Page 125 of Verses

“You got some right there,” he said, sucking on my upper lip with his. Immediately, my pussy began to tingle, remembering how good he was with his mouth.

When he stopped kissing me, I found my breath. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

His devilish grin made every nerve on my body stand at attention. “The cocoa or the kiss?”

I laughed. “Maybe both!”

“I’ve been around a while. I’ve learned a few things.” Winking, he started putting away hissecret ingredients. “Ready to go curl up in front of the fire?”

“Yep.” I picked up my hot cocoa again and followed him through the dining room into the living room. Although the room had a couch, it faced the television, diagonal to the fireplace. At least there was a coffee table where we could set our cocoa.

But he set his mug on the raised hearth and said, “Be right back.”

When he disappeared into the hallway, I turned to the fire and watched the flames consume the logs inside. As I moved closer, I could feel the soft warmth radiating outward. Wolf returned several seconds later with a blanket.

“You okay sitting on the floor?”

“Yeah.” After I moved out of the way, he spread the blanket out in front of the fireplace. “Ladies first.”

Smiling, I placed my mug on the hearth next to his before sitting down and then waited for him to join me. The heat from the fire enveloped me like a hug, and I decided to take off my shoes.

Wolf said, “Good idea.”

As he unlaced his boots, I said, “I really wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“Foreverything. For taking me to my family’s clusterfuck of a holiday dinner, for saying all those nice things to me. I can’t even tell you what a good friend you’ve been to me.”

Looking up from his boots, he said, “You’ve been a good friend to me too.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’ve said it before…it’s not like I have a lot of friends. My friends used to all be in the MC but they’re gone, and Marv is about the only other guy I see on a regular basis aside from you guys. And if you think he’s my friend—” I started laughing as he pulled off one of his boots. “So I needed your friendship as much as you needed mine.” After he pulled off his other boot, he placed them both on the side of the hearth and looked me straight in the eyes. “And I am also grateful for your friendship.”

As I gazed into his mesmerizing eyes, impulse took over. Leaning toward him, I kissed him lightly on the lips.

“Careful, bird. If you do that enough, I won’t let you go home tonight.”

“Deal.”

With a chuckle, he took his finger and ran it along my neck to pull my hair back behind my shoulders, but he didn’t say anything, so I spoke. “Can I tell you what a turn on it is to have your…boyfriend sing your praises to her dysfunctional family?”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

Cupping my cheek, he brought his face close to mine and kissed me—gently, at first, but as we continued, it was clear that we’d be doing far more than that. My body seemed to remember just from his kiss how he could make me feel from head to toe, and I was primed and ready.

But, just as I was ready to move forward, he asked, “Are you too warm here beside the fire?”

“No. It’s perfect.”

With a sly grin, he said, “Then maybe we need to take your shirt off…just to make sure you’re not too hot.”

I smiled back. “Yeah, of course.” As I began pulling my shirt over my head, he touched the hollow of my neck with his lips. Once I got the shirt over my head, I tossed it to the ground. “We probably need to removeyourshirt for the same reason.” But already it was hard to concentrate with his hands on my bare back and his lips on my flesh.

“You think so?”

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