Biting her would send them both spinning, but he had to. He had to. He closed his teeth on the delicate, pale skin at the base of her throat.
She cried out. Not just with physical enjoyment, though that thrummed through him strong enough to shiver pleasure up his spine. In that moment, underneath sensation, he caught a hint of her, open and vulnerable and so relieved to be wanted.
So relieved to be his.
It tripped instincts he’d fought so hard to wrestle under control. Possessive, protective ones that demanded he close his arms around her, keep her safe from everything, including herself. “Kat. ”
She came with a gasp, all of her frozen for one breathless moment when she stretched taut beneath him.
Then her empathy slammed into him, bringing with it the blinding echoes of her release.
It was easier this time to lock it down, to ride the waves of her pleasure without letting them sweep him away. He distracted himself by stroking her hair, pressing his mouth to her cheek, her ear.
“Beautiful.”
“Andrew…” Just a whisper, husky and low. “I think I’m floating.”
Purely masculine satisfaction offset his own physical tension. “Good. That’s how it should be.”
“But you’re not—” She blushed. “Was it not so bad this time?”
When she looked at him like that, nervous and shy, it was as if the last year never happened. The trauma and hurt feelings melted away, leaving it easy to smile. “It was good.”
The sweet innocence vanished as she wet her lips and rubbed her foot against the back of his calf. “Are you going to take care of things on your own, then?”
She wanted him to, and she wanted to watch. Arousal spiked again, his blood roaring in his ears.
“You’d like that, huh?”
“Maybe.” Her toes crept higher, and she was stroking his arm now too, fingers drawing tiny circles on his skin. “Maybe if we’ve both taken the edge off, we can work our way back around to the kissing. It’s backwards…”
“No such thing.” He rolled to his back, bringing her on top of him. “You want me to come?”
The uneven tips of her hair tickled his cheek as she nuzzled her nose against his ear. “Yes.”
Control. She needed it, and she needed him to have it—up to a point. He raised his arms and folded them under his head. “Make me.”
Kat lifted her body slowly and ended up straddling Andrew’s thighs. Her perch afforded her the perfect view of his chest and arms. All jokes about training montages aside, he was doing something to look like he’d been chiseled out of the side of a mountain.
Ten months of private lessons with Zola might have slimmed some of the extra padding off her hips, but Kat was still soft. Soft all over, but Andrew didn’t seem to mind, and she couldn’t feel self-conscious with him watching her like the slightest move could strip away what was left of his self-control.
He didn’t touch her, but he spoke. “You’re gorgeous.”
God, she loved his voice. She loved his eyes, green and a little gray, and the way his eyebrows rose when he was deadpanning to make her laugh. Of all the things she’d missed without him in her life, the biggest had been laughter.
The way her heart fluttered when he smiled might be a close second. She dropped her hands to his chest and stroked down, tracing the well-defined ridges of his abdomen. “You’re just stupidly hot.”
He grinned. “Stupidly? Not ridiculously?”
“Stupidly.” She slid her fingers lower, until her fingertips found the edge of his jeans. “Ridiculously.”
The cool metal of the button made her shiver. “Absurdly. Unbelievably.”
He arched under her, and his voice went husky. “Any more adverbs you want to add?”
“I wasn’t very good at English classes…” Her heart skipped a beat as she pressed her hand to his jean-clad erection.
Andrew dropped his head back with a groan. “Harder.”
More command than request, and part of her liked it. Not a small part, either. Disobeying felt like an illicit thrill, but she didn’t want to grope him through his jeans. Instead she tugged open the button and eased the zipper down. “Can I touch you?”
“Are you going to ask, or are you going to take?”
Her hands shook. She took a breath, and smelled sweat and his aftershave. “I think I like asking. I like the way your voice sounds when you tell me what you want.”
His eyes flashed, and he tensed beneath her. “Touch me. Open my pants and put your hands on my cock.”
Oh, he liked it as much as she did. It thrilled through her, an echo of his instinctive pleasure, sharper when she reached for the waistband on his boxers. “Lift your hips?”
He did it easily, bearing her weight as well as his. Shapeshifter strength, and her hands were unsteady as she hooked her fingers under the edge of the fabric.
Unsteady didn’t begin to cover how she felt while she eased his boxers over his cock. From ten feet away, she was sure he’d look proportional. Up close and personal…
Kat swallowed hard and braced herself for the jolt as she curled her fingers around the undeniably impressive length of his erection. He hissed in a breath and wrapped his hand around hers, pressing her fingers more firmly against his hard flesh.
If the sight hadn’t scrambled her circuits, the echo would have. Her eyelids drooped, and she struggled to keep her gaze focused on his large hand enclosing hers, on the sound he made as she slid her fingers slowly toward the crown.
Hot skin, soft over steel, and she was going to come again without anyone touching her. Kat tore her attention from their hands and sought his eyes instead. “How do I make you come?”
He laughed, a strangled, hoarse noise. “Keep breathing?”
“Might be a problem, actually…” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the pulses of pleasure coming from him, on finding the rhythm that twisted him up and the pressure that made him groan.
His arms dropped, but he only clutched at the bedspread as he thrust into her grip. “Fuck, Kat.”
Empathy wasn’t all bad. Not if she could use it to put that look on his face—jaw clenched, fingers gripping the comforter as if it was all that kept him from grabbing at her. So close. They were both balanced on the edge, an edge sharp enough to slice her open.
It might, if she didn’t let it go soon. “Come on, Andrew. Please. Come and take me with you.”
He did grab her then, reached up and dragged her down to his chest as the first pulsing wave of ecstasy shuddered through the room. He kissed her, open-mouthed and needy, groaning her name as his teeth scraped her lip.
Kat kissed him as his orgasm washed over her. He’d trapped her at an awkward angle, with one of her arms pinned between them, but she couldn’t bring herself to relinquish his mouth long enough to find a comfortable position. Everything was hot and desperate and now, and it didn’t matter that he’d come on her stomach and they couldn’t seem to get out of their clothes.
Her back hit the bed, and Andrew loomed over her, his eyes bright with lust. “You don’t understand how sexy that is, do you?”
She told him the truth, and it came out a breathless gasp. “No.”
“Not the empathy or the orgasms,” he rumbled. “You.”
No. Miguel had made her feel attractive. He’d given her anything she wanted from the start, though he’d known her heart was tangled up in someone else. But even at their best, when she’d been caught up in the novelty of sex and pleasure, he’d never looked at her like this.