Page 79 of Knight’s Absolution

A moment later, he heard the door open behind him, and he squeezed his eyes shut, gathering himself.

He turned—

“Fuck.” He dragged in an unsteady breath as Luna climbed into the shower with him, her small, curvy body completely bare except for the gold cross hanging around her neck. “Luna…”

“You’re injured,” she said. “I can smell your blood.” She glanced down at his most obvious wound and made a soft sound of sympathy. Her head tilted back again. “You were fighting tonight?”

He dipped his chin, it was all he was capable of doing right then. How could he speak when he was in the shower with his female? The most beautiful, sweet, tempting little female he had ever encountered. She was his, and one day soon they’d make it official. They would mate.

But they weren’t there yet.

She needed time, and having her with him, naked and wet, and looking at him as if he hung the stars and the moon was more than he could handle. Still, he didn’t tell her to go, because his need to be close to her—the roar of his demon to get closer to what was theirs—was more than he had the strength to fight right then.

So he stood completely still as her small, pale hands moved over his body, cataloging his injuries. She whimpered as if she felt it as well when her fingers danced gently around the knife wound in his side. She bent down, he assumed to get a closer look—

“Christ,” he barked as her tongue swiped softly over the deep cut. It didn’t cause pain, no, the opposite.

She stayed where she was, but her gaze lifted to him. “Did that hurt?”

“No,” he gasped.

“Will you let me?” she said, motioning to the slice in his skin. “My saliva will help speed up healing, the same as when I lick the puncture wounds I make with my fangs.”

He nodded, his ability to speak now choked off completely as he watched her, her little pink tongue, now streaked with his blood, sliding over the slice in his flesh.

She swiped over it several more times, then checked with him again. “You’re sure I’m not hurting you?”

“You’re not,” he managed to get out.

No, she wasn’t hurting him, and if she looked down, she’d see exactly the effect she was having on him. His skin tingled where she’d licked it. He could actually feel himself healing, the skin drawing together. His own natural ability to repair his injuries was fast, but not this fast. He was forced to use the tile wall as support again as his sweet, well-meaning, utterly gorgeous female worked her way around him, licking every cut and graze he’d received tonight until he tingled all over from it.

Until he was so impossibly hard, his cock was angled straight up, dark and veined and throbbing.

She’d moved around his back and was at his other side, lapping at a slice in his bicep, when she stilled. Yeah, she’d just gotten an eyeful of his hard dick.

Gunner’s breathing was ragged, chest pumping, eyes heavy-lidded, and so incredibly close to grabbing his cock and fucking his fist right there in front of her, he had to clench his fingers tight.

“Gunner?”

Her palm rested on his lower back, soft and warm, the other hand sliding across his stomach, making him suck in another breath. “Ignore it.”

“It feels good when I heal you?” she asked, and there was no mistaking the curiosity in her voice.

“Yeah, love, it feels good. I’m tingling all over, and you’re naked and so fucking gorgeous…” Another ragged breath. “Just ignore it, okay?”

He wanted her beyond reason, but not until she was ready. And there was no way she was, not yet, not after the shit she’d been through.

Her hand drifted lower, and he grabbed her wrist with a hiss.

Eyes wide, she looked up at him. “You don’t want me to touch you?”

“It’s not that, I promise it’s not that. I’m hard, yes, but I’ll live. You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to,” he said, voice like gravel.

“Before you left earlier, I wanted to. I wanted to touch you. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. Will you let me now?”

He should probably discourage her, should do the right thing, but he needed her so bad, to be closer to her in any way he could. So instead of telling her to leave, to go back to bed, he released her wrist. “You can touch me however you want, love.”

Please, touch me. I need you to touch me.