His brow rose in challenge.“You are.”
His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist in slow circles over the thin skin where her pulse beat hard against his touch.“You think I haven’t noticed the way you look at yourself in the mirror lately?Before all hell broke loose.The way your hands hesitate when you change?And then attempting to do so quickly so that I can’t enjoy the view?”
Her gaze dropped.
He stepped even closer, until the heat of her bare skin met the roughness of his shirt, and she let out a quiet breath against his throat.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did.
“I see you,” he told her.“All of you.The way you’re rounder here.”His knuckles trailed down her side, over her hip, the curve of her thigh.“The way your skin is hotter in places it wasn’t before.”His hand moved up again, slowly, the back of his fingers grazing the underside of her breast.“The way your body is changing because it’s making room for our child.”
Her breath shuddered out of her.
“That isn’t something I simply tolerate, Kara.”His mouth brushed her temple.“That’s something I worship.”
He bent his head and caught her mouth with his.
The kiss started slow, the way they always started, his hand cradling the back of her head and his thumb tracing the soft skin behind her ear.He took his time tasting her, learning the way she felt against him tonight, the new fullness of her lower lip when he caught it gently between his.Her body softened against his by degrees, her arms sliding up around his neck, her hands wrapping around the back of his neck.
His wolf rumbled approval low in his chest.He deepened the kiss in slow, deliberate increments, his tongue stroking into her mouth in a long, claiming pull that made her sigh against him.Her hands slid down and fisted in his shirt and dragged it upward, and he obliged her without breaking the kiss, ducking his head only long enough to let her pull the shirt free and toss it somewhere behind them.Her palms came back to his chest immediately, splaying flat over his ribs and skating up to his shoulders, and the soft, hungry sound she made when bare skin met bare skin nearly took the legs out from under him.
“Nick,” she whispered against his mouth.
“I’ve got you, baby.”His hand slid down her back, learning the new curves of her, and settled low at the base of her spine.“I’ve got you.”
He bent and caught her behind the knees in one smooth motion, lifting her into his arms.She let out a small, breathy laugh against his throat, her arms looping around his neck, and the sound of it loosened something inside him that had been clenched since the moment that ancient thing beneath the realm had touched her.
“Show off,” she murmured.
“Always.”
He carried her to the wide sleeping platform and laid her down on the furs with care that bordered on reverence, easing her back against the thick pelts until she was framed in the dark gray of them like something out of a dream he’d had every night for years and was only now allowed to keep.Her hair spilled across the furs.The amber light slid along her bare skin and turned her gold, and he stopped breathing for a moment because she washis, and he had almost forgotten how to remember that without rage tangled into the gratitude.
He stripped the rest of his clothes off without ceremony.
Her eyes traveled over him as he did, slow and unhurried, and the warmth in her gaze was the only fire he ever needed to chase.
“Hey,” she said softly, holding out a hand to him.
“Hey, beautiful.”He took it, pressed his mouth into the center of her palm, and let her draw him down.
He covered her body with his own carefully, taking his weight on one forearm so that nothing pressed into the soft curve of her stomach.His other hand drifted up the inside of her thigh in a long, slow stroke that made her breath catch and her hips shift restlessly against the furs.
“Tell me,” he murmured against her throat.“Tell me what you need.”
“You.Always you.”
He grazed his teeth gently along the column of her neck and felt the shiver run all the way down her body.“Be more specific, baby.I want to hear you say it.”
A soft laugh broke out of her, half breath and half sound.“You're insufferable.”
“I’m thorough.”
“Same thing.”
“Tell me.”
