Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,39
if he was ignoring me. And I felt just a little bit hurt.
“I’d better relieve him from the watch,” I said, patting Jensen’s shoulder. His eyes opened in response, glowing golden in the gloom, and he nodded in understanding before his eyes closed again.
Relationships were hard. As I pulled on my sweater, I kept thinking about how romance novels always ended a few chapters after the couple committed to each other. But in real life, that happy ending wasn’t followed by years of bliss.
My happy ending with these guys would probably be followed by years of sword-fighting, sarcasm, snoring, bantering, and bloodshed…sometimes of each other’s blood, for that matter.
If we could even reach a happy ending, when Chase thought Blake and Skyla might be better off without us, and Rafe and Silas were fighting for control, and Tyson wasn’t even with us. I shook my head, pushing away the dark thoughts. One crisis at a time. We had to get through the Greyworld.
I padded downstairs to find Rafe leaning against the wall next to one of the windows. He held the curtain away from the glass with two fingers, staring out at the world beyond.
“See anything odd?” I asked in a whisper.
“No,” he said. “It’s beautiful here.”
I joined him at the window, and he slung his arm around my shoulders, drawing me close to him. I leaned into his side to look out at the soft snow blanketing the village, reflecting the pale moonlight. Everything in the Greyworld now looked magical, brighter, and cleaner than in our world.
If only we weren’t being chased by evil magicians.
“Do you think Silas will want to stay here?” he asked softly.
“No,” I said, more confidently than I felt. “He belongs with us. He must feel that too.”
Rafe nodded as if he saw right through me, but said nothing. He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“I’m sure he’d never want to leave you,” Rafe said, which wasn’t exactly an assurance Silas wouldn’t leave me anyway. But I’d bet that Rafe meant to comfort me as much as he could without lying.
I leaned my head against his hard chest, feeling warm when his big arms wrapped around me, even though cold air leaked steadily through the window.
“You should get some sleep,” I told him, even though I selfishly wanted to stay right here with him. It was impossible not to feel safe when our bodies were pressed together the way they were now.
“I should,” he agreed. “That would be the sensible thing to do.”
He made no move to leave me.
I twisted so I could get a look at his face, at that big chiseled jaw, dark-lashed chocolate brown eyes, and the jet-black hair still in place even when we were on the run in another world, as if even Rafe’s hair was afraid to get out of line. He lowered his head to meet my gaze, one eyebrow quirking. He’d given me that look an awful lot since we met.
“You’re always sensible, Rafe.”
He snorted. “Am I?”
I really did think of him that way, but then he swept my hair off my neck, pushing it over my shoulder, and thought basically stuttered to a stop. He lowered his head to kiss my throat, just below my ear. His lips nuzzled and teased. He rested his hand on my stomach, and then slid lower; even through my jeans, I felt each one of his fingers individually, as if my body were deeply attuned to him.
“I think I lost my sense when I met you,” he murmured into my ear, pressing behind me. “And if I hadn’t lost it then, well. Trying to act like I only cared about you professionally while I fantasized about you constantly… that destroyed any sense I had left.”
My hands rose to press against the cold glass as he moved behind me. I tilted my face up to his. He kissed me softly, slowly, as if he were savoring my lips. His hand teased between my thighs, stroking over the seam in my jeans, toying with me as sweetly as those kisses.
Even though our kisses had been gentle, I was still breathless when I pulled away from him. “What exactly were those fantasies?”
He cupped my chin with two fingers. “I fantasized about much more pleasant ways to convince you to behave yourself, for one thing.”
“Mm?” That barely-murmured sound was an invitation. Rafe couldn’t say the word behave without lust pooling low in my belly.