Her Vengeful Rebirth novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Warm

I looked at him.

I looked at the black beard with the first grey at the chin.

I looked at the dark eyes that had not left my face once, and the big warm hand covering both of mine.

I thought about what I owed him.

I was going to pay all of it, in front of everyone, to the last dollar.

But that was not what I wanted to give him tonight.

"This isn't payment," I said.

His brows drew together.

"Thalia."

"Whatever I owe you, I'll settle in daylight, in public, in writing."

My voice came out low and steady.

"This is something else. I'm not doing this because I'm sorry."

"No?"

"I'm doing it because I've wanted you since the garage. I wanted you before that."

"I wanted you in the freezer when I couldn't feel my mouth, and that's disgusting, and it's true."

A sound came out of his chest, half laugh and half groan.

"It isn't disgusting."

"Then come here."

I pulled the grey sweatshirt over my head, and my blouse with it, and dropped them on his floor.

His eyes went down my body, slowly, over the lace of my bra and the pulse in my throat.

His hand tightened on my knee.

"Say it again," he said, rough.

"I want you."

"Louder."

"I want you, Jericho. I want your hands on me and your mouth on me and your cock in me, and I want it now."

He moved so fast I did not see it.

One moment he was sitting, and the next I was on my back in the cushions with his weight over me.

His mouth was on mine.

It was nothing like the garage.

That kiss had been relief.

This one was hunger, deep and slow and merciless, with his tongue sliding against mine and his beard scraping my chin raw.

I clawed at his shirt.

He sat up long enough to rip it over his head, and I stared.

He was enormous, thick across the chest and shoulders, with dark hair over his sternum.

A long pale scar ran down his left side, and I did not know it.

"A roof in Lowell," he said, following my eyes. "I was sixteen. I fell off it."

I put my palm flat on the scar.

"Warm," I said.

"Yes."

"You're so warm."

His whole body shuddered, and he caught my wrist and brought my palm to his mouth.

Then he picked me up.

He carried me across the loft with my legs locked around his waist, his hands under my thighs, my mouth on his neck.

He set me on the edge of the bed and knelt on the floor between my knees.

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