Rule Breaker(222)
“I saw you across a crowded bar and our eyes met,” she whispered as she let her fingers stroke down his still-damp hair. “Neon blue, shadowed but warm. You drew me in. You warmed me. Confused me. Made me want, made me ache and made me sigh.” With her fingertips she caressed the line of his shoulder where his hair ended. “I dreamed of you that night and every night after. I looked for you wherever I went. I held the image of you close to me, no matter who I met. And I ached. Until I felt your embrace.” Her fingers trailed along his chest. “The warmth of you, the taste of you, the pleasure of being possessed by you.” His heart was racing.
Gypsy restrained her smile. Perhaps he was a little more aware than she was giving him credit for.
“I should have told you.” Her hand paused at the edge of the sheet just below his ribs. “How each time I saw you, I saw your eyes, I saw the Breed that saved me that night. Each time I saw you, I loved you a little more. Loved you deeper. I loved you truer.”
She lifted her eyes to his to see the gleam of that rich, heated blue staring at her beneath lashes that dipped with drowsy arousal.
Her hand slid beneath the sheet and found flesh hardened with hunger and throbbing beneath her fingertips.
His jaw bunched as she ran her palm down the thick shaft to the tightly bunched spheres of his testicles, where she cupped gently.
“You shut me out,” he accused her, his voice heavy, husky.
“I had to think, Rule,” she chided him. “There will be times I have to think, times I’ll have to sort my emotions for myself before I express them. If you get drunk and fight every time, then Dog and Loki are going to start protesting.”
He grunted. “Fuck that. Next time, I’ll find a human to pound on. They don’t hit nearly as hard. Dog punctured a lung, Gypsy.” He affected a wounded-hero look that almost broke her resolve not to laugh at him. “And Loki cracked a rib. I know he did.”
“Poor little Lion,” she sighed, brushing the sheet aside as she lowered her head to a nasty bruise forming just below one side of his broad chest. “Would it help if I kiss it better?”
She blew a light kiss over the bruise.
“You keep kissing and I’ll let you know,” he suggested with affected pain. “I’m certain it will eventually.”
A hint of certainty nudged at her senses. The bruising was tremendous, but Breeds didn’t feel pain as their human cousins did. The faker—the pain might have been bad for an hour or so, but she doubted it would be more than a twinge no matter what he was doing.
He stretched lazily against her, the fingers of one broad hand threading into her hair to press her lips closer to the abused flesh.
“I could need a lot of those kisses,” he rasped, the deep, rough sound of his voice adding to the heat building beneath her own flesh and between her thighs.
She licked over the bruise, feeling his big body tighten, flex at the sensation.
“A lot?” she asked breathlessly. “It could take a while. I’m sure you’re tired.”
“Yeah, I should be,” he groaned. “But I’ll try to make sure I stay awake for it. Just to make certain you get each bruise.”
She couldn’t help the light laughter that escaped.
“I love you, Gypsy Rum. For so long, I’ve loved you.”
The words had her pausing, blinking back tears and lifting her gaze to meet the somber, deepening emotion filling his.
“You should have told me.” Lifting to him, she let her lips settle gently against his, careful of the flesh a heavy fist had split. “You should have let me love you, Rule.”