Chapter 23: As Me

He came to my door at midnight, and he knocked.

I had not expected the knock.

I opened it, and he stood in the hall with his hair wet from the bathhouse.

A clean bandage showed at the open neck of his shirt.

The healer had stitched him again, and cursed him for an hour.

"May I come in?" he said.

"Yes."

He stepped through and stood in the middle of my small room.

His hands hung at his sides.

The lamp was turned low.

Bryn slept down the hall at Odessa's, and the whole house was quiet.

I locked the door and leaned back on it.

"Sit on the bed," I said.

He sat.

"Take off your shirt."

He did, slowly, wincing, and the white bandage stood out against his skin.

I crossed the floor and knelt in front of him.

I laid my hands on his knees, and I felt his thighs tremble under my palms.

"You're shaking," I said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it's you," he said. "Because you chose it."

I looked up at him.

His green eyes were wet, and he didn't hide it.

I stood and took off my shirt and let it drop.

I took off the rest of my clothes the same way, one piece at a time.

He watched with his mouth a little open.

The scar through my eyebrow tugged when I smiled.

"Look as long as you want," I said.

"I've never wanted to look at anything so much."

I climbed onto his lap, careful of the bandage, a knee on either side of his hips.

I put both hands on his face and kissed him.

I kissed him for a long time, slowly, with my tongue in his mouth and my fingers in his hair.

He groaned against me, and his arms shook around my back.

"Touch me," I said.

His hands moved over my skin.

They followed the curve of my waist, the line of my spine, the swell of my breasts.

His thumbs found my nipples and brushed across them, and I arched into his palms.

"Tell me," he said, hoarse. "Tell me what you like."

"That. Exactly that."

He lowered his head and took one breast in his mouth, and I held him there with a hand at the back of his skull.

He sucked it gently and then harder, and the pleasure ran straight down between my legs.

"Lie back," I said.

He lay back on the bed, and I slid down his body, kissing his chest and the ridge of his hips.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Alpha's Betrayal: Burning in the Flames of His Vengeance from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.