Page 15 of Lost and Bound
He licked his lips, and shifted a little on his feet. Just the slightest involuntary movement. It was the first sign of uncertainty I’d seen in him.
His brow furrowed. “No one’s asked me for my word in a really, really long fucking time,” he said slowly, very low. “Not without threats or coercion. I could lie to you.”
I looked him in the eye, confident about this as I hadn’t been about anything in so long it felt like a completely foreign emotion. “You won’t.”
Something in his posture changed, those massive shoulders and broad chest straightening a little. “You have my word,” he said.
Chapter 4
Like I Fucking Matter
“Sit down,” I told him. And a little to my surprise, he did what I said, resettling on the pallet with his back to the wall.
Now that I’d really decided to do this, my temporary calm was dissipating, turning into a sick, belly-clenching anticipation. I stepped forward, following him to the miserable excuse for a bed that was all we had. I’d committed now. No going back. Like the few, nauseating seconds between jumping off a cliff and hitting the ground.
I knelt down next to him, almost touching. Close enough to reach out and touch, if I wanted to run my hand down over the heavy muscles of his chest. To touch his cock. Brush my fingers over his lips. They weren’t the kind of lips I’d usually want to kiss. Too firm, too masculine. I’d usually fucked women, or sometimes very pretty men. Like Nate, for example.
But it was all I had. He was all I had.
Could I say this? Gods, I didn’t want to admit it. I mean, there was nothing wrong with always having topped, obviously—it’d used to be a point of pride for me, even, douchey as that sounded. And I’d hate every second of him fucking me, either way—but the fact was…beyond my distaste for the idea, I was scared. And I didn’t want it to hurt. That was pathetic and cowardly, and probably irrelevant, considering how much it would definitely hurt when he drained me. But I didn’t want to spend possibly the last hour of my life getting hurt that way, too.
“I’ve never—I mean, I’m not a virgin, but—” I stopped, my lungs laboring, my throat closing. He reached out and wrapped his huge hand around my wrist. I didn’t have dainty wrists at all. Muscular forearms, and heavy bones. At least compared to an average person.
But his hand more than wrapped all the way around. He could’ve squeezed, ground my bones together, turned them into powder, disintegrated me.
Instead, he held me, the heat of his skin seeping into my chilled body.
I stared down at his hand on me. “I’ve had sex. Lots of sex. But…I want you to hold back a little. Ignore your instincts. Because—because I’m, okay, definitely not a virgin, but…a virgin for this.”
The hand tightened. “What.”
I could feel my face burning, like all the blood in my body had rushed there. I definitely didn’t have any left in my brain; I’d gone lightheaded and dizzy.
“Look, I’ve never gotten fucked, okay?” I looked up at him, challenging, daring him to laugh at me for my blushing embarrassment. He didn’t. He just stared at me, stony-faced. “Don’t just, you know, stick it in. Let me get some lube up there first, at least. Try to make it not hurt. I’m not going to enjoy it, I get that, but—fuck,” I snapped, goaded into real anger by the humiliation that rushed up and tried to choke me. “Can you stop staring at me like that? I know this is fucking awkward, I mean, awkward doesn’t even begin to cover it. But it’s been years. Fuckingyears, and you may be the last person to ever touch me. I don’t want it to be totally impersonal, like I’m a means to an end, just a hole you need to use for another reason.”
And shit, fuck,fuck, now my eyes were stinging, my face tingling with that crumpling feeling of trying to hold back tears. “Make me feel like I’m a fuckingperson, okay?” I choked out. “Like it matters to you. Like I—like I fucking mat—” I stopped dead, because his expression hadn’t even flickered. Gods only knew what was going on behind those unreadable silver eyes. Probably he was hoping I’d shut up soon so we could get on with it. I yanked my arm away and covered my face with both hands, resignation settling in like a heavy weight on my shoulders. “Forget it,” I muttered. “Just do what you need to do. Maybe try not to rip me open if you can help it. I know you never wanted to fuck me in the first place. I know you’d rather just get it over with.”
My chest heaved, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“Enough,” he said, low and firm, and it worked to cut me off. “Enough. Come here.”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t pull my hands away from my face. He’d see my eyes all wet and shiny. He’d see me, big bad werewolf, a twenty-seven-year-old grown-ass man, an anal virgin and fucking crying about it. Really goddamn impressive.
Big hands found my waist, pulling me inexorably in. I was forced to shuffle forward on my knees or topple over. His hands tightened, and he picked me up. Just like that, without any apparent effort at all, lifting me into his lap so that I straddled his thighs. My breath came hoarse and quick, and his slowly, in counterpoint. He rubbed his thumbs over my hipbones. The heat of his body surrounded me.
“Look at me.”
I didn’t want to. But I had to, the command in his voice vibrating through me.
I lifted my head and found his face an inch from mine, eyes glowing steadily, features composed. That muscle jumped in the angle of his jaw, the only sign that he felt anything at all.
He leaned in and set his mouth over mine, and I froze from the shock of it.
A kiss? He waskissingme?
Not really, though, because for a moment it was only that, a touch. Skin against skin. No more than his hand around my wrist had been.
And then he tilted his head and kissed me for real. His lips moved gently, coaxing me open. Softly. Tenderly, even. My skin itched with humiliation and shame, my cheeks burning all over again. Yeah, I’d never taken it up the ass, but I didn’t need to be treated like a sheltered virgin bride on her goddamn wedding night. Was he fuckingmockingme?
