Series: Shifter Ops Series by Renee Rose
Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
When I hand the flask back, our fingers touch, and the tingles spread through me.
Now or never.
“You know what I need?” I say as casually as I can.
“What?”
“A good hard fuck.” I shift my hips under the blanket.
He chokes mid swallow.
“It’s been a while. Since…” I trail off. I don’t need to say “since the shifter slavers took me.” He gets it.
He coughs a few times to clear his throat. “Same for me.”
“Really?”
He shrugs.
“That’s a long time.” He was stolen by slavers and sold to a company called Data X quite some time ago. More than a few years.
“You’re tellin’ me.”
I look up at the moon. His scent still clings to my lips. I imagine his scent on my skin, and my body begins to ache. A pleasant, prickling need pulsing between my legs.
In a rush of energy, I push off the blanket and straddle him, my hands finding his sturdy shoulders.
Then I freeze. His eyes shine bright green.
“This is a bad idea, lass.” But his hands come to my waist. I’m wearing my usual black cropped leather jacket and wide leg black jeans. One of his thumbs brushes my bare skin, and I shiver with pleasure.
“We could forget all that. Just for tonight.” I lean in and do what I’ve been wanting to do since the moment I met him. I nuzzle his temple, inhaling his rich scent, then touch my tongue to the tip of his ear.
His breath shudders out of him. His cock hardens, giving me a target to rock over. “Just for tonight?” His voice is thick. “Better make it count.” He grips my hips harder, pulling me fully over the bulge in his jeans. Right on the ridge of his hard cock.
I grind down and rub myself against him. This movement alone would be enough to get me off. I work my hips forward and back, scrubbing harder and harder until he stops me.
“Easy, lass. We’ve got all night.”
Right. I nod, panting.
I grin and unzip my jacket and tug up my crop top. I’m wearing a basic black bra, but Declan’s eyes light up like I’m a lingerie model. I arch my back a little to show off my breasts. They’re small but well curved.
Then I remember my scars. The moonlight slanting through the open side of the treehouse shows them clearly–the slash marks made by a careless hand.
Fingers around my neck, squeezing, harsh cigarette smoke blown in my face, fiery pain erupting in my belly. “You’ll behave now won't you?”
I blink, coming back to myself. The night is clear and cold, and the moonlight’s unkind to my scarred skin.
Declan’s expression has darkened, but his hands tighten on my waist, as if to reassure me. The heat of them grounds me to the here and now.
There’s a bitter edge to my scent now, too.
“I got in trouble.” It takes a lot to hurt a shifter, and very rarely do we scar. But when your captors use vampire blood… “But I’m okay.”
“You are, aren’t ya?” He holds my gaze, seeming to understand what I endured, who I became as a result of that fucked up experience. There’s no pity in his expression, only radical acceptance. Something I haven’t experienced at this level before.
My spine lengthens, chin lifts. That sense of panic that tends to crowd me evaporates under Declan’s honoring. “Yes.” My heartbeat has slowed. I press my hand over his, moving it a little, so his fingers span my stomach.
He strokes the longest scar. His touch feels so good, it aches.
No one else has ever touched me here, not since I was cut on. For a long time, I was too raw, too wounded to let anyone touch me. I thought it would feel like being flayed open again, and it is, but it feels good. Like lancing a wound to let the healing begin.
Declan’s still stroking me, his fingers reverent. And although my marks are ugly, the sight of them framed by his rough fingers is unbearably beautiful.
“It was punishment. They wanted to mark me,” I tell him. “Ruin me.”
“They failed. You’re fecking beautiful, lass.”
I lean in and press my lips to his, so he’ll shut up. He tastes like whiskey and cold nights and secrets, and I moan a little, wriggling closer to his heat, so I can taste more.
We kiss for a while, tongues tangling. I want to lick him inside and out.
“It’s okay.” He pulls up his shirt. It takes me a moment to realize what he’s showing me. His chest is compact with muscle, well formed but pockmarked in spots, with long raised seams where a knife or a scalpel cut him.
He’s got scars, too.
“May I?” I wait until he nods to touch his skin, he shivers and goosebumps break out, but he lets me stroke his scarred flesh.
On impulse, I lean forward and plant a kiss on the ragged skin.