The shifter pulled her closer until she was flush with him. Histhingpressed between her butt. Last night, she hadn’t noticed the size of it, too distracted by, well, him. She released her breath, a small gasp escaping from her throat as she moved up the shaft.
Then she felt it, a rumbling against her skin, like a gentle motor humming through the mattress and vibrating down to her bones. Was hepurring?
A laugh escaped her, one she had to stifle with a hand. Because even though she knew it was wrong, she didn’t want to wake him just yet. She wanted to wait here in this entanglement of limbs andother things,for just a little while longer. Every bit of anxiety was sapped away from her as his purr thrummed through her body. It was wrong on so many levels. Yet, nothing in the world could have pulled her away at that very moment.
But of course, she had to sneeze.
She tried to stifle it, but her body had other plans. The beast that slumbered stirred next to her.Shit.She couldn’t even deny that she was asleep.
For a moment, he clutched her tighter before his body went rigid, mirroring her own. “This hasn’t happened before.” He sounded confused, and unfortunately, his morning sleepy voice was as sexy as he was, and was doing something very unfair to her body.
“It’s a first for me too, buddy.”
“Do not call me buddy.” His breath fanned against her ear, sending goose bumps skittering over her skin.
Geez, someone was grumpy in the mornings.
“Okay,shifter,do you mind letting me go? It’s weird.”
He grumbled something sleepy and annoyed that she didn’t quite catch, but he let her go. She should have felt relief, but instead, she wanted him to come right back. It was a strange dichotomy in her mind that the safest she had felt in a while was in the arms of a monster.
Like the very sky was mad at her for even thinking such a thing, rain started to patter outside the window, the sun having stuck around as long as a father out to buy milk. Avery untangled herself and went to ready herself for the day ahead. She madesure the bathroom door was lockedandthat she brought her clothes with her this time to get changed. There couldn’t be a repeat of last night. Of any of it. The kiss, the dresser, the cuddling. The cuddling somehow was the worst of all three. She was getting too close to this shifter.
When she got back, the shifter had fallen back asleep. Limbs tangled within her sheets, legs splayed, lips slightly parted, and sprawled across the bed like it was his own. One hand rested behind his head, while the other dangled off the bed. Cats slept a lot, she knew that, and he had seemed to get none lately.
Light on her feet, she padded to the bed. For someone who was deep in enemy territory, he looked remarkably blissful. She moved closer. His ears twitched in his sleep, almost like he could hear her coming.
She stood over him, admiring the beautiful specimen that he was. Shifters were always beautiful, in many ways. The books the witches had described them as ugly monsters—yet in every picture she had seen, and most definitely the infuriatingly handsome one in front of her—they were nothing of the sort. It made sense that they were so striking; after all, the things in nature that were the most beautiful were often the deadliest.
Absent-mindedly, she reached her hand out toward him. Because apparently, she had little to no self-preservation and was lured to her death as easily as a moth to a flame. Maybe the moths found the flame beautiful, and she understood them now more than she ever had.
She didn’t get far. The shifter opened one green eye, the pupil slimming to a slit.
Fuck.
With terrifying speed, his claws closed around her wrist, yanking her from standing to straddling him within a millisecond, close enough that their noses almost touched. Once again, the hard length of him pressed into the apex of her thighs.It took all of her willpower not to grind into the man who was currently holding her captive.
“What,” he hissed, “are you doing?”
There was no good answer for it. She had simply wanted to touch him. The bond thrummed happily in her chest, relishing the contact between them. Could he feel the pull, too? His hand tightened around her wrist.
“I told you not to touch me.” His gaze hardened before dropping to her lips and back up again.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to wake you up. We’re going to be late.”
“There are other ways to rouse me.”
“You already seem…uh…roused.”
His eyes darkened. For a second, she thought he might pull her closer. Pull her into another forbidden kiss that she absolutely, definitely did not want. But to her disappointment, he let go of her wrist, letting it drop onto the pillow next to his head.
He didn’t move her, though—his ears twitched curiously, and she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do with that.
“Get off me, witch.”
Embarrassment flooded her cheeks. Right. Despite the bond that flared between them, it was stupid to think he wanted anything to do with her beyond her usefulness in breaking it. And it was what she wanted too. As annoyingly attractive as he was, she would never betray her kind like that. He was the enemy, and she would do well to remember that.
She cleared her throat and climbed off the bed, careful to avoid touching any part of him.
