Then love bloomed, and a passion that bordered on feral, instinctive desire. Control—his loss of it, that was what she needed. For his need for her to overrule everything else.
They tumbled to the couch, her mouth under his, open and hot. He couldn’t think, couldn’t stop himself from turning her over, across the arm of the couch with her knees digging into the cushions.
He couldn’t stop himself—but she could. If it was too much, too far, she could stop him.
She didn’t. Instead she moaned, and the wild emotions vanished as her head slammed back against his shoulder. “Just like this,” she said, the words breathless. “God, just like this.”
He accidentally tore her shirt, but the fear he expected didn’t come. Her shields were intact, and he wasn’t beyond control, dangerous, just…
“I need you,” he mumbled against the smooth, newly bared skin of her back.
“Good.” She squirmed, yanking the tattered fabric over her head, every movement grinding the curve of her ass against his hips. “Don’t let me hold back. Don’t let me hide from you.”
They’d always locked themselves away like that, and it had very nearly killed them. “No hiding.” He licked her back and pushed at her pants.
They were loose—stretchy, like yoga pants—and slid down easily enough. Kat whimpered, one hand groping for the back of the couch, and dropped her head forward. “I had this fantasy about a hundred times.”
“Only a hundred?”
“Sometimes we were in a bed. Or over the table.” She shivered. “Sometimes you made me come. Just with your fingers or your mouth, because you wanted me to beg before you’d take me. But sometimes it was just this, and then you were inside me…”
So many possibilities, and it would take years to explore every one of them. “I can do that.”
“Make me come?” Almost a question, but then she laughed, low and throaty. “I know you can. Make me come, Andrew. Please, please, I don’t care if it’s fast or hard, I just want to feel you—” His hands shook as he rolled on a condom and gripped her hips. She wiggled impatiently, and he distracted her by dropping tiny bites across her shoulder blades and the back of her neck as he worked into her slick heat.
She was panting by the time he made it halfway in and moaning before he thrust home. Her fingernails scratched the upholstery of the couch as her body clenched around him, already primed for release. Her shaky plea confirmed it, made him grit his teeth and press his forehead to her bare skin. “So close, please…touch me, please touch me.”
Andrew slipped one hand around her until his fingers found her clit. “Kat.”
“Oh—” Just a sound, a gasp, and she flew apart, her release as fast and easy as the wildest of her empathy-fueled orgasms. But there was no feedback this time, no projection, just Kat coming hard around him.
He thrust once and then again, clenching his teeth against the need to follow her. But her orgasm went on and on, dragging him along, and driving her higher proved an impossibility. Pleasure tightened along with the rhythmic clasp of her body, and he shouted her name as he gave in to it, to the intense throb that started at the base of his spine and cascaded through him.
Kat slumped forward over the arm of the couch, her head down and her hair brushing the floor.
Underneath him, her body was lax. “Holy shit.”
He couldn’t speak, so he traced his lips over the dark lines of the tribal tattoo that wound its way from her hairline down between her shoulder blades. “Mmm.”
Goose bumps dotted her arms. “It doesn’t bother you, does it? The tattoo?”
“Bother me?”
“The mark.” She tilted her head, baring the side of her throat where he’d bitten her the first time. “I marked myself.”
He soothed the spot with his tongue. “I’m not sure it works that way, Kat.”
“Oh, good.” The words slurred together. “Not that I’d mind. If you wanted to bite the back of my neck.”
“Uh-huh.” Andrew laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t gnaw your tattoo off.”
A giggle escaped her. “I think the blood is rushing to my head.”
He pulled away carefully and eased her upright. “Better?”
“No.” She slumped back against his chest and turned until her lips brushed his throat. “Giddy.”
Her skin was hot against his, her heart pounding. “Not just from the head rush, I hope.”
She bit him with a playful growl. “Not even a little.”
Just to be sure, he pulled back and met her gaze. “You’re not still mad, are you?”
A tiny furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “No,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I’m not mad.
This time. If you do it again…”
“I won’t. Next time—” A single deep breath eased some of the tightness in his chest. “Next time, I promise I’ll talk to you.”
“And I get to pick my own damn bodyguards.”
Maybe she didn’t like hanging out with Miguel anymore—or maybe Anna was getting under her skin.
“Was there a problem tonight?”
“No. But there’s a difference between spending time with friends and my friends having to spend time with me because I can’t be left alone.” She tilted her head. “Do you understand? If this is real, and necessary…it can’t just be people we know. I don’t want to be a personal obligation. I want to be a professional job.”
“Okay.” It would entail searches and interviews, but surely Jackson knew people who did that sort of thing. “For what it’s worth, it sort of is Anna’s job. Not with you, obviously, but in general. Maybe we could hire her for the time being, if it’s not too weird.”
“Anna’s okay. And I can hang out with you and Julio.” She wrinkled her nose. “And Miguel, if he’s a suitable deterrent to the cranky shapeshifters of the world. The Mendoza name, I guess?”
“That’s part of it.” She probably wouldn’t believe the rumors circulating about him, the whispers that the ritual magic that had awakened his wolf had left him half-feral and dangerous as hell.
“It’s fine, until we can find someone permanent. I just don’t want my friends stuck babysitting me forever.” Her eyes grew serious. “I’m going to put up with it. Because if someone’s around…maybe that’s deterrent enough, and no one will get hurt.”
There it was, the very real worry that she would have to use her abilities to hurt, to wound. “Better to head off trouble before it starts,” he agreed.
Kat eased away and started straightening her clothing. “Next time I poke you into fulfilling my dark fantasies, I’m going to strip first. You ripped my snarky T-shirt.”
“Just go ahead and tie me to a chair.” Intuition and instinct drove the words. He could easily break any bonds, but that would be part of the draw for Kat. She would like that, having his strength barely leashed and him not quite at her mercy.
Her sudden thoughtful expression proved him right. Abandoning the shirt, she swung a leg over his thighs, straddling his lap as she braced both hands on his shoulders. She smiled, as wicked as her eyes were curious. “Tie you to a chair, huh?”
“If I let you.” The words were a bluff. He’d let her because he didn’t have it in him to deny her anything she wanted, and he’d love it—because it was her.
Chapter Sixteen
Julio’s loft wasn’t so different from Andrew’s, with the glaring exception that Julio had an excuse for the place to be completely undecorated. Unlike Andrew, Julio had only moved to the warehouse recently, after Alec had funded the renovations and Andrew had finished the plans for them.