Page 74 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
“Gage, I don’t nee?—”
I reposition myself on the bed, plastering my back to her headboard and spreading my legs apart so that there’s room in front of me. “Come here,” I demand, brooking no room for argument as I pat the comforter.
I can tell Cali wants to protest with the way she glares at the spot like it’s been contaminated with some kind of biowarfare poison.
“I think I’m okay over here.”
“Cali, get your sweet little ass over here,” I growl, whacking the mattress again for good measure, though I’m not above grabbing her and planting her right between my thighs. Which, in hindsight, probably won’t turn out well for me.
She gives up the heating pad like a dog stubbornly relinquishing a chew toy. Rolling her eyes, she crawls over to me—which shouldn’t look as sexy as it does—and then squeezes herself between my legs, moving her butt around until it’s perfectly snug against my cock.
She turns to look over her shoulder, her eyes like spearpoints aimed directly at me. “Why am I sitting here?”
“If you’d justrelax, I’m going to massage the cramps out.”
“Pfft, there’s no way that’s going to work.”
“It is going to work, and you’re not going to fight me on thisbecause I picked your lifeless body off the floor less than thirty minutes ago.”
Cali grumbles to herself but slowly melts into my chest, sheathing her claws and fangs enough for me to wrap my arms around her torso, placing my hands over her bare, rounded belly. The hard fly of her pants digs into my forearms, but it doesn’t bother me.
She flinches. “Your hands…”
My hands flinch alongside her. “What?”
“They’re warm,” she observes, eventually settling into the mold of my palms and letting me feel her stomach balloon with a deep breath.
She’s gone boneless against me, resting her head against my chest, and I begin to knead her lower abdomen, exerting pressure as my fingers rub meticulous circles into her flesh. The steadiness of her voice dips into a raspy moan, dialing my hunger for her to a ravenous ten, and the fact that her ass is swallowing my dick doesn’t do much to satiate my soaring libido.
I locate a tight muscle and coax the tension out, determined to fend the cramps off for as long as possible. Is massaging the best preventive measure? Probably not, but I’ll give anything to be skin to skin with her for even a second.
“Oh, God…” She lurches forward as far as our position allows, too slow to quiet her cry before it pierces the air, just bordering on being loud enough to warrant a visit from a curious eight-year-old.
“Quiet, Spitfire. Teague’s still in the house, remember?” I nip at the stretch of neck below her earlobe, feeling her pounding pulse bash against my lips, tasting the salt from the traces of sweat still lingering on her skin.
“But it feels so good,” she whines.
You have no idea.
I continue to massage the swell of her belly, listening to the concoction of heated breaths and muffled whimpers in the otherwise silent space. I wish I could see how lax her face is—the dopey smile sewn onto her mouth, the struggle to keep her eyes open.
Sexual bodily desires aside, I focus on just being here with her in the present, committing to memory the feel of her body in my arms. I don’t allow myself to mourn her absence yet, even if I fear the self-imposed distance that follows. Whenever I’m away from her, all I can think about is running straight back to her. Runninghome.
“Are you feeling any better?” I ask, allowing my fingers to rest below her navel.
I’m not expecting much aside from a “yes,” but Cali turns around to face me, looking a thousand times more relaxed than she did a few minutes ago. No tight cinching of her brow, no concerning flush on her face, no misty eyes rife with fever.
A big, blush-inducing smile rewards me for my efforts, something strange and foreign swirling around in those stormy eyes. “Thank you, Gage.”
“You don’t have to thank me. If you got your period every day, I’d give you a massage every day until you felt better.” I’m probably as red as a beet, but I don’t feel the need to hide it anymore. If my body wants to make a fool out of me and broadcast my emotions for her to see, then so be it.
“Of course you would say something like that,” she chuckles.
“Because it’s true.”
Cali grabs my hand—which is still buzzing with the warmth from her skin—and interlocks our fingers together, not caring that my palms are a little clammy or that my blush deepens and slopes down my collarbone. “Because you’reyou,” she corrects.
Maybe I’m love-drunk or dehydrated or extremely sleep-deprived, but I swear that the anomaly forming in her now-gray irises resembles something close to…love.
