“No pain,” he reassures me. “Touch Dakota everywhere now.”
Oh mercy. Time to find that bank.
There’s a small, square building a few blocks away with a faded sign and an overgrown parking lot. The ATM machine was demolished long ago, pieces of it strewn through the drive-thru, weeds growing through a few chunks of metal. The glass doors are busted open, but the interior seems decent enough. It’s quiet and dark despite the sunny day, and we head inside, looking around. There are a few wooden seats with nicely upholstered chairs that haven’t suffered too much from nearly a decade of neglect, and I wonder if we should bring these back to the bookstore. Would they be more comfortable for Dottie and Aggie? I touch one, considering.
Then I give it a pat, deciding. It’ll be there in the morning. Tonight is for me and Murr. I need to stop thinking about others for a few hours and focus on me and my new…husband.
The word feels strange. There wasn’t a big dress or a church to marry us. The only ceremony was a bite and some furtive touching on the hood of a car. It still feels right, though. Good. Strange, but good.
There are small offices along the main lobby, and I look for one without a desk in it so we can set our blankets down. I find one where it looks as if the desk has been destroyed with an axe, likely for firewood, with the remains of it in the doorway to the tiny office itself. I kick it out of the way so we can shut the door, and as I do, a postcard is revealed, taped to a piece of the desk.
Rabbit loves postcards.
I pick it up, pulling off the ruined bit of tape. It’s a photo of the Grand Canyon, the picture faded but still legible. I take it over to one of the chairs, setting it down so I won’t forget it when we leave.
Murr watches me. “Dakota good?”
Immediately, I feel foolish. Here I am fussing over postcards for my daughter and chairs for Aggie and Dottie when I’m supposed to be having intimate time with my partner. “I don’t know how to relax,” I confess to Murr. “I’m so used to being on alert, being prepared to look after someone, or trying to figure out our next meal. It feels wrong to leave for a day, and yet I know it’s not.”
He moves to my side, pulling me into his arms. I drop my backpack and lean against his chest, enjoying the simple pleasure of a hug. His skin feels so pleasantly warm, but not as scorchingly hot as before. It’s because his bite changed something in me, I think. It adjusted my body temperature so his isn’t quite such a stark difference.
Murr presses a kiss to the side of my neck from behind, still holding me close. “Stay? Or leave?”
“I want to stay,” I reassure him. And I do.
I’m allowed to have fun. Adult fun. This will be good for me. For both of us. I reach for Murr, holding him as he lavishes kisses on my neck.
Time to put that blanket down in the office.
CHAPTER 68
DAKOTA
We kiss,and we kiss. It’s so nice to be in Murr’s arms with the realization that there’s nowhere we have to go, no one that’s going to need something. We can just luxuriate in being with each other. His mouth slants over mine, our kisses growing hungrier and more urgent the longer they go on…yet we don’t move on from this. Kissing is amazing and I’d be happy to do this for hours on end.
He pauses after a time, and we’re both panting for breath. Murr brushes his nose against mine, his eyes hooded with arousal. His hand goes to my shirt and he tugs on the fabric. “Take off?”
My first instinct is to pause, because what if someone comes in? It takes a moment to realize no one’s coming…and then it really hits me. We truly are alone.
We can both be as naked as we want.
I can touch him shamelessly all over and not have to worry that my daughter’s going to wander past.
The thought is a heady one. I reach for his wrap and give it a gentle tug. “Take off?”
Murr’s response is to kiss the heck out of me, his tongue teasing mine. I’ll take that as a yes.
I give it a quick yank and the fabric falls to the blanket at our feet. He’s gloriously naked a moment later, and I skim both of my hands down his hips, tracing over his body. He’s incredibly fit, without an ounce of fat, and all over, his skin has that strange, striated pattern that suggests scales but feels like silk under my fingers. His cock is thick, flushed with blood, and a vein traces down the thick length of him. The scaly pattern of him looks more prominent here, and when I reach down to trace one, it becomes obvious that they’re not scales as much as they are prominent ridges that ripple down his length.
Well now, how did I not notice that sooner? “Can I keep touching you, Murr?”
His eyes flutter closed and he presses his forehead to mine, cupping my face. “Murr yours,” he breathes. “All touch good.”
Perfect. That’s just what I wanted to hear. I take him in my hands, automatically testing the size of his girth. Yup, just as big as I’d thought. He’s thicker than a human man, and I’m fascinated by his size, wondering how that’s going to feel inside me, stretching things.
But first, I want to play with him.
“All touch good, you say?” I whisper, teasing him with another light kiss before I sink lower, pressing my lips to his chest.
