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I took off my bra.
I saw his throat move as he swallowed hard.
He still did not look down.
The restraint was almost insulting.
“What are you doing, babygirl?” His deep drawl made something low in my body clench.
I pulled off my shorts.
His breathing had grown a bit rapid but he kept his eyes locked to my face.
I showed him a scratch on my ribs, drawing his eye. “Say that thing you used to say to me when one of your brothers knocked me down and I skinned a knee, or if I’d get so much as a scratch. Do you remember?”
His gaze finally dropped.
Not where I wanted it.
To the angry red line curving over my ribs.
“From when we were kids?”
“Yes, say it.”
His expression softened.
“I’ll kiss it better, babygirl,” he drawled.
I shivered. “Now kiss it better.”
Something flashed in his eyes.
He leaned forward and placed a very, very soft kiss on the scratches, then another, and another, covering the whole area with the barest contact of lips.
His mouth was warm. Too gentle.
I could barely feel him.
Which somehow made every tiny brush worse.
Or better. Definitely worse in the good way.
I showed him a scraped elbow, a skinned knee.
He’d been obedient, but silent for too long. “Say it again.”
He smiled, bending to my knee. “Let me kiss it better, babygirl.”
He kissed every wound, but his lips barely made contact. Each kiss lingered only long enough to register before he moved to the next.
He was treating me like something breakable.
I was getting increasingly tired of being handled like glass.
It was so frustrating that I did something I wasn’t even planning at that moment. I took off my panties and straddled him.
His hands went to my waist automatically, his head tilting back to watch me.
