Page 264 of Immune

I laugh once, rough and helpless. “That’s actually the polite word for it.”

“Poor thing,” she croons almost mockingly.

“Don’t pity the knot.”

Her mouth twitches, then she asks, “Can I?”

“Can you what?”

Her hand slides slower, stopping at my belt. My brain leaves through the nearest window when she answers with a single word. “Touch?”

I swallow. Hard. Then answer, “Yeah.”

She cups me through the fabric, and the sound that leaves me is one I won’t be admitting to later under any kind of circumstance.

Dakota’s eyes light up. She presses her palm against me, slow and testing, and my head falls back against the wall.

“Bedroom,” she whispers then.

I blink. “Now?”

She raises her eyebrow at me again. “I’m not doing this in the Christmas Depression cupboard.”

I glance around, then back at her. “Fair.”

She scrambles off my lap a second later, but her hand catches mine immediately, tugging me up. Her bad knee wobbles once, but I steady her by the elbow and nothing more, that is until she leans into me on purpose.

The walk to my room should be impossible. It’s ten doors and a corner away, and it practically feels like crossing several countries with a lit match cupped in both of my hands.

Inside, I shut the door and lock it. Then I pause with my hand still on the latch. “This lock can open. You say it, I open it. You say stop, I stop. You say bite, I bite. You say no bite, there won’t be a bite.”

Dakota stands close to the bed, her hair still tucked under her hat and mouth swollen from my kisses, and her eyes bright enough to light the room. “And if I say come here?”

I’m across the room so fast I’ll be embarrassed about it later, and only because she smiles the moment I do. That’s just not good for my ego, but it’s fucking great for everything else.

She removes her hat herself and sets it on the small table next to the bed. Not thrown, not clenched, but placed. My chest aches at the sight of it, but then she pulls a tie from her hair and white-blond strands fall in rivers over her shoulders, catching the dim light like something the ruined world has no right to still make.

I forget how to be funny and Dakota sees.

For once, she doesn’t punish the softness. She only steps close and wraps my headphones around her neck, quietly muttering, “Music.”

So I start it again, low and steady, and then she kisses me.

We make it to the bed in frantic pieces. Boots are kicked off, belts are undone, and fabric is dragged away between kisses and curses and Dakota threatening to stab my trouser button if it keeps “being a little bitch.”

“Don’t stab my button,” I plead lightly.

“Then tell it to stop fighting me,” she demands.

“It’s really doing its best.”

“So am I.”

“Fair enough. Button’s on its own.”

That earns me a breathless little laugh before she finally gets the fabric open and looks way too pleased with herself. Then her hands are on me properly, skin to skin, no material between us.

I hiss through my teeth as she wraps her fingers around me, bold and a little clumsy, learning me by touch. Her grip tightens when she sees what it does to my face, and the cheeky little shit asks, “Like that?”