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Hot damn.I breathed deeply for what felt like the first time in weeks. We had allies, and we were back in the game.
fourteen
Iwokeupslowly,curled in blankets and a hot body. A hand ran up my thigh as I stretched, but I wasn’t getting distracted today.
I jumped out of bed before Dio could grab a hold of me and pull me back. We’d spent two nights and an entire day mostly naked in bed together. It had been heaven. I’d never spent so much time intimately with a man. I’d thought I would feel uncomfortable, but everything with Dio was so easy. It had been a honeymoon, of sorts.
I had shit to do though, and a farm to run.
“Hey, no fair. I was about to grope you. Get back here.” Dio pretended to sulk while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes until a giant yawn broke through. He looked sleepy, rumpled, and adorable.
I turned my back on him as I tried to figure out where my clothes were. I couldn’t look at him or I’d fall back into bed. The sexual high of the last thirty-six hours had been intense, but I felt like it had helped to settle the explosion of omega pheromones and instincts that had almost overwhelmed me the first night.
“You know that view is no less of a turn-on,” he said to my back as I bent over to search through the bedding. I smirked to myself, silently preening under his praise. What a guy thought about my body had never been something I’d really cared about before. I’d only ever cared that I was fit and strong.
Yet the obvious pleasure Dio showed whenever he got his hands on me, or even looked at me, fulfilled something in me I didn’t even know was missing.
“Did I tell you I love your tattoo?” He asked.
I halted my search through the blankets and turned sideways to him, looking down at the tattoo on my hip that readI am the storm, in a cursive script.
“I noticed when we first met you that you rubbed your hip a lot. I thought it was an injury at first. But then I got you naked and noticed the tattoo. It’s from a quote, isn’t it?The devil whispered in my ear, you cannot survive the storm, today I whispered back I am the storm.Is that right?”
“Something like that. There are a few variations around,” I said as I stroked it, feeling the power the words held over me. “I don’t always notice, but I rub it when I need to remind myself I’m strong.”
“When did you get it?”
“When my dad forced Leif to join the military, Leif moved me out of home and got me set up on my own. We’d both worked part-time and saved our money, so we had enough to pay my bond and the first few months of rent. He sent me most of his military pay after that to help keep me afloat. I got the tattoo the day he left. It was my sixteenth birthday.”
“Fuck, Lex.” Dio jumped up and pulled me into his arms. He looked angry and as if he had a million questions he wanted to ask, but he was pursing his lips, holding them in.
“It’s okay, it wasn’t a bad thing, Dio. It was an escape and a celebration. I felt free for the first time in my life. I was determined to never need someone else to protect me again, and I could finally figure out how to do that.
“Leif spent his entire childhood protecting me, putting himself between me and our father. I missed Leif terribly at first, and I worried about him in the military because he has such a gentle nature. But he found his family there, and they had his back.”
Dio stroked my hair gently. He’d become fixated with it. He often ran his hands through it and watched the pink, purple, and red shades fall through his fingers with a smile.
“Just because you learned to protect yourself doesn’t mean you don’t deserve people in your corner, Lex. You shine so brightly, and you’re so strong. At the very least, you need someone around to worship you, and I’m the perfect man for the job.”
I slapped him on the chest lightly, jokingly, to deflect how emotional those words made me feel. But any contact with Dio’s skin just made me want to purr and rub all over him. He’d just spent thirty-six hours worshiping my body, proving he meant what he said, but those words and the feeling behind them in the bond felt incredibly intimate. I wasn’t used to hearing such loving words, even humorous ones.
I briefly considered telling him to get on his knees if he wanted to worship me, but then we’d never leave the treehouse. So I gently pushed him away instead, with a feather soft kiss and a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind, big boy.”
“Big boy, huh? I’m okay with that nickname. We can keep that one.”
I laughed. We’d been teasing each other with atrocious nicknames in between bouts of sexy times.
I appreciated him not asking more about my dad right now. We hadn’t really talked in depth about our childhoods. We’d been too busy knocking boots. It was a conversation that would come; I knew that, but we had time. The thought filled me with joy.
I finally remembered the antique chest in the corner and headed over to it. There were clothes in there for me, Leif, and his mates, that I’d put there in the past. I liked to stash things for emergencies. I knew it was a habit I should have long since given up, but it comforted me and made me feel prepared.
I squealed like an excited toddler when I found my old favorite pair of denim overalls. They were baggy and soft, yet perfectly worn in. I’d been wondering where they went. I grabbed a white cropped t-shirt out as well, along with some new underwear still in its packaging. Like I said, I liked to stash for emergencies.
I threw a pair of jeans and a tee, along with some new underwear, at Dio. He looked at me strangely.
“Uh, whose are these? Did you have sleepovers up here with someone?”
I could see his mind working, trying to figure out who I may have had up here. I got a flare of jealousy and possessiveness through the bond that wasn’t there when he mentioned Sam or Dave. Or even the mysterious Pala.
