Zane is sitting with his back to me, reading something on a tablet at the table. He’s only dressed in a pair of khaki shorts, his back bare and beautiful, his ribcage flaring from narrow hips into those broad shoulders.
Well, bare in a manner of speaking. Most of his skin is covered in vibrant color and bold lines.
Oh my. Another dragon, a black serpentine monster covering his back, clawing at his ribs. Its long tongue and curling horns mesh with colorful flowers and insects that spill onto his arms and wrap around them in those striking sleeves I noticed on him from the start.
My naked feet are silent as I stalk closer, examining the designs. Then I really see them for the first time.
The scars.
I mean, I’ve touched them briefly, though in the moment, I barely felt them. Burn scars, Zane said. White round shapes, scattered all over his broad back, barely visible among the swirls of color. One of them is the dragon’s eye, the other a pearl held in wicked claws. So many burns. Some are clustered together, like fairy circles.
Something else catches my eye, and I bend closer. Artfully hidden in the swirling tattoos of spiders and red flowers, I see long, thin scars, as if done by a knife.
“What the hell?” Zane twists around and grabs me, hauling me back, so I smash into the table edge. “Dakota?”
Ow. I rub my hip where it collided with the table and prop my ass on the edge. “Sorry.”
He pushes his tablet away. A muscle twitches in his jaw. His mouth is pressed in a thin line.
This is a guy who doesn’t like surprises, I remember. Who likes being in control, because it keeps his demons at bay. I think again of the scars and his space-out moments and realize again how very little I know about his past—or his present.
“I read about your tattoo.” He observes me under lowered lashes, his dark eyes sharp and intent.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. The Death’s Head Hawkmoth, or deathmoth for short. Like your group. It’s supposed to bring bad luck and death. Why the hell did you choose it?”
I say nothing.
He leans closer, his eyes narrowed to slits. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s just a tattoo,” I mutter. “Why do you have spiders and dragons all over you?”
He shrugs. “Good luck charms. They protect me.”
“And my deathmoth protects me from death.”
“Seriously?”
“Sort of sympathetic magic, you see? Wear death on your skin, and death can’t touch you.”
And I don’t know why I’m telling him this, only that I should stop, right now.
His dark brows draw together. “Had any close encounters with death lately?”
“No.” And that’s the truth. It wasn’t lately. It was a long time ago. I see his shoulders relax. “Why so interested in my back all of a sudden?”
“I spent a good part of the night looking at your back.”
Warmth seeps into my cheeks. “Is that so? Why?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Bad dreams? I want to ask.
But then his hand lands on my leg, above the knee, and slides upward. His palm is warm and callused, and it feels good, so good I forget my question.
That’s when I remember one small detail and try to slap his hand away. “Wait.”
His palm presses inside my thigh. His lips lift in a grin. “What?”
“It’s just that, I couldn’t find…” My panties. He’s holding them in his other hand. My panties and my bra. “Zane…”
“Uh-uh. The first rule in this apartment is no underwear.” He winks, the silver hoops in his brow glinting.
“What are you talking about? Did your other roommates go around without underwear?”
“You’re a guest, not a roommate. For guests, the rules are different.”
My breath hitches when his hand moves upward. “So you steal the underwear off every girl you bring here?”
“I don’t bring girls here,” he whispers, his eyes half-lidded. He licks those dangerously sexy lips. “Just you.”
His hand inches up and up between my legs, and my brain is shutting down. “So you made this rule just for me?”
“Damn right.” He nudges my leg, and his voice goes huskier. “Open up for me.”
He leaves me no option as he pulls his chair closer and places his hands on my thighs, pushing them apart, exposing me. My skirt rides high up, bunching around my legs, and I shiver as the cool air hits me where I’m already hot and aching for him.
His dark eyes hooded, he stares at my exposed core and gives me a wicked smile. He passes his tongue over his lips in a slow slide that makes me catch my breath. God, this boy is sexy as sin.
“Beautiful,” he rasps, his voice smoky with desire, and tingles rush through me, prickling my skin and tightening my nipples to painful points. “Perfect.”
Nobody has done this to me before—stared at me like that. I try to close my legs, but he won’t let me.
“I want to ink an arrow here,” he strokes the inside of my thigh, making me dizzy with want. “Pointing to your sweet pussy with the words ‘eat me.’” He gives me a lazy grin, and I can feel myself clenching just from his voice.
“That’s from Alice,” I gasp as he leans in and blows, making me clench harder. “Alice in Wonderland.”
“I’ll show you wonderland,” he mutters.
Pulling my legs over his shoulders, he buries his face between my legs and gives a long, deep lick. His pierced tongue strokes me like a living flame, the barbell dragging along my seam. He plays with my clit, licking and sucking, until I explode in pleasure, delicious spasms shaking me from head to toe.
Holy shit.
He gives me one last, lingering lick that makes me moan helplessly and pulls back. He’s breathing hard, and the lazy grin is back, the one that says he’s enjoying himself and is ready to up the stakes.
Letting my legs down, he stands up, towering over me. Even in my brain’s short-circuited state, I feel my mouth going dry.
Christ, the boy is a god. Must be. Those abs are just divine. Muscles ripple across his chest as he reaches for his fly to undo his shorts. He pushes them down, and whoa. He’s rock hard, and although I’ve seen him once before, somehow his cock looks larger this time as he leans over me.
His hands trap mine against the table top. The controlled power in those corded arms and muscled chest takes my breath away.
“Today we do this my way,” he says and releases me to take out a condom and pull it on.
I want to tell him I’m back on the pill—because I want him to come inside me, I want to feel him one hundred percent. But I can’t speak, too enthralled by his voice, his handsome face, his powerful body. His cock.
Besides, it sounds fair. Anything sounds fair right now, just as long as he doesn’t stop.
And he doesn’t. He presses himself between my legs, stroking me with his thumb until I think I’ll come again, and then he replaces his thumb with his hard-on, pushing into me all the way.