted his shirt off in one motion. He looked better out of the shirt than in it.
I glanced away while I started getting out of my clothes. I did not want us to rip up another custom-made holster. I also wanted clothes after we finished. It was not the way I wanted to be naked in front of a man for the first time, but Jacob wouldn't wait all night. I needed to finish this before he came back and checked on us. I needed to finish this before he figured out that I was going to do more than feed off of his lion. Because I had decided that I was going to roll Nicky like any