“Should hold. Shifting will probably sting and watch out on those landings until you get used to it.”
“Terrific,” Rune grumbled to himself.
At the same time, though, he tossed the covers back and swung his legs out. Hall sprinted around the bed so fast to help him that Hadyn laughed. Then frowned as Rune waved them both off.
“Either I do this myself or you’re lying to me about what I can do.”
Hall held up his hands and backed away. Rune shoved, not carefully either, to his feet. Swayed for a second. Took a tentative step, then another. Grimaced at the way his left leg was working—or wasn’t—but otherwise, was up and walking.
“Well?” she asked.
“Give me a second, love,” he said.
The fact that he was teasing she took as a positive sign. “You must be getting old.”
He shot her a carnal look that heated her blood in a microsecond. Something he’d been doing the last two days, trying to get her to play with him since he was “laid up anyway.”
“If I have to lie here,” he’d cajoled at one point, “Might as well make it fun.”
Which, of course, she’d refused.
“You could just straddle my face and let me make you scream.”
That one had been tempting, because by that point all the heated stares had been getting to her. But she’d held him off, insisting healing was more important.
Now Rune hooked an arm around her waist, pulling her in close, burying his face in her hair and breathing deep, and she clung to him trying not to spontaneously combust.
“I’ll just—” Hall left them alone.
Hadyn barely heard him go, focused entirely on Rune. Part of her expected him to pin her to the wall right there, burn off her pants, and impale her in one swift move. Despite the leg situation.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he quietly laced her fingers in his and walked, side by side, with her down the hallway. The silence was both the sweetest thing she’d ever experienced and a slow build of anticipation. Sweet because she could tell, without looking and without his saying a word, that her big bad dragon was…nervous. Why? Because now it meant something…more? She bit back a secret smile, trying hard not to grin.
So this was what giddy felt like.
At the same time, the fact that he cared enough to be nervous—for whatever reason driving it—was an amazing turn on. With each step, her body warmed more, blood fizzing with an anticipation that had been building for days. Like shaking up a Coke can and finally popping the top.
Every pace excruciating, glorious anticipation, tempered only by the slight limp he was trying to hide from her.
Such a tough guy.
Rune led her up those wide winding stairs in the residence to a floor she hadn’t been to yet. “Where are we?” she asked.
“The floor used for guests,” he said. “I had Delaney and Cami make sure no one had been in this one. New, clean sheets.”
He’d planned this out when she wasn’t around? Not for sex. The way his hand tightened around hers told her this was about more than that. As though he wanted a place that was just for them. Special. She bit her lip, trying to contain another smile. If she kept this up, her face might crack from all the smiling.
He stopped at a door and paused, turning to face her. “I think I’ve been clear about what I want.”
She lifted a single, teasing brow. “Fucking.”
He grunted, color flaring over the ridges of his cheekbones. “Hold off on the dirty words until I get this out.”
He was serious, so she sobered.
He cupped her face with his hands, that black gaze still banked. “I asked in the middle of shit going down, and you answered after a knock to the head followed by other horrible things. So…just for my honor to be cleared…are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” No hesitation.
“Thank the gods,” he whispered, and slowly lowered his mouth to hers.
Lips firm and beautifully tender touched hers softly, a whisper of sensation, and she whimpered at the sense that he’d returned to her. Or she to him.
Against her he stilled.
“Hadyn,” he murmured against the corner of her mouth.
“Please,” she answered, not even sure what she was begging for.
His hands crept into her hair, kneading her scalp, and the tip of his tongue snaked out and traced the seam of her lips.
On a sigh of pure contentment, she opened to him, and he groaned, taking the kiss deeper, his tongue tangling with hers, silky and rough at the same time, mouth as urgent as the sounds spilling from her.
Finally.
She wasn’t sure how she could feel as though she’d been waiting for this for always, even after what they’d shared before, but she wasn’t about to question it.
She sighed into him, and it seemed to draw them deeper into each other, so entwined that she never wanted to unwrap herself from him, stay with him like this always.
Still only kissing, fully clothed, in the hallway.
Rune must’ve realized the same thing at the same time. Without breaking the kiss, he opened the door. Then, in a blink, they were inside, and he had her up against the now-closed door, no trace of the stiff leg or limp in sight. He lifted her so that her mouth was on level with his, and she wrapped her legs around him, his hard body pressing into hers…perfect. They fit perfectly.
He was holding back, though. She could tell. Waiting.
But she was too lost in the moment, in him, to try to wrap her mind around what he was waiting for. The heat and strength of him surrounding her, his mouth dark and hard against hers, coaxing rather than demanding.
He was touching her, hands insistent against her, though he kept skating past the bits that were yearning for his attention most, instead tracing the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips, the backs of her thighs. Each caress everything and yet not enough.
Not enough. The words started to echo in her head. Driven to an urgent chant in time to the pulsing of her body.
Then he paused and dropped a single lingering kiss of such utter adoration on her lips that she knew he was still questioning this. Wanting to take away any lingering doubts, Hadyn melted against him, raising her arms around his neck to bury her fingers in the silky thickness of his hair and tug his mouth closer. “I’m yours,” she whispered against his lips.
And kissed him. Initiating rather than accepting the touch.
A growl that might make her orgasm right here, given how he was pressed against the juncture of her thighs, the sound vibrating right through her, surged through him.