Page 576 of Shadowblood Souls
Dominic lets out a soft chuckle and gets to his feet. As he walks over to Riva, he unfurls his tentacles from their usual coiled position against his back.
He reaches out one tentacle and wraps it around Riva’s forearm before giving a little tug toward the bed.
She glowers at him next. “Ganging up on me now?”
The corner of his mouth quirks upward. “Only because you need it.”
“You definitely need it,” Griffin pitches in from where he’s swiveled around on the bed. “If you stay that tense all afternoon, you’ll be worn out before we even get started on the important stuff.”
Riva releases another little growl, but she lets Dominic pull her over to the bed. As she clambers on and settles cross-legged in the middle of the duvet, I climb after her.
I sink down right behind her and rest my hands on her back, just below her shoulders. Carefully, I extend my supernatural touch beneath her skin.
Once, in a vengeful moment it makes me queasy to remember, I used my power to test her muscles and joints for tracking devices in a purposefully painful way. Today I’m aiming for the opposite effect.
I keep the telekinetic pressure as light as a feather, no more than wisping over her muscles to identify which hold the most tension. Then I add it as a faint additional massage while I circle my thumbs against the tightened spots.
If you want to make up for how brutal you were before, Riva said to me once,why don’t you show me how gentle you can be now?And I’ve been following those instructions in every way I can for her, whenever I can, over and over since that first fragment of trust she offered me.
Our woman has been through so much—all the same horrors we experienced under the guardians’ and then Balthazar’s control, and the shit we threw at her when she came back to us on top of that. Any generosity we can give her, any way we can pamper her, she deserves in spades.
As I deepen the massage, Riva hums in a much more approving noise and lets herself lean into my touch. The sound and the whiff of her sweetly sharp scent shoot straight to my groin. Just like that, I’m half hard.
She can probably tell with her own supernatural senses how she’s affecting me, but she doesn’t shift her position. I ignore the clamor of my baser instincts and work my hands down her back through her thin cotton tee.
With a vaguely amused air that reminds me that Griffin is perfectly aware of my internal state too, my brother decides to get in on the action. He slides off Riva’s sneakers, slips her socks off in turn, and then applies his thumbs to the arch of one foot.
Her head tips back with a deeper hum that’s almost a purr. Desire crackles through my nerves, andhalf-hard is a thing of the past.
With a small smile playing on his lips, Dominic sets her other ankle on his thigh and gets to work himself. He lets one of his tentacles caress her calf while he rubs his thumbs into the tendons of her foot.
Riva licks her lips. The vibe in the room is definitely heating up, even if none of us is acting on that awareness yet.
A brief pang of guilt hits me—maybe we should find some way to call Andreas and Zian over. Drey went off to his own room to meditate on the memories he could use to distract the shadowbloods in our ambush tonight, and Zee was going to do some sparring in wolf-man form with a couple of the shadowkind to figure out most effective uses of his increased strength.
But to reach out to them, we’d have to burst the bubble of peace we’ve already formed here. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with a few of us enjoying a somewhat more private interlude with our woman.
I hope to hell that I still get occasions when it’s just me and Riva, as much as I appreciate what the other guys can offer her.
As I reach the small of her back, she arches into my touch. I can’t resist leaning in to brush my lips against the crook of her neck.
Her gasp sends a giddy hitch through my pulse. I add a little teeth before murmuring, “I think we could take care of you even better than this.”
Riva turns her head to seek out my mouth, and that’s all the answer I need. I claim her lips while sliding my hand around and under her shirt.
My fingers stroke upward to the band of her bra. Through her warm skin, her heart thumps a heady rhythm against my palm.
Our shadows thrum in unison. I kiss her harder, pouring all the passion I have into the meeting of our lips.
When I ease back to tug her shirt right off, Griffin scoots over with a sly smile. The second her arms are free, he unclasps her bra.
Riva tugs my brother into a kiss and then reaches to help undress him. I catch her arm before it gets very far.
“Nope,” I say, nudging her down on her back. “You do so much for everyone. Let us do all the work for once. Just lie back and enjoy.”
She gives me a skeptical look, but Griffin is already peeling his own shirt off. As he tosses it aside, Dominic and I follow suit. Can’t leave her alone in her nakedness.
Dom teases both his hands and his tentacles farther up Riva’s legs over her cargo pants. He aims one of his quietly pensive smiles at her, but his hazel eyes shine with eagerness. “Would it be so bad to take for a little while instead of always trying to give?”
