Cipher

under his head. “Make me.”

Kat lifted her body slowly and ended up straddling Andrew’s thighs. Her perch afforded her the perfect view of his chest and arms. All jokes about training montages aside, he was doing something to look like he’d been chiseled out of the side of a mountain.

Ten months of private lessons with Zola might have slimmed some of the extra padding off her hips, but Kat was still soft. Soft all over, but Andrew didn’t seem to mind, and she couldn’t feel self-conscious with him watching her like the slightest move could strip away what was left of his self-control.

He didn’t touch her, but he spoke. “You’re gorgeous.”

God, she loved his voice. She loved his eyes, green and a little gray, and the way his eyebrows rose when he was deadpanning to make her laugh. Of all the things she’d missed without him in her life, the biggest had been laughter.

The way her heart fluttered when he smiled might be a close second. She dropped her hands to his chest and stroked down, tracing the well-defined ridges of his abdomen. “You’re just stupidly hot.”

He grinned. “Stupidly? Not ridiculously?”

“Stupidly.” She slid her fingers lower, until her fingertips found the edge of his jeans. “Ridiculously.”

The cool metal of the button made her shiver. “Absurdly. Unbelievably.”

He arched under her, and his voice went husky. “Any more adverbs you want to add?”

“I wasn’t very good at English classes…” Her heart skipped a beat as she pressed her hand to his jean-clad erection.

Andrew dropped his head back with a groan. “Harder.”

More command than request, and part of her liked it. Not a small part, either. Disobeying felt like an illicit thrill, but she didn’t want to grope him through his jeans. Instead she tugged open the button and eased the zipper down. “Can I touch you?”

“Are you going to ask, or are you going to take?”

Her hands shook. She took a breath, and smelled sweat and his aftershave. “I think I like asking. I like the way your voice sounds when you tell me what you want.”

His eyes flashed, and he tensed beneath her. “Touch me. Open my pants and put your hands on my cock.”

Oh, he liked it as much as she did. It thrilled through her, an echo of his instinctive pleasure, sharper when she reached for the waistband on his boxers. “Lift your hips?”

He did it easily, bearing her weight as well as his. Shapeshifter strength, and her hands were unsteady as she hooked her fingers under the edge of the fabric.

Unsteady didn’t begin to cover how she felt while she eased his boxers over his cock. From ten feet away, she was sure he’d look proportional. Up close and personal…

Kat swallowed hard and braced herself for the jolt as she curled her fingers around the undeniably impressive length of his erection. He hissed in a breath and wrapped his hand around hers, pressing her fingers more firmly against his hard flesh.

If the sight hadn’t scrambled her circuits, the echo would have. Her eyelids drooped, and she struggled to keep her gaze focused on his large hand enclosing hers, on the sound he made as she slid her fingers slowly toward the crown.

Hot skin, soft over steel, and she was going to come again without anyone touching her. Kat tore her attention from their hands and sought his eyes instead. “How do I make you come?”

He laughed, a strangled, hoarse noise. “Keep breathing?”

“Might be a problem, actually…” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the pulses of pleasure coming from him, on finding the rhythm that twisted him up and the pressure that made him groan.

His arms dropped, but he only clutched at the bedspread as he thrust into her grip. “Fuck, Kat.”

Empathy wasn’t all bad. Not if she could use it to put that look on his face—jaw clenched, fingers gripping the comforter as if it was all that kept him from grabbing at her. So close. They were both balanced on the edge, an edge sharp enough to slice her open.

It might, if she didn’t let it go soon. “Come on, Andrew. Please. Come and take me with you.”

He did grab her then, reached up and dragged her down to his chest as the first pulsing wave of ecstasy shuddered through the room. He kissed her, open-mouthed and needy, groaning her name as his teeth scraped her lip.

Kat kissed him as his orgasm washed over her. He’d trapped her at an awkward angle, with one of her arms pinned between them, but she couldn’t bring herself to relinquish his mouth long enough to find a comfortable position. Everything was hot and desperate and now, and it didn’t matter that he’d come on her stomach and they couldn’t seem to get out of their clothes.

Her back hit the bed, and Andrew loomed over her, his eyes bright with lust. “You don’t understand how sexy that is, do you?”

She told him the truth, and it came out a breathless gasp. “No.”

“Not the empathy or the orgasms,” he rumbled. “You.”

No. Miguel had made her feel attractive. He’d given her anything she wanted from the start, though he’d known her heart was tangled up in someone else. But even at their best, when she’d been caught up in the novelty of sex and pleasure, he’d never looked at her like this.

They’d never been like this. Wild and out of control, her empathy overriding everything but base instinct. Kat lifted her hand to Andrew’s bare chest, over his heart. “This is… I don’t know what this is.

It’s like you’re inside my skin. You’re inside me.”

His thumbs stroked over her jaw. “Isn’t that where you want me to be?”

The joke was there, inviting her to laugh it off with dirty innuendo. Maybe he’d meant it that way. Old Kat would have clutched at the chance to lighten the moment with a suggestive smile and naughty words.

Instead she held his gaze. “Do you remember my twenty-first birthday?”

He nodded. “Everyone got drunk, so we went back to your place to play video games.”

The memory was so clear, even now. She could remember the dress she’d worn—one of the cheerful, pastel ones her aunt had bought just before her death. Blue flowers and butterfly clips in her hair, and she’d been so young, barely into her belated sexual awakening.

It hadn’t been so long ago. Four and a half years, but she hadn’t felt young for a long time. “I was in love with you by the time you left. I had a crush on you from the first day I met you, but that silly, geeky girl I was… After that night, she loved you with all of her silly, geeky heart.”

“That’s what kills me.” His eyes went dark. “That girl doesn’t exist anymore. Because of me.”

Always shapeshifters and their blame. Their guilt. “That girl doesn’t exist anymore because life sucks sometimes. People suck, Andrew. They do bad things, and the rest of us have to choose between stopping them or not. And sometimes we can’t win either way.”

“No, we can’t. We just have to keep going.”

“We did keep going. In different directions, because that was what you needed.” She closed her eyes, because she couldn’t let him see how much the next words hurt her. “I’m trying really hard to pretend that I’m not worrying about you waking up tomorrow and needing that again.”

“That depends.” His breath feathered over her cheek. “I didn’t know I was killing you all over again by staying away.”

“Everyone knew. They’ve treated me like a broken toy ever since. ‘Poor, stupid Kat got her heart broken and can’t move on.’”

“I’m sorry.” The words were thick, agonized.

“No, it’s not—” She took a breath. Her throat felt tight with tears, but she refused to cry. She refused.

“It was never that simple. I know it, and you know it. It’s easier to blame ourselves and each other.”

“I never blamed you.”

A lie, whether he knew it or not. “Andrew.”

“I didn’t. I don’t.”