Page 530 of Shadowblood Souls
I roll the question around on my tongue before allowing myself to speak. “Could I sleep here tonight?”
Zian stiffens, but the flash of emotion that crosses his face is more elation than anything else. The pheromones of desire lace the air. “You—you’d really want to? I might still react badly, especially when I’m not really conscious…”
I squeeze his hand in mine. “I’m not worried. I can get out of the way if you lash out, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. You don’t have any bad associations withbeds, right?”
A hopeful smile curls the corner of his lips. “No, I don’t.” As he holds my gaze, a deeper smolder comes into his eyes, the scent of his eagerness thickening. “Did you only want tosleep?”
When he says it like that, with a soft growl of hunger in his voice, my whole body wakes up with my own desire. A quiver of anticipation shoots through my nerves.
I smile back at him. “I can think of lots of other things we can do in bed that I’m sure I’d enjoy.”
With a rough noise in his throat, Zian cups my jaw and lifts my face to meet his kiss.
The press of his mouth against mine isn’t as tentative as our first explorations with intimacy. He’s still gentle, but his lips coax mine apart with a sear of his breath. As he deepens the kiss, he tugs me even closer.
It’s a greater thrill than I can express to be able to loop my arms around his neck and give myself over to the moment, knowing he’s shaken off the pain of the past enough that he welcomes my touch.
Without warning, Zian slips his arm down my side and hefts me into the air like I weigh nothing at all. His mouth still melded with mine, he walks me over to the bed and lays me out on the covers.
As he looms over me, he eases back from the kiss. His lips brand my cheek, my neck.
“There are so many things I’ve imagined doing with you. So many things I want to try.”
I beam up at him, tracing the ridges of his impressive chest through the thin fabric of his tee. “We can do all of them—tonight or later. I’m looking forward to everything.”
He pauses and catches my gaze. “Did you like everything we did last time? Everything that happened… even at the end?”
A flush deepens the ruddiness of his peachy-brown cheeks. I think I know what he’s talking about—the sudden, intense fullness that stretched my pussy right as he came.
It was one of the headiest sensations I’ve ever experienced. I grin up at him. “Absolutely.”
His eyes gleam with relief and renewed hunger. “I—you still have the birth control implant the guardians put in, right?”
I break into a laugh. “I’d be having a lot less fun with all of you if I didn’t.”
Zian grins back at me and skims his fingers to the hem of my shirt so he can tug it upward. I raise my arms to let him peel it off, but once he’s flung it aside, he hesitates again and simply gazes down at my partly bared body.
I caress his face, so much love filling my chest that it condenses into the sweetest of aches. “You don’t have to hold back with me. You know that, right? I might be a shrimp, but this body is just as strong as yours.”
A hint of amusement sparks in Zee’s dark gaze. “The strongest of all of us.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But it could be interesting to see just how well-matched we are.” My grin comes back. “You were always my favorite sparring partner.”
Zian sputters a laugh that has another growl mixed in and bows his head to claim my mouth.
Between kisses, I yank off his shirt too. When I arch up so he can unclasp my bra, he steals the opportunity to bring his mouth to my breasts. We might not have had much chance to practice this particular act yet, but the lap of his eager tongue and the scrape of his teeth have me gasping in an instant.
My fingers clutch at his smooth hair. Zian groans and sucks my other nipple into his mouth.
My hand traces down his chest toward the bulge behind his jeans. I can’t quite reach it, but when I lift my knee to stroke against it, my wolfish lover mumbles a heated curse against my skin.
“I don’t want to wait,” he rasps, groping for the fly of my cargo pants. “We took it so slow before. Now I just need to be inside you.”
At the graze of his fingertips over my dampened panties, a pulse of pleasure radiates from my core. I whimper my agreement.
Zee pulls my pants off, and I wriggle out of my panties. He lowers his head over my cunt with a sound that’s almost a snarl. “But first…”
He swipes his tongue over my slit. Bliss rushes up from my clit, and a cry quavers from my lips.
