Page 67 of Unearthed Dreams
I blinked, hand stilling on the top of her head.You deserve good things.
Billy’s words echoed in my head as I processed Charlie’s, but she took my silence the wrong way.
“It’s okay. I don’t need the words. Just show me.”
God, I wanted to tell her how much I loved her. How she’d taken every bruised and battered piece of my soul and mended it. How she made everything better by simply existing. But would it even be enough, in the long run?
I couldn’t force the words past my lips.
So I showed her instead.
Chapter Twenty-Four
CHARLIE
There were no nerves,no hesitation. Kai was more worthy of this gift than anyone I’d ever known, and someday, I’d make him see that.
The bed frame creaked beneath our weight as Kai’s lips crashed against mine, and I opened for him on instinct. Sometime over the last few months, those instincts had been honed to near perfection. Kai had taught me more about my own body in weeks than I’d learned on my own in all these years living in it.
And that’s saying nothing about what he’d taught me abouthisbody.
Kai didn’t have the romance novel hero body—the chiseled eight pack and bulging biceps—but he was tall and lean, broad shoulders and strong enough to maneuver my body for his pleasure—and mine—with both precision and care.
I couldn’t believe my first time would be with this gorgeous, perfect man. While I’d never intended tosave myself, perhaps I lucked out.
Kai’s tongue tangled with mine, teasing and tasting. He could do magnificent things with that tongue. Magnificent, delicious things that made my legs shake and my back bow.
I tugged against the stands of his hair, breaking our kiss. “More, Kai. Please.”
“Charlie,” he growled against my neck, the vibration sending tiny shivers down my spine. This was nothing like the careful kisses I’d written in my manuscript. Those scenes seemed laughably tame compared to the reality of Kai’s hands sliding along my skin, mapping my curves like he was memorizing every inch. No carefully crafted prose could capture the raw desperation in his touch, the way my body responded without my brain’s permission.
I arched into his touch, my body knowing things my mind hadn’t caught up to yet. His teeth grazed my collarbone, and I gasped, fingers tightening in his hair. The sound that escaped me was nothing like the delicate sighs my heroine made when her immortal commander touched her. This was raw, desperate—embarrassingly real.
“God, the sounds you make,” Kai murmured against my skin. His hands slid lower, gripping my hips. “Better than any fantasy you’ve written, pretty girl.”
I smiled, knowing how I affected him. I’d learned to read his body, cataloging every reaction like research for my next book. The way his breathing hitched when I tugged his hair. How his muscles tensed when I whispered his name. The slight tremor in his hands when he was fighting for control. Each detail filed away in my writer’s brain, though no words could ever do this moment any justice.
He pressed his hips against mine, pinning me to the bed andletting me feel just how hard he was for me. I wrapped my legs around his waist. My shorts bunched up into the crease of my thighs as his hands... oh god, his hands...
“Tell me what you want,” he said, voice rough. Always asking, always making sure.
“You,” I croaked. “Just you. All of you.”
He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, and there it was—that flash of hesitation again, that moment where he remembered all the reasons we shouldn’t. I was so tired of that look.
“Kai.” I cupped his face, forcing him to hold my gaze. “I swear to god, if you don’t fuck me right now, I will scream. And not the delicate, romance-novel kind of scream.”
His hazel eyes flared. “Oh, you’re gonna fucking scream, pretty girl.”
This is really happening. Finally happening.
When his hands slid under my shirt, I arched into his touch, craving more skin contact. His calloused fingertips left trails of fire in their wake, mapping paths across my ribs, higher and higher until?—
“Christ, Charlie,” he groaned against my neck. “You’re not wearing a bra.”
“Didn’t see the point.” I tried for casualness, but my voice shook. “Was just going to take it off anyway.”
His chest rumbled with approval as he tugged my shirt over my head. The cool air hit my bare skin, making my nipples pebble and my entire being shiver—or maybe it was the way Kai was looking at me, like he wanted to devour every inch.
