Page 37 of Shai

Elijah went still, so still that he could have been the corpse I was referring to, his eyes going wide. “Did you tell him I was alive?”

“Of course not.” I stroked my fingers over his jaw again, letting them stray to his bottom lip. “You’re safe from McIntyre here.” Elijah’s eyes said what his lips didn’t dare, that he might be safe from McIntyre, but that he wasn’t safe from me. “Some might say you owe me.”

His shoulders sagged as he got the implication behind my words loud and clear. Play nice and I won’t tell him. “I can’t go back there.”

I gathered him in closer, pressing our groins together. “I know you can’t, and you don’t have to. You can stay here with me. Now, kiss me.”

There was the slightest of hesitations before Elijah wound his arms around my neck. He should be thanking me. I’d given him the opportunity to do what he wanted to do anyway without having to take ownership for the choice. His lips when they landed on mine were soft at first, tentative. I let him take the lead, holding back even as he increased the pressure, his tongue finally darting out to taste. Only then did I join in with the kiss, my lips parting to allow him entrance and my tongue enthusiastically meeting his.

I tightened my fingers around his neck, holding him in place should he decide to pull back before I wanted him to. Sliding my thigh between his, I explored his mouth, my lips curving into a smile as his cock thickened against mine. Elijah could play it straight all he wanted, but his body said differently. I kept our mouths fused together as I pulled him away from the wall and led him over to the bed.

It was incredibly satisfying to throw him onto it, Elijah content to stay on his back, his cheeks flushed and his chest rising and falling rapidly. I set to work on his clothes, removing them until there was nothing but bare skin, his cock curving enticingly against his abdomen.

I stripped off my own clothes. When I was naked, I joined him on the

bed, propping myself up on one elbow to study him. He shifted uncomfortably beneath my gaze, a rosy flush spreading all the way to his chest. “Do you want me to fight you?”

Skimming a hand over his ribs, I rolled closer to him, my heated skin

pressing against his. “Not today. You need to understand that I’m a very complex man, Elijah, with very complex needs. Sometimes I want to plunder and take, and sometimes I want nothing but sweet surrender. Most men can give me one or the other, but not both. I think…” I leaned over to extract the lube that I’d left in the nightstand drawer, Elijah’s eyes following the movement. “I think you can give me both.” Elijah said nothing so I hammered the point home. “And if that’s the case, it would be in my best interests to keep you safe, wouldn’t it?”

I didn’t wait for an answer before rolling on top of him. Lining our

cocks up, I captured his lips again, Elijah responding so sweetly now that he’d gotten over his initial reticence that I couldn’t hold back a groan. We found a rhythm, our lower bodies rubbing together as our tongues did the same. His reactions were perfection, a mixture of reluctant arousal mixed with moments where tension would creep in as if he was waiting for me to explode into violence at any given moment.

I explored him with my tongue, my mouth straying to wherever the

fancy took me, Elijah making no move to stop me. I took a moment to admire how hard he was breathing before flipping him over, the twin mounds of his tight ass drawing my attention for a while. Elijah cried out as my tongue made an exploratory foray into the shadowed expanse between them to graze over the sensitive skin there. I didn’t linger for long, far too eager to fuck him.

Unscrewing the lid of the lube, I doled out a good amount on my

fingers. With my other hand, I tapped him on the thigh. “Spread them wider.”

Obedient for once, Elijah did so. I knelt between his thighs, sliding my

fingers between the mounds of his ass to seek out the tiny pink hole that had tasted so good. I traced its rim, Elijah not seeming to know whether to push back into my touch or try and get away. No doubt he was recalling the pain of last time. Well, this time would be different. This time, I would have him writhing underneath me, desperate for my cock until he wasn’t even capable of remembering his own name.

He tensed when I slipped the tip of one finger inside him, only relaxing when I didn’t immediately try to go deeper. I held it there, imagining I could feel his heartbeat through the sensitive skin wrapped around the digit. Withdrawing my finger, I returned to teasing the outside, making him crave it and letting his curiosity and desire build until it threatened to overwhelm him.

“Shai?”

I couldn’t recall whether I’d ever heard my name on his lips. If I had, it wasn’t in the way he was using it now, with that breathy hint of longing in it. I liked it. A lot. I had no idea why a predatory lover had never spotted how ripe Elijah was for the picking. But their loss was my gain. I slid my finger deeper and sought out his prostate, Elijah’s hips bucking off the bed at the first rub of my fingertip over the sensitive nub of flesh, an epithet spilling from his lips. He buried his face in the pillow, rendering his “sorry” almost inaudible.

I paused with my hand flat on his ass, my finger still buried deep. “Why are you apologizing?”

“You don’t like cursing.”

I laughed. “I don’t like it at the dinner table. In the bedroom, you can curse as much as you like.”

“Your rules are confusing.”

I went back to rubbing his prostate, Elijah’s hips following the movement. “They’re not rules. Think of them more as guidelines. I would have thought you’d want to know what pleases and displeases me.” I introduced another finger, unable to tear my gaze away from the way my digits looked buried in Elijah’s flesh.

“I think they probably change on a day-to-day basis.”

It was a fair point. “Maybe.”

“Is that why you raped me, because I displeased you?”