Maybe loneliness was.
Maybe never being truly wanted was.
My pulse quickened as dangerous thoughts spiraled lower.
What would it feel like if he touched me everywhere?
Would he still be gentle?
Or would that growling possessiveness finally snap?
Heat pooled low and heavy between my thighs.
I wasn’t some untouched girl clutching romance novels beneath the covers.
I was thirty years old.
I’d kissed men before.
Dated.
Made mistakes.
There had been a few hookups in my twenties—lonely, fumbling attempts to feel wanted for one night at a time.
Men who touched me without ever really seeing me.
Men who liked my body well enough in dark rooms but never stayed long enough to know my favorite color or the way I bit my lip when nervous.
None of it had meant anything.
Not really.
Not compared to this.
Because kissing Sten hadn’t felt like experience.
It felt like awakening.
Like every touch before him had been muted somehow, dulled by comparison, and only now was I understanding what desire was actually supposed to feel like.
Gods.
One kiss from that Monster and suddenly my entire body felt hypersensitive.
Aware.
Alive in ways it had never been before.
I could still feel him everywhere.
His hands on my waist.
His tail tightening possessively around me.
The rough slide of his tongue against mine.
The growl that vibrated through his chest when I moaned into his mouth.
