He clocks them and pins me with a stern look. “You had these awfully ready. Planned on fucking your time away here, did you?”
I kneel on the bed next to him and arch one eyebrow. “How do you know I haven’t been?”
He works his tongue across his teeth, a slow build of that vulturine glare that is quickly becoming a physical necessity.
“Kris,” he says, “has anyone else been touching you?”
Every part of my body shivers. Shoulders. Hips. My toes curl and I knee-walk closer to him, towering over where he’s seated back on his heels. It lets me stroke my fingers through his beard and hold on to his neck, a brief power exchange.
“Why would you care about that?” I whisper.
He’sgottastop making noises like the one that rumbles in his throat. Halfway between a keening mewl and a growl.
The possession and need in Loch’s eyes tell me he’s letting me lean over him, letting me hold his neck, letting me toy with him. I shiver again, nerve endings swelling in the intuition of payback coming.
He rests his fingertips on my pec, drags them down, the lightest scratch over my nipple that makes them both pebble tight. “I care,” he starts, that mewl-growl roughening his voice, “because I need to know where anyone else touched you, how they touched you, so I can do it better.”
It should be enough. Teasing, taunting each other—that’s what we do.
But I hear myself ask, “Is that the only reason?”
I want everything implied in his jealousy. I want everything hungering behind his control.
Loch stops with his fingertips over my belly button. His eyes stay on mine, reading me.
“It has to be the only reason,” he whispers.
“Why?” I’m too revealed. Too exposed. It’s pleading and childish and Ihearthat, but Loch keeps stroking his nails over my skin.
He leans forward, and I let him, until his mouth rests on my stomach. He inhales, exhales, warmth and coolness winding me up so I almost retract it, apologize for being needy.
But then he rocks his forehead on my chest. “Do you want me to say it’s because I do na want anyone else touching you? Only me.”
A mutinous gasp rips out of me. It gives everything away if I hadn’t already.
Loch chuckles into my skin.
“Only me,” he says again.
I shudder, another full body tremor. I can barely swallow around the way my pulse is thudding in my neck and I sure as hell can’t keep up this game anymore.
“I usually have a condom in my wallet,” I explain quickly. “Habit,always be prepared and whatnot. And the lube, well. I knew you’d stress me out while I was here, and how else would I relieve that stress?”
“And did you?” Loch’s hand glides down my leg. Sends a quiver surging off in his wake. “Relieve stress right here in this bed?”
His smile holds daggers and immediately flips this dynamic right-side up. I’m still kneeling over him, but he’s in control. He always was, and it crashes through me, freeing, weightless.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Tell me.”
My lungs ache, chest and stomach clenching helplessly as he pushes a kiss to the tattoo below my abs, his eyes on mine.
“I—” My words come tangled, a frenzy. “It was like you said. Your face was in my head the whole time. Your voice. Your—you.Just you, Loch—I don’t know how you didn’t hear me crying out your name.”
His pupils dilate, blowing wide, his upper lip curling slightly, the whole of his expression sending a pulse of warning over me.
“Oh, I will,” he promises, and those wide eyes dip down my torso, mapping me, planning, and I hold steady for him.
