Page 243 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
He gestured back and forth between us. “We will certainly end in disaster! Whatever bond we’ve formed, whatever desires we harbor, they—I—could only do you harm, you brash little minx! Think, would you? I—I—I won’t entertain this impulsive, reckless, foolhardy, shite change of heart of yours to—to wheedle me into sullying my own word! You may have your pretty little red head on arse backwards but—”
Pete ranted in a tangle of scolding and flattery like that for quite a while. I listened without comprehending a single word. Because my heart was pounding too loudly. Because I knew nothing he said would make a difference. Because I knew what I was going to do whenever he shut the hell up.
“I’ll thank you to forget this lunacy of yours! And stop eyeing me up like I’m the only slab of meat in the larder!” He ended with a huff, his blackstrap gaze now invoking fantasies of our bodies entwined. “It’s indecent, Shorty!”
I gave him my best flirty side-eye. “Are you going to kiss me already?”
Pete huffed, exasperated. His jaw grinding, his eyes sizzling, he fixed me with a delicious, begrudging smirk. “Aye,” he rumbled, then advanced on me in one breathtaking, ground-shaking step.
I gasped as he grabbed my face with those rough hands of his and slanted his soft, wide mouth over mine in a firm, sensuous deluge of passion. And just like the night an Incubus had almost driven us to savagery, the man did not waste time with small kissing, which was totally a thing (e.g., Briar), but went right in for theoh-my-starskill. I tasted ale on his tongue as he stroked a resounding response out of me that I hadn’t even imagined possible. I’d been aroused before, but this—this wassomethingelse. And damn Pete’s amused grunting, but he knew it too.
As did everyone else in Eden. The raucous cheering made that clear enough.
His own awakening heavy in his breath, Pete withdrew from our kiss. “You can still change your heart back, ken?” His fathomless gaze begged me not to.
Fiending for another hit of his warm mouth, I moaned and reached for his nape. “I won’t. I—”
His crushing lips smothered whatever inane thing I was saying. His whiskers tickled my chin as he squeezed my ass in his huge, hot hands. He hiked me up against his ripples and ridges, my legs dangling from his hips as he wended us through the newly swarming crowds, still showing my lips what was what.
“We’ll see to Sionna tonight,” a voice said, chuckling. Imogen’s, I thought.
There was no mistaking Morus’s grizzly snigger. “You mean the next several nights, don’t you?”
Whistles heralded our departure from the town square. We took our party straight to the warden’s hut.
Myconvictiontoactthe vixen lasted until Pete and I stood on the threshold to his hut. The moment my toes touched ground again, old but untiring anxieties riddled me.
Am I kissing him right? Is that too much tongue? Should I be more vocal? How should I touch him? Should I take the lead again? Just because he knows what he’s doing doesn’t mean he wants to do all the work for the rest of the night. So, suck it up, buttercup, and say something sexy to get the balls rolling!
Then I gulped through our cooling lip lock, knowing whatever I’d say next would be the stupidest shit I’d ever uttered.
I stared up at Pete, mayhem in my face. He caressed my cheeks, smiling with a kind sort of understanding, then clasped my hand and spun me the way he’d done on the “dance floor.” I giggled like I’d gone on a swift dip down a rolling hill.
My goodness, heisgood at alleviating jitters, isn’t he?
Pete then hooked my waist and pulled me back against him and his heat. My bangs snarled in his beard.
“Get out of your head,” he murmured deep in his throat against my temple. His hand snaked up my body to take my jaw. My heart sped into a gallop when he tilted my head aside and fastened his greedy mouth to my neck like a famished Vampire.
I shuddered as he devoured me. Goddess, his tongue had so many good uses.
“Hm,” he grunted when I’d grown content to sport his hickeys. Now I got why people let them happen. “Not there?”
Huh? Yes, please, there!
He began to nibble up the curve of my jaw—also rather nice.
“Hm,” he grunted again, then moved his mouth, husky breaths and all, to my ear.
He might as well have tazed me. Electric lust cabled through me, hijacking my every nerve. Gooseflesh itself, I bowed back into Pete’s solidity and cried out, “Eeeeee,” when my quivering legs gave out on me.
Pete scooped me up. “There it is,” he murmured against that ear as I bucked in his capable arms. “Thought that was it.”
“Oh!Oh,my Goddess!” I shuddered, my neck arcing. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to have a heart attack!”
“Oh, Shorty, I can make your heart skip faster than that,” he rumbled against my arch, liquefying me. “You like it, don’t you?”
“Yes!” I gasped in accusation.
