Page 76 of The Reaper

“I have a thing foryou, Orin. I want to know you, but you’re keeping me at arm’s length here. I don’t know what else you want from me besides my submission.”

He stared at me for a moment before rasping out words I never thought I’d hear. “I want you. All of you. In all the ways possible, but I can’t let you have all of me.”

“Why not?”

His eyes became unfocused as if he were lost in the past. “Because there’s a monster inside me. There’s a darkness that swirls around my heart and eats away at my soul. Because every person I’ve allowed to get close to me either goes away or fucks me over. I don’t want that to be your fate, Fallon.”

I blinked rapidly at his words—at his confession. Wetting my lips, I asked, “You think I would fuck you over?”

He threw me a caustic look. “Everyone eventually fucks me over.”

“If that’s true, then why the hell do you want me here, in your bedroom, in your bed.”

“Because.”

He said it like that was all the explanation I needed. “Because?”

He ran a hand through his hair and glowered at me. “I need you beside me. I need to know you’re safe, and the only way I can do that is by having you here in the room with me.”

I didn’t say anything in reply. There was nothing I could say. He had laid his fears out to me, and I had to accept them. Were they rational? Absolutely not, but if staying close to him helped ease his fears, I could do that.

I slid from the bed. “Okay.”

He arched a brow as he watched me pull the thick quilt back and settle onto the mattress. I looked at him standing there.

“Are you getting in?”

Orin grunted, then came a little closer. He had on a pair of sweats that were hanging deliciously low on his hips, and as he came up beside the bed, I wanted to run my tongue down the deep V that was carved into his hip.

When he seemed to stall at that point, I patted the mattress beside me. When he still didn’t move, I lay down and rolled over onto my side, giving him my back. The man was like a skittish animal that couldn’t seem to trust that I wasn’t going to hurt him.

Eventually, the bed dipped, and the scent of cedar wrapped around me. I sighed deeply, so content to be close to him again. The warmth of his body was an assault down my spine, covering me, and wrapping me up. I let my eyes drift shut, let my breathing even out, but they opened once more when I felt Orin’s arm snake around my waist and pull me back against his chest.

We were touching from shoulder to thigh, my ass pulled in close to his pelvis, his chest pressing against my shoulder blades. I thought that might be the extent of his touching until he dropped his head into my hair and inhaled deeply.

The sound he made lit me on fire—part moan, part groan, part sigh of relief. His impressive length started to press against my ass. I wriggled, unable to help it. Orin’s fingers tightened.

“Stop that. Things are already hard. You’re making them harder by rubbing your gorgeous arse against me like that.”

I bit my lip. “Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

But it did happen again, and I wasn’t even ashamed of myself. The feel of his body wrapped around me made me light up inside. I yelped, suddenly, when he swatted my ass, sending fire and lust streaking through me.

His fingers dug into my hip. “Stop. Moving.”

“I can’t help it. There’s something hard and insistent prodding me.”

“I’ll give you hard and insistent,” he muttered under his breath.

He pulled me in even tighter to his hips, and I knew he wanted to take more from me, but he was too afraid to ask for it, so I had to be the instigator.

“If you want to fuck me, you can,” I said.

He growled. “If I wanted to fuck you, I wouldn’t be asking you first. Those little sleep shorts you insist on wearing would be on the ground already, and my dick would be so far inside you, you’d feel me there for weeks after.”

A stupid needy whimper left me, earning me a husky chuckle.

“You like the sound of that, Filly?” he asked, his breath brushing over the bare skin on my neck. “You want me to impale your cunt? Fuck you so hard your pussy would be begging only for me from now on?”

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