Fade (34 page)

My world stopped spinning and my knees buckled.

Dace caught me to his chest and swung me up into his arms with ease. His mouth returned to that same pulse point before I could even miss it. As he strode through the kitchen and into the living room, his tongue wreaked havoc on my senses. I couldn’t think through the sensations he stirred inside me. Fire, love, need, desire … . How could one boy cause so much chaos inside me?

He laid me back on the couch and followed me down, holding himself above me with his arms on either side of my head. He reared back and looked at me, his expression fiercely radiant. His gaze tangled with mine, stripped bare of every barrier he so often built between us.

“Oh,” I whispered, breathless as I read in his eyes the truth of every single thing he’d confessed to me. The fear, the desire, and the hope. Every emotion shone in his emerald eyes like little diamond fires, branding me with the truth. Dace needed me as desperately as I needed him.

“Oh,” he whispered, and dropped his mouth to mine.

I leaned toward his kiss, everything in me clamoring for it.

His lips parted mine, his tongue sweeping inside to stroke and lap at my own. His kiss was wild and more possessive than anything he’d given me before. No fear or uncertainty, no hesitation. Part of him wasn’t trying to keep the wolf out or worrying that he’d hurt me. Every little bit of control he strove for constantly vanished. The kiss was exactly as territorial as he’d said he could be.

My entire being responded to him. My arms twined around his neck, my hands digging into his unruly hair. I wasn’t gentle either. I clutched him to me hard, arching toward him and drawing him closer. I wanted to claim him as much as he did me, and it wasn’t the wolf buried in me demanding that either. The desire to possess belonged to me alone. No walls, no doubts, and no reservations.

He came willingly, pressing his body to mine, yet not allowing his weight to settle fully on me. I whimpered as I felt solid muscle and heat press against me. Desire rocked through me, and I writhed beneath him, panting.

Dace groaned and tore his mouth from mine.

I whimpered at that the loss of his lips, and pressed myself even closer to him in silent demand. The sound he let loose had a wild sob fighting to break free from somewhere in the middle of my chest.

He leaned back slightly, lifting me with him. He slid his hands between us, tugging at my shirt. I lifted my arms willingly, needing his hands on my bare skin. He had the shirt off and on the floor in seconds, pushing me gently back to the couch.

“Oh,” I cried out as his hand pressed against my bare shoulder, burning like the sun.

He growled low in his throat, seemingly pleased at my reaction. His mouth claimed mine as wildly passionate as before. My world spun once more, everything but him and the feelings coursing through me ceasing to matter.

He nudged my legs apart and slipped between them, pressing against me.

I cried out against his lips at that contact, a hurricane now raging through me. How could my body contain so much without exploding apart at the seams?

Dace sucked my lip into his mouth, nipping, and then kissed along my jaw. His breaths were as shallow as my own, and mine were little more than shaky inhalations. Each one seemed full of him as he nuzzled at my neck and painted kisses down my throat before his tongue flicked across that same pounding pulse point. I think I melted beneath him as his teeth raked across my throat and traveled lower.

My heart stopped when he dipped his tongue into the hollow between my breasts to stroke a lazy line across my heart. I arched my hips into his, searching for something beyond my reach, beyond my understanding. Air hissed between his teeth, and he nipped at my skin less gently. His entire aura kissed me, stroking like fingers everywhere his body pressed to mine. It felt like fire and ice and perfection.

He ran his mouth lightly across the fabric of my bra, the look in his eyes wicked.

I cried out his name, my head thrashing against the couch arm. The sensation that slammed into me as he pressed his hips firmly against me drove all thought beyond wanting—needing—to feel it again from my mind. I was spiraling out of control, and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop.

He raked his teeth across my bra, pulling my skin into his mouth through the fabric and biting.

I nearly sobbed when he burrowed into my mind. Sensation poured into me like water from a faucet, not what I felt, or even what he felt. It was what
we
felt, ripping through me until I couldn’t see straight. The wolf didn’t try to get in this time. He didn’t make a move toward me, but he howled in my head, as if he fully supported what Dace did to me and was content to let it happen.

Dace grabbed my hip and swung it off him, spinning me in one of those moves my mind moved too slowly to grasp. It caught up as he leaned back on the couch with me straddling his lap and my arms braced on each side of his head. I growled, frustrated, that the pressure I wanted was no longer where I needed it to be. I pressed down onto his legs eagerly but to no avail.

Dace chuckled darkly and lifted me higher, his hands digging into my bottom and his fingers kneading through my sweats.

“Patience, love,” he whispered, guiding my body closer to him.

I moaned his name as he trailed his tongue along my left side, then raked his teeth across my abdomen. My entire body actually quivered in response. This is what I’d felt in those memories. The way he’d loved me beyond reason for lifetimes. His feelings for me were as gentle as waving grass and as fierce as a thunderstorm. His love was endless, unashamed, and right.

Everything in me wanted more. More, more, more. More of Dace, more of his kisses, and his passion. More of everything.

He snaked one of his strong hands around my waist and skirted the very tip of his finger playfully beneath the waistband of my sweats. A new wave of sensation stabbed through me, causing my stomach to flip wildly.

His eyes blazed up at me. “You like that,” he said, and then repeated the same motion.

I wanted to tell him how very much I liked it, but couldn’t find the words through the haze of pleasure rolling through my mind. I didn’t need words anyway. Dace felt my response quaking through me.

The answering groan ripping from his throat was more expressive than words would ever be. He lifted me until I straddled precariously over him. His tongue darted out to lick along that same line his hand had taken.

My head lolled backward.

The waistband of my sweats inched down beneath his hands. His tongue swirled around my hipbone, lapped a line across my stomach so deliciously low that I did sob this time. When his teeth raked a return path across that same skin, I cried out his name.

His mouth closed over my hipbone, his teeth sinking gently into my flesh.

You belong to me,
he growled as he’d done the very first time I met him. I wasn’t sure if the words came from him or the wolf, but it didn’t matter either way. I belonged to both of them.

The world exploded suddenly and unexpectedly around me as he pressed his hand against me. I felt like I’d been flung high into the air and let go. Sensation rained down around me, wave after wave of it boiling through me, turning my bones to mush and then leaving them behind.

“Feel it, love,” Dace crooned aloud as another wave and then another followed on the heels of the first. His emotions pulsed like a tangled knot in my head as he continued to touch me. Pride, pleasure, and his utter satisfaction at seeing his faint mark on my skin and his hand where no other had ever been all rocked through me like a sonic boom.

“You belong to me, Arionna,” he whispered fiercely. “To
me
.”

I returned to myself what felt like an eternity later, with my body splayed across the couch and my head cradled against Dace’s stomach while his hands stroked through my hair. I opened my eyes to find him staring down at me, his expression as triumphant and honest as his words had been. His green eyes burned with fierce lights.

My stomach flipped again.

I tried to smile, but couldn’t get the muscles in my face to cooperate. “I do belong to you,” I mumbled, unable to fully form the words.

He heard my confession anyway, and his eyes blazed brighter. He smiled at me and stroked a hand down my cheek very gently. He was a ball of ecstasy in my head, as if my admission gave him more pleasure than what he’d managed to give me.

“Sleep, love,” he said.

His wolf rumbled his agreement.

My eyes fell closed.

I felt him shift beneath me. “Don’t go,” I cried out, the words thick and garbled. I tried to reach for him. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not leaving you.” He pulled me into his arms, adjusting positions with me cradled to his chest. I felt him stretch out beside me on the deep sofa. My body curled immediately, naturally, around his. My worry evaporated.

“I’ll never leave you,” he promised, his voice thick with emotion.

Sleep claimed me.

I awoke slowly, feeling more rested and warm than I had in a long time. Something tickled at the back of my mind, something important, but I ignored the sensation. Too comfortable to attempt chasing it down. The feeling was not so easy to ignore though.

I sighed and cracked open my eyes. My dark purple curtains were missing, and I wasn’t in my bed. Realization came in a blink.

Dace lay beside me.

“Oh, hell,” I squeaked, jerking back as the implications of that rang through me like a gong.

His arm snaked around my waist, pulling me to him as I nearly fell off the couch. “Don’t go,” he groaned, sounding sleepy and cuddling against my back. “You feel good.” He nuzzled at my neck, his breath warm in my ear. “And your father isn’t freaking out,” he said, hearing the frantic circling of my thoughts.

His words cut through the panic, immediately silencing all of it.

“He’s not?” I frowned and tried to sit up. “Let me go.”

He tightened his arm around me, growling, and I swatted at him.

“Ungh,” he grumbled, and then huffed. He sat up suddenly, pulling me onto his lap and cracking open one eye. “Happy now?” He looked so sleepy and rumbled.

My heart fluttered.

First things first
, I chided myself.

“Why isn’t he freaking out?”

“Because you’re an adult, and he thinks I’m awesome,” Dace said around a yawn, his tone trying, and failing, to tease. He was definitely not a morning person.

I frowned at him.

“Because we’re both more or less dressed, and I lied. I lied like the wind,” he said as I glared.

More or less dressed? My face flushed as I remembered the shirt he removed last night. And then I realized I had my shirt on, but my shoes were missing. “You got me dressed?”

I didn’t remember that.

“It seemed wisest,” he said, yawning again.

I remained silent, trying to reconcile my mind to the news that Dad hadn’t freaked out about Dace sleeping in the same bed, or couch, as me. All night long, if the faint light coming in through the window was any indication. I couldn’t quite imagine it though.

“Arionna,” Dace said, shaking his head, “he’s a college professor. And he trusts you. He trusts me with you.”

I tried to absorb that, then giggled.

“Maybe he shouldn’t,” I said around my giggle, unable to hold the memories back any longer. If I lived a thousand more lifetimes, I would never feel anything comparable with anyone else. Ever.

The thought reminded me of something. I frowned, glancing up at Dace from beneath my lashes. “Why didn’t we—?” My cheeks flamed, and I broke off, unable to finish the question.

He didn’t speak for a minute, seeming more tense than he had been moments ago. He shifted beneath me before wrapping his arms around me again. “I told you, only when you won’t regret it.”

Oh.
I swallowed and then nodded as all the reasons I might have regretted it skipped through my mind. He’d let me in a little, but we still had a long way to go.

“I have a confession to make,” I whispered, nervous.

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t walk home the other day, at least not all the way.” I closed my eyes, scared to see his expression. “I got a ride.”