Her shirt had to go. The ripping sound echoed through the room. Before the material could totally escape my fingers I was onto the boxer shorts she’d put on that made her look entirely too sexy. She lifted her hips and I pushed them down. She was naked, her body like shimmering gold as she lay against the dark sheets on my bed.
“Caleb.” She said my name so softly I almost missed it.
I lifted my head to look at her, praying whatever she saw wouldn’t frighten her away.
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she licked her lips. My heart constricted while my mouth watered. The cat inside roared, ready to stake its claim, while the man wasn’t sure of the next step, wasn’t sure there would be any turning back after he leapt.
“I want this,” she said quickly. “With you, I mean. I want this with you.”
And damn did I want this with her. Only I wasn’t totally sure what “this” was. It could be so many things, all of which would most likely not end well. I should fight this, I had been fighting it. But hell if I could any longer with her looking up at me the way she was, her soft body shifting ever so slightly beneath mine.
“I want this with you,” I replied and pulled my shirt over my head quickly.
When I was completely naked I was over her once more. She lifted her hands, planted her palms against my chest. I couldn’t help it, a growl rumbled in my chest with the heat of her touch. The cat wanted to pounce, to take, while the man wanted to possess.
“Condom,” she said.
I nodded and reached over to my nightstand to retrieve the box of condoms that had never been opened. Shifters didn’t need to practice safe sex, their complex DNA made them immune to most human diseases, sexually transmitted ones being at the top of the list. But part of me was human and so I’d purchased them on the off chance that in this one area my human side would prevail.
She shocked me by sitting up on the bed and reaching for the foil packet I held in my hand. I tore off the top and handed the open packet to her. She took it out and reached for me. My eyes closed and everything around me tilted. I felt dizzy, then, ensconced in heat as she rubbed the latex over my cock. Her fingers were gentle as her thumb rubbed the now-covered tip in exploration. She held me, both hands wrapped around my length, for endless seconds, looking at what she held as if it were the most cherished thing in her world.
My muscles tensed, my temples throbbing as I struggled for control, struggled to hold onto at least a modicum of dignity and refrained from releasing into her hands. The hands that eventually moved up, pressing against the tip of my dick, then down again to the base, once, no twice. On the third round I wanted to roar loud enough to break all the windows in the apartment. I wanted to lift her legs up onto my shoulders and pound into her until the confusion about getting involved with a human, about whether I was a shifter or a human myself, about the rogue that I wanted desperately to kill, was buried deep inside of her.
Instead, I managed a deep, steadying breath. I pushed her back on the bed, being more gentle with her than I’d ever imagined I could be. I did spread her legs wider then, in slow, deliberate motions. I wanted to see her, really see her this time. Her eyes were open wide, glazed with desire as she looked up at me. Her breasts high, pert, and lickable. Running my hands up and down her inner thighs I inhaled deeply, letting the scent of her essence invade my senses.
“You’re beautiful,” I told her. I wanted her to know this above anything else that she might know. “Absolutely beautiful,” I continued.
She trembled beneath me, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. My dick grew harder, teeth clenching tighter.
“Open for me,” I asked, all the while pushing her legs up until the soles of her feet rested on the bed.
When her legs once again fell to the side and I watched her, wanting her, needing her more than I needed to breathe, I knew I was in big trouble.
The moment I cradled the head of my cock against her dripping entrance she whispered my name. It fell like a drape over me and I shivered. Not totally pleased with that action I pressed lightly, stretching her to accommodate me, needing her to accept me, to accept all that was me.
My eyes closed of their own accord as I sank deeper inside of her, loving the constriction, the moistness, the total abandonment that flanked me. She’d stilled for a second and I followed suit, clenching my teeth as I waited, as we waited. When she said my name again, I opened my eyes to see her arms outstretched. Whatever I’d been before, however I’d felt about connections or entanglements or sex that was more than just sex, all of it dissipated as I leaned forward, going into her arms as her legs lifted, wrapping securely around my waist.
I was drowning, I knew it. My head was so deep under water I shouldn’t have been able to breathe. But I could and I could pump, in and out of her until she too was breathless.
With her arms wrapped tightly around my neck Zoe whispered into my ear, “I never wanted to with him. Only with you.”
“Only with you,” I replied without any thought at all. “Only you.”
When my release finally took over I wanted to roar, loud and long, to claim her and to keep her.
CHAPTER 12
Zoe
“What’s your last name?”
He chuckled.
“Is that a funny question?”
“It is when it’s the first thing you ask after finishing what we just finished,” he said.
His fingers were in my hair. I think he liked to rub along my scalp then pull his hands away until the strands ended, only to start the routine all over again. It was soothing because his touch was so light. My cheek was pressed against his chest, his heartbeat an echo in one of my ears.
“Well, after what we just did I think it makes sense that I know your last name. I probably should have known before we did what we did, but there it is.” I felt comfortable enough to joke with him. Actually I felt all floaty like the heroines said in romance books. The pain and soreness my body experienced a little more than six hours ago had vanished and was replaced by a lovely haze of delight. I was smiling against his chest as I thought.
“My name is Caleb Sanchez,” he offered finally.
“And where are you from?”
There was a pause.
“Where’s your family from?”
Another pause.
My fingers flattened on his chest, my cheesy grin slipping slightly. “Either my questions are too hard for you to answer or you really don’t like after-sex chitchat.” I laughed lightly after speaking but a pinch of worry began at the base of my spine. I moved slightly, pressing my body closer to his and hopefully dispelling it before it could spread.
“I was born in Brazil but I’ve never called any one place home. My parents are dead.”
And that was it. He didn’t verbalize that, but the implication hung in the air.
“So you speak Spanish?” was my next question. There was so much I wanted to know about him, so much I wanted to experience with him, but I got the impression taking baby steps would be more successful than the immediate barrage I was used to.
“Portuguese,” he replied.
I nodded. “I think other languages are sexy even though I never learned one.”
“Your school did not teach you another language?”
It was my turn to be quiet, my turn to resist telling him something about my past. “I didn’t go to school a lot during my high school years. My brother and sister needed me to take care of them and my mother, well, she needed someone period. Besides, I never really felt like I belonged there. Those students had much better home lives than I did. I envied what they had and despised what I didn’t, which made it almost impossible to walk up and down the halls with them day after day. So I didn’t. I wrote a note that I was being homeschooled and studied on my own for the last two years, then I took the GED exam and passed. Now I’m working at the bar, saving my tips so I can pay for at least two semesters at the community college up front.”