I nodded, nudging my nose with his. “I’ll tell you if anything feels off.”
It didn’t though. Not when he tightened his hold on my head, pulling me closer. Not when I stretched out next to him, hooking my leg around his uninjured one, losing my mind as he broke our kiss again and made his way down my chin, my jaw, dragging his teeth across the sensitive skin on my neck.
The sweatshirt he’d given me was long enough to cover me from neck to knees, but underneath, I was completely naked. It would’ve been so easy to let this happen. To climb on top of him, tug down the waistband on his sweatpants, and welcome the hot slide of him inside me…
“Damn, Gray,” he whispered against my neck, his kisses becoming more fevered. He wasn’t a mind reader, but the incubus could absolutely sense the very hot, very dirty direction of my thoughts.
I didn’t try to bury them, though. My desire, my touch, my body’s responses to his kisses… All of it was healing him.
He was feeding on me. On my energy. My magic. It went on long enough that I should’ve felt drained, or at the very least tired.
Instead, I felt absolutelyamazing.
Which was a clear sign it had to end.
What am I even doing?
He’d moved back to my mouth, but I broke our kiss, slowly pulling myself to a sitting position. Slowly willing my heart rate back to normal.
Asher sat up behind me, his hand on my shoulder. “Shit, Gray. Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Why are you panting?”
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. Taking in the sounds of the woods—living nocturnal creatures skittering through the underbrush, the soft sigh of the pine boughs in the breeze—all of it natural and expected once again.
My lips throbbed from his kiss.
Why did hethinkI was panting?
“Gray?”
I turned and shot him a glare over my shoulder, waiting for the barrage of jokes. The innuendos. The reminders about how sexy he was, how he didn’t even have to use his incubus “sex vibe” on me to get me all worked up.
But Asher seemed genuinely oblivious, the opportunity for poking fun passing us by. Instead, his eyes were full of worry.
He really thought he’d hurt me.
I sighed. “Asher, I’m good. Really.”
“But I took… a lot.” He tugged his pant leg up, peeling the sticky fabric away from his skin. The wounds were still there, but the bleeding had stopped. His flesh had already begun healing.
“It’s weird,” I said. I didn’t know how to explain it, but rather than weakening me, sharing my energy with Asher had only made me stronger. “I feel like I could run a marathon.”
“Are you sure?” He cupped my face, staring at me with wonder in his eyes.
“Okay, maybe ahalf-marathon. But still. I feel… wow.”
“Funny,” he said, stroking my jaw. “I was about to say the same thing.”
Heat crackled between us again, and I let out a nervous laugh, nudging him away. “Happy to hear it, Ash, but here’s a hot tip: Next time you want to make out with me, just say it with flowers or chocolates like a normal guy.”
His smile was back with a vengeance. Tugging on one of my curls, he said, “A normal guy wouldn’t know what to do with you, Cupcake.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I’m not that hard.”
“Iam.”
