Page 50 of Heat Lightning

Ugh. He was so going to pay for what that did to me later.

I bit my lip. “The grunting. It’s… weird. Er, gross. It’s gross. Please stop.”

He scanned me from head to toe, his gaze a heavy weight low in my belly. “Gross? Are you sure about that?”

“Very sure.”

With a confidence that set my teeth on edge, he lifted the bottom hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his neck and set the tub of spackle down. “Sorry about that. I’ll try to be less gross from now on.”

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I may have stared. What was I supposed to do? The alpha was half-naked in my living room!

He was thick in all the places I wasn’t. I wanted to bury my face between his pecs and inhale. And he was covered in a fine layer of dark chest hair, with a prominent happy-trail tugging my eyes down, down, down…

The band of his underwear sat higher than his jeans. What noises would he make if I snapped it with my teeth? How about if I pushed them down and stuck my tongue out, wrapping my lips around⁠—

“It’s an octopus.”

His words snapped me out of my trance. “I beg your pardon?”

He looked like the cat that got the cream. Letting his shirt fall back into place, he said, “My tattoo. That’s what you were staring at, right? It’s an octopus.”

Right. “An octopus?”

“Mmhmm. It starts on my back, so people mostly only see the tentacles.”

Holding up his arm, he gestured to the thick, coiled appendages wrapped around his bicep and forearm, ending in a playful curl at his wrist.

It was rather suggestive, actually, but that might’ve just been my current mental state.

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “It’s cool. I like it. I’ve never seen a tattoo like that before.”

I walked over to inspect it more closely. Shaking off the heat haze, I lifted his arm to study the lines of ink. My old glasses weren’t quite as sharp, so I leaned down, my breath shifting the soft hair on his arm.

It really was magnificent work. The suckers were detailed, and the whole piece was shaded such that it looked three-dimensional. If I blinked, I could almost imagine the tentacles writhing up and down his arm, pulsating as they squeezed.

Realizing I’d basically latched on to breathe all over him again, I dropped his arm.

“Um, it’s very nice.”

His chest rose and fell rapidly, and he simply nodded at me.

“I’m gonna go sit over there while you finish,” I said, spinning on my heel to find a spot on the couch as far away from him as possible.

“Probably for the best,” he wheezed.

This was… confusing. Everything was confusing. No matter how good my intentions, I couldn’t seem to help but migrate closer to him. It was like I needed to be tied down, or else I’d come to find myself perched in his lap.

That wouldn’t be so bad, my omega purred. Especially if his pants go away.

I closed my eyes and said a prayer for my sanity.

When I opened them, my gaze caught on his knife, back on the coffee table in front of me. He must’ve set it there for my sake.

I didn’t reach for it.

“All done for now,” he said, wiping his neck again. How badly did that mask make his face itch? “Once it dries, I’ll sand it down and paint. Maybe a couple of days.”