his hair buzzed and her nails grazed his scalp. She kept her gorgeous eyes trained on him, a look of pure pleasure on her face.
“You like that?”
“Y-yes…but I need, I need more. Can I have more?”
Gunner was hard again in an instant, and he bit back another growl as he slid his finger free of her tight pussy and pushed back in with a second. “You can have anything you want, love. Anything. I’ll always give it to you.”
Her lips parted, full and red and puffy from moving them all over his body as she’d worked at healing his wounds. Gunner bit back a growl as her lids lowered and her color deepened. Christ, her nipples were darker as well, tighter. His hand was on her thigh over his shoulder, and he felt the muscle flex. She was close. His gaze dipped back between her thighs, unable to look away from his fingers sliding in and out of her. Christ, how wet she was.
He wanted to put his mouth on her, lick her, taste her, make her come against his tongue, but one step at a time. There was no need to rush her. She wasn’t going anywhere. He’d make sure she felt safe with him, that she moved at her own pace, accepted him in her own time.
He brushed his thumb over her clit as he fucked her with his fingers.
Finally, her cry echoed around the small room, her pussy clamping down hard. His gaze shot back up so he could watch her as she came for him.
She called out his name, her hips moving, breasts shaking, belly quivering. Jesus, he was close to coming again just from watching her.
“So beautiful, Luna. You’re so fucking beautiful.”
She stared down at him, and not for the first time his gaze slid over her chest, where her heart rested, unmoving and silent. She wasn’t panting after coming or breathing heavily. She was still. She was always so still.
“Okay?” he rasped.
Her gaze didn’t waver, remained locked on his, a million things he couldn’t name moving through her eyes. “Do you really think I’m beautiful?”
Lowering her leg from his shoulder, he stood and brushed her hair behind her ear. “My gaze is drawn to you whenever we’re in the same room, and then I can’t look away. My heart skips a beat every time you look at me with those stunning violet eyes.” He cupped her cheek and slid his thumb over her puffy lower lip. “And when I close my eyes at night, all I see, all I want to see is this beautiful face.”
She gave him one of those slow blinks. “But I’m just…I’m…”
“You still don’t believe me?” he asked, his heart cracking at the doubt in her eyes.
She searched his gaze for several long seconds, and then he saw it, the moment she finally believed him. When she finally saw the truth in his eyes.
She blinked, and a red tear streaked down her face. “Gunner.”
That’s all she said, but the way she said his name said more than a million words could. Her voice was filled with so many things—pain and happiness, loss and sadness. Joy.
She fucking tore him in two. Luna felt everything so damn deeply. She was still getting a handle on her new emotions and the way they affected her.
Still fighting the demons in her head, repeating Azel's ugly words.
And he wasn’t surprised when what she was feeling now literally knocked her off her feet.
She crumpled, and he caught her in his arms.
He’d always catch her.
Always.
Chapter 23
Luna clung to Gunner as he rubbed the towel over her damp skin, then carried her to his bedroom.
Somehow, he managed to climb on the bed with her still in those strong, tattooed arms, wrapping them so firmly and surely around her as they lay there.
He held her as she cried, her emotional demons rearing up, battering her, the pain of the past washing over her like a tsunami.
The names Azel had called her.
What he’d done to her when he fed, using her body, taking pleasure from her when she hadn’t fully understood what was happening—when she was vulnerable, starving, and alone. She could admit to herself now that she’d actively tried not to let herself think about it. About any of it.
After he’d used her, when it was over and he was done with her, she would lock it away in the back of her mind. Pretend it never happened.
Her body and emotions had been blessedly numb to it, and she