His tongue swept across his bottom lip as his weary gaze managed to find enough strength to check out my entire getup. “Hey,” he responded softly when our eyes met again. “Nice costume.”
I gave him a shy smile, adjusting the top of my onesie, but it wouldn’t cover another inch of my breasts. That seemed to be the point when I picked out the costume. However, with fully dressed Slade’s intense gaze all over me, I wished it gave me a little more coverage. “Thanks.”
I folded my hands near my chest, using my arms to cover some bare skin. The AC and lack of bodies made his kitchen feel twenty degrees cooler. The lack of pumpkin spice and sweat delivered a nice breath to my senses.
“I uh … just wanted to make sure you were okay since Jericho showed up at my house.”
He studied me a bit more. “He was making sure nothing happened to you while you were sleeping alone in your front yard wearing…” he gave a slight nod toward me “…that.”
“I see. So … you’re protecting me again? A month and no word from you, but tonight Jericho comes to watch over me?”
“What makes you think he ever stopped looking out for you?”
What the hell?
After I let that hit my heart and bounce off it—but not without making a little dent—I untied my tongue and said the only thing that made any sense. “I don’t need you to watch after me. I’ve been learning self-defense. I’m not the weak girl you saved behind the dumpster.”
His eyes narrowed a hint. “That’s always been an interesting assumption on your part.”
“Because it’s not true or because admitting it would be admitting that you killed a man?”
He retuned nothing for close to a minute before nodding to the door. “Go home. Sleep in your bed, not the front yard.”
“Someone else is in my bed. Sleeping or … something.”
For a girl who truly hated very few things or people, I hated how much I missed him. It wasn’t until that moment that the true impact of his absence in my life settled into my conscience with the grace of a bulldozer.
He shut his computer and sighed, staring down at it with a contemplative expression. “You can sleep on my sofa.”
I scuffed my boots along his floor until I was standing beside him. After a few moments of silence, he scooted his chair away from the table, allowing me to stand between his spread legs. I rested my ass on the edge of the table.
His gaze raked along my legs to my breasts, finally finding my face. “You’re not seducing me, Livy.”
Gah! I loved my name sliding from his full lips with that manly badass timbre to his voice. The kitchen fell silent again with the exception of the refrigerator humming. He smelled like a fresh shower and the most tempting prey.
I lifted one boot to his jean-clad leg, putting more weight on the table as I lifted my other boot to his other leg, the table beneath me creaking a bit. “You’re right. I’m not going to seduce you.” I slowly unlaced my boots and slipped them off, dropping them to the floor with one thud and then another. Unhooking my garters, I eased off my fishnet stockings one at a time.
He swallowed hard, jaw muscles tensing, eyes flared.
Sliding off the table, nestled between his legs, I bent down, brushing my lips along his ear, my hands folded behind my back so I wouldn’t touch him with anything but my mouth when I whispered, “Sweet dreams, Wylder.”
As I moved to stand straight again, his hand snaked up my back, fisting my ponytail, slowing my ascent as he lifted his back from the chair and followed my body—followed my exposed cleavage.
For the longest pause, he didn’t move a muscle, not one twitch—his breath hot on my chest, his hand still clenching my hair. “There’s a pillow and blanket in the trunk behind the sofa,” he murmured, releasing my hair.
I. Couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe.
It was like he lit me on fire and pointed to the extinguisher ten yards away.
I grunted a painful laugh through a long exhale, bent down, and gathered my boots and stockings. “You’re such a head case,” I mumbled. Shoving my way out between the caged area of his legs and the table, I headed to the door instead of his sofa. “I’m going to go fuck the first guy I find with a condom in his wallet. Night, Wylder.”
The second I got the door open six inches, his hand landed on it above my head, slamming it shut. I remained unblinking at it while he hovered so close to my backside, heat radiating from his body. My eyes closed when his forehead rested on the top of my head, rolling slowly side to side like he was in some sort of agony.
I didn’t move. I wasn’t lying … I would not seduce him. He would seduce me.
He would touch me.
He would kiss me.
He would surrender to me after months of holding his shield of emotionless bullshit.
His hands gripped the material to my onesie, his breaths quickening as he lifted his forehead pressed to the top of my SWAT hat. I stood stone-still, letting him peel the stretchy material down my body to my hips, leaving my breasts completely exposed. I sucked in a sharp breath when his hands covered them, my back arching to press my body into his touch.
It was torture. So slow. His grip firm, touching me with a need that felt like it was teetering on the edge of losing control.
My heart tried to have a full-on heart attack. My breaths chased each other so fast my lungs nearly exploded. When his head dipped, lips grazing my ear, my neck, my bare shoulder, I dropped my boots and stockings, pressing my hands flat to the door to keep from surrendering to my weak knees.
When his tongue flicked my skin, my breath hitched and released on a low moan. One hand slid from my breast to my neck, forcing my head back for him to plant his face in the crook of my neck as his other hand slid down my stomach—under my onesie and into my panties, stopping just shy of my clit.
He sucked and bit the skin along my neck, and my hat fell to the floor with my boots and my stockings. If he didn’t hurry up and put those lips on mine, I was going to self-combust. After months of dreaming about that mouth on me, those veiny arms and hands possessing me … I needed to know if he tasted like the drug I imagined him to be.
Turning my neck as far as I could, his gaze locked with mine. Those intense eyes drowning in agony. Why did he always look at me like I was bad for him?
I didn’t stop long enough to ask. I lifted onto my toes and forced him to let me turn around. My fingers thrust into his hair as I took those lips.
When his tongue slid into my mouth, giving me a taste of perfection, like mint and beer and months of longing, I closed my eyes and lassoed that moment.
The moment I realized I’d kissed a million wrong people in my journey to him.
The moment I realized Slade Wylder would take me so completely I would never be the same.
The moment I knew he killed another human to save me.
Not a million bouquets of roses.
Not a ten-carat diamond.
Not a mansion in Malibu.
Nothing would ever mean more than that night behind the dumpster when he literally slayed the beast.
Lifting me up, he guided my legs around his waist and pressed my back to the door. Deepening the kiss, he found my hands and pressed them above my head, interlacing our fingers.
I devoured every inch of his minty-flavored mouth, humming my pleasure while breathing heavily through my nose as we twisted and turned our heads to explore each possible angle of the kiss.