anymore, maybe it was all me. Maybe the beasts just opened up things that were already there? Who the hell knew? Sex with this man wasn’t a fate worse than death. Was it sex with a stranger that bothered me, or just sex in general, or both? I was betting both. I looked away from Ethan, stared at the pale wall with its copy-of-a-copy painting beside the dresser and its TV. I’d try it, and if it felt too weird, I’d say stop, and wait for Alex; at least I’d already slept with him.
“Yes, you can touch my back,” I said, but couldn’t make my voice sound completely happy about it.
But Ethan took me at my word, not my tone. His fingers trailed down my back and kept going until he was tracing the edge of my butt.
“That is not my back,” I said.
He drew his hand away from me. “I’m sorry,” he said, softly.
“No, it’s not you, it’s me. I always have a problem with having to have sex.”
He sat up, drawing the covers over his lap so he stayed covered. It meant I had to hold on to the covers to stay as covered as I was, but I appreciated the attempt at modesty on his part. “I can call Alex. He’s working, but you can ask him how soon he could be here.”
I looked at his face, so careful, so . . . hurt. I remembered then, a little late, that he’d spent his life not being wanted by the women of his clan. Shit. I sighed, and said, “I can’t explain all my issues right now, but just give me a minute. I do want you. I am attracted to you. I just didn’t expect to wake up beside you before we’d even had sex. I didn’t expect to miss out on the crime fighting while I had to heal.”
I hugged my knees to my chest. “I’d gotten used to the extra healing that I get with the metaphysics. I thought the super healing was because of the lycanthropy and the vampire marks; I didn’t realize it was tied this much to the
“And that bothers you?” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I can go days without feeding the
“No, but I can imagine.” I could feel some tension go out of him, so that he was just sitting on the bed, not waiting to get up and call Alex.
“May I touch the back of your body?” he asked, “and did you hear the difference in what I asked?”
I thought about it for a second, trying to work out why I was getting in my way so badly. Finally, I said, “Yes, and yes.”
He touched my back again, but this time I tensed. “It really bothers you that you have to feed so often.”
“Yes,” I said, and hugged my knees a little tighter. “It’s almost impossible to do the out-of-state warrants.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder, not petting, more comforting. “But you can go days without feeding if you have to, and from what you’re saying, that wasn’t true before.”
I thought about it. “No, I mean, you’re right.”
He scooted on the bed so he was sitting behind me. I fought the tension in my shoulders, not liking his being where I couldn’t see him. I’d slept nude in a bed with him for hours. He’d already proven he was willing to risk his life to keep me safe. He’d trusted my ability with a gun enough to take a knife wound and throw himself on the mercy of a Harlequin. What more did I want from him?
He put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re still tense. What can I do to help?”
“Help me do years of therapy in the next five minutes,” I said.
“I don’t understand,” he said, and I didn’t have to see his face; I could hear the puzzlement in his voice.
I shook my head and hugged my knees harder. “Ignore me.”
“I don’t want to ignore you,” he said, and his voice was moving closer. He moved my hair to one side, and I felt the heat of his body hesitate before he laid his lips against my back. When I didn’t protest, he kissed me, and when I didn’t complain about that he kissed me again, a little lower on my back. The bed moved as he kissed his way, ever so gently, down my back. I began to relax a little more with each kiss, my arms unclenching, letting my spine straighten so that I was sitting up straight by the time he reached the end of my spine.
He rolled his tongue in small circles at the base of my spine until I shivered for him, and then he plunged his tongue downward, tracing between my cheeks. It brought a surprised sound from me. He bit me, gently, on one cheek.
I whispered, “God.”
“I take it you liked that,” he said, voice already growing deeper.
What was I supposed to do, lie? “Yes,” I said my voice a little shaky.
He bit me again, a little harder, but still not hard. I half-rolled, half-fell onto my side. He bit farther down my cheek, harder yet. It made me shiver again, my breath catching in my throat. He touched my thigh, lifted, and I opened my legs for him. He set his teeth in the last bit of cheek, before he got to other things. He bit me this time, hard enough that it made me gasp and try to sit up, but his hands were on my thighs, and ass, and sitting up wasn’t happening. I was suddenly staring down my body to find his face between my thighs, looking up at me.
“Too hard?” he asked. The side of his face rested on my thigh, his other hand wrapped around my other thigh, holding my leg wide and up.
“A little,” I said, and my voice was breathy.
“Do you like teeth everywhere?” He was strangely serious with his face on my thigh. But considering what his face was so close to, it was a serious question.
“No, not everywhere.”
He smiled, a quick flex of his mouth, making the dimples even deeper. “Then no more teeth.”
Honestly, a little biting along the inner thighs was nice, and if it was done right a little teeth in more intimate places could work for me, but I didn’t know Ethan that well. Erring on the side of caution seemed like a good idea for the first time.
“No more teeth down there,” I said.
“Anything else you don’t want me to do?”
I thought about it. He stretched my leg out and let part of it rest lower down on his side, while he used my other thigh as a pillow. It was all strangely casual.
“Let’s try not to mark me where I’ll have to explain it to the other cops.”
“But I can mark you where they can’t see?”
“Depends on the mark, but if I’m in the right head space I like to come away with marks.”
“What can I do to get you in the right head space?”
“You like to leave marks?” I asked.
“Only if you enjoy it.”
“What do you enjoy?” I asked. The mood of sex and seduction was easing into something more normal.
He smiled and it was almost shy. That seemed the wrong word when a man had his head resting on my thigh and was looking at the most intimate parts of my body, but it was still the truth.
“Tell me,” I said.
He frowned up at me, and said, “You really want to know.”
“Of course I do.”
He rubbed his hand over the outside of my thigh, more petting it than anything. “Why ‘of course’?”
“I want you to enjoy yourself, too.”
He grinned, wide and sudden, his gray eyes filling with something close to laughter. “Oh, I’ll enjoy myself. I want to make sure you enjoy yourself.”
“Why?” I said.
“If you enjoy yourself, then there’s a better chance you’ll want to be with me again.”
It was perfect boy logic. “But I still want to know what you enjoy, Ethan.”
He looked perplexed. “I like sex with girls.”
That made me smile. “I think we have that covered.”
He grinned again, and then again that shy look came over his face. “I want to touch as much of you as you’ll
