“I… The sex I had, with other guys…” A low growl formed in his chest, but he bit it back. “Like, I enjoyed it for the most part, though there were some dudes who were a bit… What you just described. I’ve never felt that, never just spent the day in bed and explored each other. They fell asleep, lost interest the minute they came. It was kind of like I was always on the clock. I had X amount of time to get in, get off, get him off, or it was just over. Like I couldn’t relax into him giving me head, because in my mind, I knew he’d be getting tired, bored, lose his hard-on. I dunno. Like, maybe you’re just talking shit because you’re dying to sink your cock into me—which I highly doubt is possible, as a side note. I’m gonna need some sort of evidence you won’t get stuck or tear me in two or just pulverise my cervix into oblivion. But what if… What if everything that makes you different to humans makes you different…here?”
His grin was bright and beautiful when he pulled away, falling back on his heels, but what he did next surprised me. I expected, wanted him to suck my nipples or dive headfirst between my legs again, but instead, he picked up my foot and carefully paid attention to every little toe and bone, muscle and arch, remaking it with his hands as he stroked it. Rasping calloused palms rubbed the top and undulated up the arch, fingers separated toes and dug deep into aching muscles until I groaned. Kisses were peppered across the sides and then up over the bones of my ankles before he put that foot down, only to do the same to the other one.
It was weird, but my whole body tingled in response to his caresses, a low thrumming feeling of wellbeing washing over me, relaxing muscles I didn’t know I was holding tight, but that wasn’t all. My thighs separated, my slick dripping from me, hoping that was enough to lure those talented hands up.
They did move up, slowly. First, they curled around my calves, stroking down my shins, and my heart crawled into my mouth each time they threatened to slide over my knees, only to sweep back down again. Then he leaned down, placing prickly kisses on the inside of my knees, his stubble sending shivers throughout my whole body.
“Jai…” I whined as the kisses crept higher, yet still so far from where they could be.
“Yes, love?” he asked. I could hear that light mocking edge to his voice.
“I need…”
“I know what you need, love. My nose is full of it, but you wanted something long and lazy, and I’m gonna give it to you.”
I tried to grumble, to suggest something else, but he reached up, pressed his thumbs into my inner thighs, and then dragged them down my legs, pushing them into the bed. Then he used that grip to spread me wide, almost painfully so, the joints protesting a little, but there was something intensely lewd about it. I was split open, every dripping fold put on display for his hungry gaze. For a moment, he just looked at me, my cunt, my body, my breasts, until his eyes speared into mine. His expression… It took me a bit to place it, but it was reverence. He looked at me like I was made of gold, like I was a wish made flesh. It made me uncomfortable, since it just wasn’t right, didn’t match what I felt to be true about myself. I went to move, to close my legs and hide away from that endless gaze, but his hands clamped down, holding me still.
He shook his head. “Don’t hide yourself from me. You changed your mind? Don’t want this? You say it, but don’t hide this. I want everything you’ve got to give, don’t ever forget that.”
And then he settled down between my legs, and I thought everything I’d been longing for was about to happen. He kissed his way across tender flesh, licking me clean where I’d left a mess, getting higher and higher. My clit twitched over and over, like an SOS beacon signalling for help that only his tongue could provide. Slick seeped out of me, readying me. I was so wet, he’d be able to slam that big hard length of his in with no friction whatsoever, and I felt a violent stab of need inside me at that idea. I wanted it, needed it, to feel that rough intrusion doing exactly as he’d said—opening me up for him. Opening everything I was, everything I thought and felt, to him. But as his stubble scuffed over the crease of my thigh…
He chuckled when he heard my groan as his mouth veered away, dotting across my hip bone.
“Jai!”
“What, love?” he asked with a grin, looking up at me.
“I was wrong. So, so wrong. Let's do this afterwards.”
“After what, love?” I gasped when a single finger swept through my folds, but the caress was brief and gave me no satisfaction. I watched him pop his finger in his mouth and suck it. “Mm…yum.”
“Yes, yes, more of that. So much more of that. Please, Jai.”
“Soon.” He spread that huge hand across my abdomen, stroking the swell there.
“Jai, don’t.” I went to move his hand, but he batted it away.
“I like that you’re soft. If I wanted another hard body to lie with, I’d probably have gone with one of the other pack guys. You’re a woman, Shan, and while they come in all shapes and sizes, I like yours, a lot.” He placed a tender kiss just above my belly button.
He crawled up over me, and I was reaching for him, pulling his head down on mine before I could think. It was a slower kind of kiss, like we were telling each other something with our lips that our vocal cords couldn’t. That we weren’t going anywhere. That we could hold the other person tight and expect to keep holding them. That this was all we wanted to do. When my hands went up and around his neck, not letting him go too far, our lips connecting like magnets, I was holding someone else now. This wasn’t my demon lover promising me multiple orgasms, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if that still happened, it was something much more frightening.
This was my Jai.
My eyes flicked open, catching blurry glimpses of his golden ones as he kissed me, but from what I could see, he knew. It felt like being dropped into a hot bath, the heat slowly seeping through me, filling me up, holding me within its warm embrace. His warm embrace. My breath hitched, unable to flow easily now, and a great lump formed in my chest. It hurt, this thawing, this slow but steady breaking down of everything I’d been forced to hold back. I’d put so much into not loving Jai, it felt like I was falling apart inside to let that go.
But I was. He pulled back, lips hovering over mine, scanning my eyes as if to see exactly what was happening. I wanted to look away, that pack pressure to do so beating down on me. Don’t hide from me, he’d said, almost as a challenge, so I didn’t. I let him see the pain I’d had to wrap tight around me to keep myself away from him, the many, many times I’d had to redirect my eyes, my mind, my heart away from him.
Don’t watch that long, lean body bend over the pool table taking his shot. Don’t hear that warm laugh as he was talking shit with his mates. Don’t look up when I hear the sound of his boot steps on the pub floor. Don’t listen for his name, don’t wonder how he’s doing. Don’t ask Jaz for updates and ignore them if she gives them. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
He watched the first tear form, then the other, reaching out to brush them away, but more came. I was this wet noodle, seeping tears and slick, breaking my heart and dying for him to push himself inside me, being pulled apart by the two impulses. When he drew back, my heart only sank a little. Of course, he would. I was making this something it wasn’t supposed to be and he was—