Page 12 of Mated to the Pride

“Good! That’s what I like to hear.”

We shared a smile. I had to duck my head under the pretense of focusing on the bacon; I could feel my heart lifting in my chest.

“I’m gonna grab a shower while I still can,” he said eventually. I could still hear the smile in his voice. “Then, uh… that bacon smellsreallygood.”

“It’s all yours,” I promised. “You get yourself clean. I’ll be ready to fill you up when you get back.”

The sound of the shower switching on had my heart racing. I was already flushed in the warmth of the kitchen, but now I was heating up in an entirely different way. An image of him standing under the stream of water, his pale, bare skin slippery with soap, hung around vivid and relentless in my head. I swallowed, giving up on shutting it out. Maybe if I embraced the thought, it would go away of its own accord.

I could hear blood rushing in my ears. This intensity of feeling was so unlike me that I was almost concerned. The last time I’d fallen so head over heels for anybody, I’d been a teenager. Now here I was feeling pulled towards Preston like I’d been drugged — only it didn’t feel like a bad thing. I wasn’t unwilling. Quite the opposite. It felt like I was coaxing myself into a state of desperate hunger.

How long had I been single? What had it done to me?

And when had the shower stopped running?

I leaned against the counter with both hands, blinking down at the wooden surface. My heart was pounding hard enough that I could see the shifting fabric of my shirt fluttering. In a minute or two he’d be coming back into the room, and I needed to get a hold on myself.

“Jess…?”

Too late. I turned to face him, trying to pull on a mask of normalcy. If it worked, I’d be surprised. I could feel my eyes raking over his handsome face, reading the concern on his features. Watching a bead of water drip from his pushed-back hair over the angular lines of his face. Seeing the way the light caught his premature silver streak.

Was I sick, I wondered? Was this how he had felt, days ago? I didn’t feel dizzy, but I didn’t feel like myself either. As he crossed the room towards me, eyes darkening as the concern left and something else, much deeper and more confident, replaced it.

“I just… I had this idea that you needed me,” he said, voice low and sincere. “I can’t explain it. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.”

It was like he was explaining it to himself as much as to me. Maybe he felt the same strange pull that I did. Maybe it had just beenwaytoo long since I’d gotten laid.

He swallowed, and I watched the bob of his throat as he took another few prowling steps closer to me — then his tongue, darting out to wet his lips. Back against the counter, I tilted back my neck to look up at him as he approached. He was so tall. Even as he reached me and I smoothed my hands up over his arms, I had to stand on my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to push you. But there’s just… something about you.”

“You’re not pushing me.”

“No?” he said. His eyes were so careful and serious. “You want it?”

“I want it. Want you. Yes.”

A wave of relief hit both of us at once. He leaned down to close the gap between us, pressing his lips down against mine. I wasn’t sure how things had escalated so quickly, but now that they had I had no complaints. No regrets. I tangled my hands into the still-damp hair on the back of his head, moaning quietly against his lips at the pressure of his hips against mine. Already, I could feel how rock-hard he was against me; his hands scored a fire-hot line over the shape of my hips, down towards my thighs.

“You’re so beautiful.”

I groaned, head tipping back as his hands caressed back up my side. “Don’t.”

“You are,” he insisted, leaning down to press a line of not-so-gentle kisses on my neck. “Is it wrong to tell you I can’t stop thinking about you? All the time, ever since we got here. Right from the start.”

I felt like I was falling, even pinned between his firm body and the wooden curve of the counter at my back. My heartbeat was picking up by the seconds. “No,” I said, tipping my head back for his access. “It isn’t wrong. I — yeah. Me too…”

It wasn’t a lie. I just thought it best not to tell him that I’d felt similar things for all the North boys, in different ways. At different times.

I closed my eyes, feeling him take my weight.

“Shall I take you somewhere else?”

“God. Yes.”

My legs fastened tight around him. I could feel his heart pounding against mine, our chests pressed close together as he lifted me through the kitchen and to the doorway of the room he shared with Hale. As he laid me down on the bed and stepped back to pull off his shirt, I took one moment to drink in how surreal this was — as though a naughty dream had come to life.

Judging by the bulge in his briefs as he tugged his jeans down, this would be a very naughty dream indeed.

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