“There it is,” he breathed. He brushed her lips with his. The flame leaped at her core. Delicious, searing.
Custo’s mouth settled on hers in a hot and hard press of heat and she was adrift in molten sensation. Angel, demon, she didn’t care. She was near senseless with the smooth friction of his mouth, the way he surrounded and consumed her body in the furnace of his. Custo must have moved because his hand supported her head, the length of his arm at her spine to hold her close. Her sexy protector. His chest against hers was hard, strong, and packed with strength. Her muscles answered by loosening in some places and straining in others in a strange coordination that took no years of practice, just human nature.
She barely gasped for air when he darkened the kiss to taste her. He found her hip and drew her snugly against his thigh. The movement sent a deep, glorious thrum through her system. She squirmed against him, trembling—yes, please, more!—her hand finding and fisting in his hair. He eased his palm under her ass to move her onto his lap. She helped, straddling him, not caring that the bedsheet slid to the floor to leave her tank and underwear exposed.
Annabella reciprocated by pulling his shirt from his pants—too bad he’d been so neat and pressed before—and feathered her fingers over the ripples of his stomach to the defined mound of his pecs. His skin was smooth, hot, his nipple a flat patch of satin.
Her body was talking now, and she’d spent her life learning to listen to its demands, coaxing its limits higher, stronger, faster. Custo was about to push those limits further, his wide hands hot on the bare skin of her thighs. His thumbs fingering the elastic of her panties.
Yes, yes. Naked would be good. Naked would be very good. She squirmed to give him access, but he grabbed her hips with both palms to hold her still, groaning.
“Stop that, Bella. I’ve been two years dead…damn it…” His voice was gruff against her mouth, as if he were fighting himself.
The torturous knot in her pelvis pulsed, ached. She’d known him a single day, but she was certain that there was only one thing to do to a Custo on the brink: push.
The bunch of his shirt caught her wrist. She reversed her direction, sliding her hand down to the tight waist of his pants. A damn belt held them firmly in place, so she wrapped her fingers around the band and pulled at it with a whine.
“Not yet,” he murmured as his mouth broke away to graze her neck. She tilted her chin up to give him the length of her. To give him everything.
Warm breath brushed her cheek and sent a chill down her back, prickling her skin. Custo nuzzled the hollow below her ear. His teeth grazing, just there.
A sudden flash of the wolf’s mouth on that very spot had her blood stalling, her muscles freezing up with poison cold and a memory of fear. Her nerves quivered, but not in a good way. The wolf had wanted to be inside her, too. Had touched her just like that.
Custo froze as well, his mouth on the bad spot.
Reality shredded the moment.
She focused her lust-clouded eyes and took in the foreign apartment and remembered why she was there. Custo was so fantasy-hot, but…This is too fast. Too much.
“I’m not the wolf, Annabella,” Custo said against her skin. His chest heaved against her, their shared rhythm now at odds.
“I know you’re not,” she said. But…
One coherent thought allowed a line of others to intrude: She didn’t really know Custo at all. Angel? Insanity. All she really knew, really trusted, was dance.
Dance. And not the bedroom kind. She should be getting ready.
The last embers of her arousal doused with a sick, disappointed hiss. She shifted back, away from Custo, easing herself first on the bed, and then scrambled to stand at the side.
She took a steadying breath. “I’m…uh…interested. There’s just a lot going on…” Her feeble attempt at an explanation dribbled away to nothing. The air was cold on her almost-naked skin. With him glowering at her like that, a long-dead vestige of her modesty kicked in, shaming her. Heat scorched her cheeks while she shivered.
But if he had something to say, she’d take it before running and hiding in the bathroom. She owed him that much. She trembled, waiting, hoping she hadn’t completely screwed things up. Yeah, he was going to help her, and he was physically delicious, but, well, she was starting to like him, too.
Custo inclined his head, jaw flexing. “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t have to apologize. That made her feel worse. “It’s just—”
“Don’t worry about it.” The side of his mouth slowly tugged up, but she could see the muscles of his body were still tense. He stood, approached—the smell of him had her aching again—and kissed the top of her head. “I have some work to do before we leave for the city. I better get to it.”