Hell, she couldn’t breathe.
It made her words come out husky and halting. “Did it—I tried to stop it—”
“Open your eyes, Kat,” he rasped. “Look at me.”
So much color.
She had to squint until the first flare faded into a brilliant aura of greens and blues and silvers and golds. He glowed when he looked at her, and it wasn’t the usual reds of lust and love, because what he felt for her wasn’t a clean human emotion.
Andrew was the colors of the wild edged in passion and jagged pieces of pain and need sharp enough to cut, and it stole her breath when she realized it was all real. Not a product of her empathy, not a passing affection magnified a thousandfold by an endless loop.
He loved her, even with the rough edges scratching away at his soul.
His brows drew together in a frown. “You look like you can’t believe I haven’t stomped off yet.”
“It’s…” Words failed her, as she watched the colors tremble in the air between them. “You’re like the aurora borealis. On acid. I could get drunk on you.”
His frown faded into confusion. “The synesthesia again?”
When she touched his cheek, this time, she felt it all. Warm skin. The scratch of his beard. Giddy pleasure at such a simple feeling sent laughter bubbling up. “It’s not a perfect solution, but I thought…I thought without the backlash, and the feedback loop, that you wouldn’t be so out of control. That you could choose.”
“Choose what, you?” He rubbed his face against her hand. “I did. I would. It’s not about me being out of control, not like that.”
“I don’t think you’d usually choose against the wall, in front of Julio.”
“No,” he admitted, “but it’s not the end of the world, either. Julio understands.”
She stroked his cheek again, thrilling at the quiet intimacy in the gesture that stood in such stark contrast to the sheer sexuality of their position. “I’m only good at understanding feelings in a vacuum. When they’re clear and external and not terribly personal. It’s messy, when they’re mine. Or about me. And after everything…it’s so easy to worry that maybe you didn’t want me like that. That I’d…I’d forced you to want me.”
Andrew laughed and shook his head. “That’s what you worry about? That I wouldn’t want you if you weren’t getting your horny feelings all over me?”
Her cheeks warmed, accompanied by the bite of embarrassment. “If you’ve been having horny feelings about me all this time, you’ve been keeping them nice and bottled up. For all I knew, I was just turning you into a deviant with me.”
“That’s bullshit. And completely hilarious.” He glided his thumbs over her heated cheeks and smiled.
“You’re not a deviant. And me wanting you isn’t dependent on the empathic feedback you’re throwing at me. It’s there all the time.”
“Oh, I might be a little deviant.” Turning her head, she caught his thumb between her teeth for a heartbeat before releasing him. “You just don’t know because you haven’t managed to get naked with me yet.”
His voice dropped to a murmur. “It means a lot to you, doesn’t it? Both of us being in control?”
“Maybe not both of us. But one of us. One of us has to be in control.” She nipped at his thumb again.
“Maybe not always the same person…but we’re too dangerous to both just let everything go.”
“Are we?” His lips skimmed her collarbone, and oh God, she felt it this time, felt it like a full-body shock, like touching a doorknob after dragging her feet across her living room carpet. Her head thumped against the wall as she tried to push closer to his mouth, wanting more. Everything.
He danced kisses up her throat and jaw, and his mouth met hers again, this time in a slow exploration that was everything she’d ever imagined in her hazy, girlish daydreams. Intense and careful, and going on and on until her lips felt too sensitive and growing urgency forced tiny whimpers from her as she squirmed closer.
He lifted his head finally, his jaw clenched, his throat working. “Control.” He touched her mouth again and squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re right. One of us has to have it.”
Color flared with the wild intensity of a star going nova, and Kat framed his face and kissed his chin as his love for her danced through the air. “Me. I can have it right now. Put me down, Andrew, and trust me.”
He groaned, but did as she asked. “I trust you.”
Oh, the power. Her hands shook with it as she spread both hands against his chest and urged him backwards. Not so far, just until his shoulders hit the wall he’d been sanding.
Then she smoothed her hands down and hooked them in his belt as she dropped to her knees.
Strong hands gathered her hair, tangled in the locks. “This is what you want to do?”
“Yes.” She eased his belt open, then tugged at the zipper, shivering as the teeth parted. “Next time, you can be in control.”
“Never,” he rasped. “I’ll never be in control with you looking at me like that.”
Her own control was under full-scale assault, but she clung to it by a thread as she eased down his boxers and freed his erection.
With the synesthesia, teasing him was as easy as painting by the numbers. Touch here for need, stroke there for blind lust, mix them together and hear him groan as the air danced in brilliantly colored fractals.
Surely stuffy, proper Callum had never imagined such a use for it. But it was effortless and perfect, and when she smiled up at him and applied her tongue to all of those newly discovered sensitive spots, the way he groaned and tensed made her reevaluate her list of favorite hobbies. Surely this should find a place near the top—watching the colors flare as Andrew came to pieces under her mouth and hands.
She loved it when his fingers tightened, pulling at her hair as he guided her movements, showing her what he liked. Still a dominant wolf, under the skin, and it drove her determination to higher levels. Even on her knees, she could bring him to his.
Maybe she lacked the technical proficiency to go down on him in deep-throating style, but she followed the eddies of his emotions until she found the perfect balance of stroking hands and tongue, unable to tear her gaze from his face as he dropped his head back and whispered her name.
Then his hips began to move, tiny thrusts that took him a bit deeper into her mouth.
He couldn’t stop himself. He was helpless. Putty in her hands.
She loved it.
Andrew started to talk—soft, sweet words interspersed with expletives, dirty pleas that fell just short of being commands. He tensed, moaned, and finally pulled her hair painfully. “Kat, holy fuck.”
For the first time she wished for telepathy. She couldn’t reply, couldn’t whisper that she was dying to see him come. To see ecstasy steal over his face as he came undone under her touch. To speak she’d have to stop, and nothing was worth that.
Instead she applied her mouth with increased fervor, moaning her encouragement as she tried to put all the things she couldn’t say into her eyes. Come and now and maybe even I love you.
He came with a shout and a thud as his head banged back against the wall, not once but twice. A shudder ran through him, and he clutched her hair even tighter.
Every sense was alive. Filled with him—the taste of his release on her tongue, the smell of his aftershave, his panting moans and the grip of his fingers tugging helplessly at loose strands of her hair.