“I can clean myself.”
“Of course you can. I just want an excuse to touch you again.”
She huffed. “Fine. Don’t lie to me, though.”
“What have I ever lied to you about?” I stepped closer and eased her to her feet. Her bare body brushed mine, and I didn’t care about the blood and dirt. I just wanted her against me.
“Wanting to touch me.”
My forehead creased. “What?”
“I know you only call me Gorgeous as a joke. I’m just not in the mood to deal with it right now, so… don’t.”
The crease deepened. “What are you talking about?”
“You said you were only doing it to tease me. In the car. When we were leaving Stray. And It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I wouldneverhave said that.”
She scoffed. “I told you that you couldn’t use the nickname anymore after we screwed. You told me that you weren’t hitting on me. That you were just joking around.”
Okay, maybe I would’ve said that. But she had obviously taken it the wrong way.
“Not flirting with you isn’t the same as not being attracted to you. And I havealwaysbeen attracted to you. The first time I called you Gorgeous, I did it as a joke to distract you from my hard-on, when you were inking me. Remember?”
“What? No.”
“Yes. You took off your flannel and were working on my skin in nothing but a pair of leggings and a flimsy white tank top. You weren’t wearing a bra under it. I could see your nipples through the fabric. Your feet were bare. Your hand was on my arm. It was the hardest I’d been in years.”
Her cheeks reddened. “Don’t mess with me.”
I dragged her good hand down to my boxer-briefs, pressing it to my erection. “Does this feel like messing with you?”
She swallowed roughly. Her gaze was on my shoulder. The one with ink on it. “I remember that day. You took a break in your car to make a call.”
I lowered my lips to her ear. “There was no call. I had to look at pictures of my brothers to try to relax my cock. It was that or jerking off, and I didn’t think you or Hunter would approve.”
She shivered, tilting her head a little until it rested against my chest. Her hand was still on my cock, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to remove it. “You were seriously attracted to me?”
“Any man with eyes would be attracted to you, Gorgeous. Between your ass, your eyes, and your ink, they’d be hard-pressed to look away.”
“Hunter never wanted me,” she said. “It sort of made me… insecure. When I thought you didn’t want me too…” she trailed off, tightening her hand around my erection.
I forced myself to breathe evenly and think unsexy thoughts.
Cows.
Sheep.
Goats.
Llamas.
I didn’t know why animals were the route I went, but they were.
“Physically, Hunter wanted you as badly as his wolf did. He just forced himself not to act on it.”
“Hedefinitelywasn’t attracted to me.”