Hunting Human - Amanda E. Alvarez [75]
He was comfort. Pure and simple. He slid between the sheets next to her and drew her to him, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He stroked his fingers through her hair, a quiet presence beside her. Warming her. Supporting her. Comforting her. Solid heat, where before there’d been nothing but the cool tile of her bathroom to soothe her through the first hours of the morning.
She drew her fingers down his chest and sought his nipple with her lips. He grunted. His fingers coiled in her hair that spilled down her back.
“Beth,” he growled. “I’m not made of restraint.”
She didn’t have to feel him to know he was heavy and ready for her. A distant part of her acknowledged that her actions were selfish, but her yearning overrode her reason and she closed teeth around the nub beneath her tongue, her body warming against the groan that rumbled through his ribs. She knew he wanted her, could feel it in the way he held absolutely still beneath her. The slightest shift of her leg against him, the smallest tilt of her chin toward his mouth and he’d give her what she wanted. Comfort and a knowledgeable embrace she’d never dreamed she’d find.
That more than anything drove her forward.
He should roll her to her side, pull her against him, and coax her into sleep. He knew it. The feeling resonated within him, warring with the stark desire to roll the other direction and drape his body over hers.
The moment of indecision cost him. She tilted her head and reached for his mouth, pressing her lips to his. He knew her emotions were high and the situation wrong but he couldn’t control himself against the press of her lips and the swell of her breasts as they brushed against him as she slid closer.
He was sunk.
He rolled to meet her, working his lips over hers, coaxing soft sighs from her mouth as he fell into the pace she set. Fingers stroked along planes of muscle, kneading where they found knots, soothing away tension and enticing a languid desire to settle rich and heavy in every limb.
It took every ounce of his control to give instead of take. To follow instead of lead. He’d never submitted in such a way before, never responded solely to the demands and desires of another. He’d never felt such slowly coiling pleasure either.
The few seconds he took to pull away and secure a condom were torture. Every ounce of him cried out for her and quivered with the anticipated return. She rewarded him with a warm welcome that embraced him as he stroked the center of her.
They kept the pace slow and the movements long, their breath commingling in the scant space between them when they grew too distracted to maintain a kiss. It was intimate. Excruciating.
Powerful.
She clenched, hot and tight around him, pulling his release from the very depth of him. Like the rest of their lovemaking, it lasted an eternity and passed in a heartbeat, stamping his memory forever.
My God.
She lay sprawled across him, quiet and limp, her breath coming in quick bursts. He pulled the sheet they’d kicked off up to her shoulder and let one hand trail down to knead the rise of her butt.
He drifted to sleep beneath the blanket of her body, his heart swelling with something he didn’t want to name.
***
The gentle trail of fingers woke her. Up her spine, down her arm, around her hip.
Repeat.
The rhythm of it kept her floating between sleep and wakefulness. She just drifted. The fingers pulled her hair away from her shoulders so they could dance over a shoulder, skirt a collarbone and…dart back up toward her neck to gently stroke tiny marks, almost too faint to see, over and over again.
“I can’t believe I never noticed these,” Braden mumbled as his fingers traced the faded scars.
Reality descended with stunning speed, slamming her awake. “They faded quickly.” She jerked her shoulder away, pulled the sheet to her