and generous and selfless and affectionate. What he felt for her was in every single thing he’d done to make her life easier, safer. In the way he held her and spoke to her, looked at her.
His big body quaked. “I’m sorry, love.” His arms still banded around her squeezed tighter. “You’re not ready. I just…I was so fucking scared.” He pressed his face against her throat and breathed in deep, shaking harder. “The need to get closer to you is an ache down to my bones. Just let me hold you, okay? We don’t need to do anything else. Just…I need to hold you.”
Those heavily muscled arms squeezed again, crushing her to his massive chest, the trembling of his body not waning, his ragged breathing not slowing. He thought she was afraid, that she didn’t want to take that final step with him when it was all she wanted at that moment.
“Gunner,” she said, pressing a soft kiss to his temple, the only place she could reach. “The way you want me…” she whispered against his skin. “You make me feel so incredibly loved. I’ve watched you for so long, a yearning I didn’t understand building every time I saw you. My soul recognized you before I did, it knew who you were.” He lifted his head, and she cupped his whiskered jaw and stared into his gorgeous eyes. “I wasn’t living until you found me. My heart may have stopped beating, but I’ve never been more alive. Not ready? I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life.”
He snarled as deep repetitive vibrations rolled from his chest, as the muscles in his strong arms flexed against her.
She smiled, letting him see everything she was feeling. Emotions that she was able to experience now because of him, because he found her and changed her whole world.
“I want to be your mate, Gunner. I don’t want to wait anymore.”
The sound that left him wasn’t of this world. Animalistic and raw. His demon was right there with him. His massive hand cupped the back of her head gently, reverently. “Are you sure?” he asked, voice full of grit, of need. “Once it’s done, it can’t be undone. It’s forever, Luna.”
“I want forever with you,” she said, somehow managing to stop the tears trying to break free.
He sucked a breath in through his nose. “Luna.”
That was all he said, just her name, but the weight in that one word, his tone deep, solemn, and so rough, expressed more than anything else could.
He moved then, carrying her to the couch where he sat, keeping her across his lap. Then, gripping the towel wrapped around her body, he tugged gently. Luna bit her lip as it fell away as Gunner pulled it out from under her and threw it on the floor.
She was completely naked in his arms, in every sense of the word, and she’d never felt safer in her life.
“Do you have any fucking idea how gorgeous you are?”
She shook her head.
A half chuckle, half grunt huffed out of him and goose bumps lifted all over her body as a big calloused palm made slow progress up her calf. “This smooth skin like cream silk makes me crazy. I want to spend hours just running my lips over every part of you. And these curves,” he said as his hand moved over her thigh, to her hip, then to her waist. “Curves that feel fucking phenomenal against me, so soft, so sweet.”
One of his hands cupped her breast, and she sucked in a surprised breath.
His long, thick, rough-skinned fingers toyed with her nipple and he pressed his forehead to hers. “You are everything I ever dreamed of, Luna, everything I would have wished for.”
Oh god.
“But your beauty is so much deeper than this gorgeous body, this stunning face, those exquisite eyes. It shines from within; it lights you up. You shine so bright, love, I can’t look away.”
“Gunner,” she choked, trying to hold it together.
He was destroying her in the best possible way, one sentence at a time, and as he spoke, that huge battle-scarred hand continued to move over her skin, smoothing over her stomach, her arms, skating over her thighs, teasing, tormenting, making her squirm and shiver and tingle all over. He made another pass across her upper thigh and she moaned, squeezing them together.
“Please,” she said, covering his hand with hers.
He dragged his nose up the side of her throat, sucking on her jaw, nipping her earlobe. “Spread