Cipher

Instead of replying, she jerked at the zipper on her jacket, tugging it down in abrupt, rough movements that showed she was still angry, still clutching at her temper. She slid out of the garment and tossed it over the back of the couch. “I found out that I might have to have a bodyguard for the rest of my life from someone else. And I felt like a stupid kid again, like every time someone shuffled me off into a closet because bad stuff was going down but no one wanted me to know about it.”

“I’m sorry.” It was the very last thing he’d ever meant to do. “I don’t think you’re a kid.”

Kat closed her eyes and sank to the cushions with a groan. “I know. But it’s—it’s a sore spot, and it’s always going to be. I need you to be the one person who is painfully, brutally honest with me when things are dangerous.”

“Okay, I screwed up.” Andrew perched on the arm of the couch. “The guy Julio and I were dealing with today has a chip on his shoulder about the council, and it doesn’t matter that I don’t have legacy.

He’ll push my buttons like anyone else’s, and I don’t really think he cares how he does it.”

“And people are already figuring out I’m one of your buttons?”

One thing didn’t change, no matter who or where you were—gossip. “People like to talk.”

She tilted her head back and stared up at him. “I don’t love the idea of a bodyguard, but I can get my head around it, as long as we get a few things clear upfront.”

“Such as?”

“I get to decide who. And how.” She shifted to her knees, so her head was closer to his. “And we get Jackson or Mahalia or someone to ward your loft and my apartment well enough that I can have time alone when I need it. If this is a shapeshifter threat, then magical protection is enough. I’m not going to live the rest of my life like we did the last couple weeks.”

“Done.” He touched her hair, relishing the way the soft strands slipped through his fingers. “I really wasn’t being a jerk this time. There’s been so much going on, that’s all.”

She leaned into his hand and offered a tiny smile. “I was furious. I wanted to come back here and strangle you with some cat-5 cable. And then I did give you credit. I thought of every time you choked back your instincts so you wouldn’t smother me, and I realized I should trust you.” The smile faded. “And then I wondered if you didn’t trust me. If you thought I’d be so reckless that I’d fight this just to—”

“You were worried the other night,” he cut in. Maybe if she understood why… “Freaking out about the cult stuff, and thinking you might go off the deep end. Maybe—maybe I didn’t want you to think that your life’s going to be one never-ending string of boss fights that are going to push you closer and closer to the edge.”

Her lips twitched. Pursed. She clenched them together as her face scrunched up, like she was fighting to hold in laughter. She fought it until her face was red. “Boss…fights?” Her mirth spilled free, the sound filling his ears as she dropped her forehead to his leg and laughed until she shook.

He sighed. “You know, aside from my unfortunate use of video-game terminology, that’s really not funny.”

“I know, I know…” She gasped in another breath and stared up at him. “I just…I love you, Andrew. I love you enough to have bodyguards or babysitters or whatever the hell else it takes, because you’re not going to let me get anywhere near the edge.”

He dragged her closer. “Not if I can help it.”

“I’ve got dark places inside me, but that’s not all bad.” Her hand landed on his chest, fingers spread wide. “I figure I can spend the next few decades letting you see all of them. If you can handle them.”

If anything, her dark places matched his. “As long as you need me the way I need you. Everything else is… everything else.”

The tip of her tongue teased over her lower lip in a quick, nervous gesture. “I don’t even have words for what I need. I could let you feel it?”

He had no reservations. “If you want.”

She left one hand on his chest and lifted the other to his cheek. The first tickle ghosted over him as her eyes drifted shut, just a hint of affection.

Then love bloomed, and a passion that bordered on feral, instinctive desire. Control—his loss of it, that was what she needed. For his need for her to overrule everything else.

They tumbled to the couch, her mouth under his, open and hot. He couldn’t think, couldn’t stop himself from turning her over, across the arm of the couch with her knees digging into the cushions.

He couldn’t stop himself—but she could. If it was too much, too far, she could stop him.

She didn’t. Instead she moaned, and the wild emotions vanished as her head slammed back against his shoulder. “Just like this,” she said, the words breathless. “God, just like this.”

He accidentally tore her shirt, but the fear he expected didn’t come. Her shields were intact, and he wasn’t beyond control, dangerous, just…

“I need you,” he mumbled against the smooth, newly bared skin of her back.

“Good.” She squirmed, yanking the tattered fabric over her head, every movement grinding the curve of her ass against his hips. “Don’t let me hold back. Don’t let me hide from you.”

They’d always locked themselves away like that, and it had very nearly killed them. “No hiding.” He licked her back and pushed at her pants.

They were loose—stretchy, like yoga pants—and slid down easily enough. Kat whimpered, one hand groping for the back of the couch, and dropped her head forward. “I had this fantasy about a hundred times.”

“Only a hundred?”

“Sometimes we were in a bed. Or over the table.” She shivered. “Sometimes you made me come. Just with your fingers or your mouth, because you wanted me to beg before you’d take me. But sometimes it was just this, and then you were inside me…”

So many possibilities, and it would take years to explore every one of them. “I can do that.”

“Make me come?” Almost a question, but then she laughed, low and throaty. “I know you can. Make me come, Andrew. Please, please, I don’t care if it’s fast or hard, I just want to feel you—” His hands shook as he rolled on a condom and gripped her hips. She wiggled impatiently, and he distracted her by dropping tiny bites across her shoulder blades and the back of her neck as he worked into her slick heat.

She was panting by the time he made it halfway in and moaning before he thrust home. Her fingernails scratched the upholstery of the couch as her body clenched around him, already primed for release. Her shaky plea confirmed it, made him grit his teeth and press his forehead to her bare skin. “So close, please…touch me, please touch me.”

Andrew slipped one hand around her until his fingers found her clit. “Kat.”

“Oh—” Just a sound, a gasp, and she flew apart, her release as fast and easy as the wildest of her empathy-fueled orgasms. But there was no feedback this time, no projection, just Kat coming hard around him.

He thrust once and then again, clenching his teeth against the need to follow her. But her orgasm went on and on, dragging him along, and driving her higher proved an impossibility. Pleasure tightened along with the rhythmic clasp of her body, and he shouted her name as he gave in to it, to the intense throb that started at the base of his spine and cascaded through him.

Kat slumped forward over the arm of the couch, her head down and her hair brushing the floor.

Underneath him, her body was lax. “Holy shit.”

He couldn’t speak, so he traced his lips over the dark lines of the tribal tattoo that wound its way from her hairline down between her shoulder blades. “Mmm.”

Goose bumps dotted her arms. “It doesn’t bother you, does it? The tattoo?”

“Bother me?”

“The mark.” She tilted her head, baring the side of her throat where he’d bitten her the first time. “I marked myself.”

He soothed the spot with his tongue. “I’m not sure it works that way, Kat.”

“Oh, good.” The words slurred together. “Not that I’d mind. If you wanted to bite the back of my neck.”

“Uh-huh.” Andrew laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t gnaw your tattoo off.”

A giggle escaped her. “I think the blood is rushing to my head.”

He pulled away carefully and eased her upright. “Better?”