Her life was going somewhere. Maybe straight to Hell, she didn’t know yet, but at least it was moving in a direction instead of standing still.
She led him straight through the living room and hallway and into her bedroom, smiling like a lunatic the whole way. She wasn’t even nervous, freaking out, or on the verge of a panic attack at the thought of being close to someone. She was excited instead.
“I live alone,” Nox said as she turned at the end of the bed and ran her hand down the hard mounds of his abs.
“Me, too.”
“No, I mean I have to live far away from everyone in Damon’s Mountains because I want to fight. Because I don’t understand people—”
“I don’t care about that. I understand it. You don’t belong, and I don’t belong.”
“Yeah, but I have this urge to make you belong.”
“What do you mean?”
Nox shocked her and cupped her cheeks gently with strong, calloused hands. “I want you to be okay and steady, and I don’t want to ruin you.”
“Nox, you can’t ruin me.”
“I ruin everything. On purpose. I like to. This is the first time I don’t want to ruin something, and I don’t know what to do.”
Oh, this man cared. He really did. He was admitting something hard. Nox the Runner was standing his ground and laying his insecurities in her hands.
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
He looked down at her with those piercing blue eyes, chest rising and falling too fast, his body humming with power as he searched her face. “I want to make you feel good,” he said in a low, growly voice.
“Holy moly, yes.”
“Say fuck,” he whispered, slipping his hands to her waist. He eased her toward the wall instead of the bed. “Say, fuck me, Nox.”
Her shoulders hit the sheetrock. “I don’t cuss.”
“Why?”
“Because…because…” Because Mom had told her it was unbecoming to say cuss words and she would need all the help she could get someday to land a man. It had been ingrained in her head not to say bad words so that maybe a boy would like her enough to keep her someday. And here was Nox, daring her to be bad and give him a filthy word. Here he was, daring her to live a little, change things up. And she liked change lately. At least with him, she did.
“Fuck me, Nox,” she said on a shaky, uncertain breath.
He smirked and lifted his chin, looked down his nose at her, his eyes blazing silver. “You made it sound like a question. Maybe we’ll play for a while, and then you’ll say it again when you mean it.”
Tease. Tease! She was ready. She just didn’t have confident speech. She parted her lips to argue with him and tell him he was being a brute, but he spun her around, grabbed her hands, and slammed them against the wall. He intertwined their fingers and nipped the back of her neck, then around to the base of her throat as he pressed his body against her back. Slowly, he bent down behind her and lifted the hem of her flowy dress, careful to brush his fingertips lightly along her outer leg as he dragged it up, up her body. And when he had the fabric all rucked up with one clenched fist midway up her stomach, he brushed those fingertips around her hip so softly she shook with chills that trembled up her spine. With anyone else, she would’ve been self-conscious when he got to her soft stomach, but right as the first tinges of embarrassment surged through her, Nox murmured a curse and told her, “You’re so beautiful,” in a snarly, sexy voice. Big, dominant bear shifter was drawing her fox up. Her inner animal was invisible most of the time, but right now, she was awake, present, watchful. She was ready for something Nevada didn’t understand.
There was a soft ripping sound, and then her tattered lacy panties were falling to the ground.
Nox flattened his strong hand against her stomach and then slipped his fingertips down, down, down between her legs. When his fingers touched her wet sex, she let off a moan and arched her back so that her butt pressed harder against his erection.
Nox pushed into her deep, like he couldn’t help himself, and the snarl in his throat vibrated through his chest and against her back. His beard tickled her shoulder as he dragged soft, biting kisses from her earlobe down the side of her neck. He was playing with her now, teasing her clit with the tip of his finger, then dipping it shallowly inside of her, up to one knuckle, then back to her clit again. Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. She wasn’t going to last long just from this. She rocked her hips into his touch the next time he pushed his finger inside of her, chasing him, pleading silently.
Another soft growl, and Nox released the fabric of her dress and pulled her hair gently, urging her to bow her back for him, or maybe it was a delicious punishment for pushing his pace. If so, she wanted to misbehave again.
Nevada slid her right fingertips down the wall and then cupped his hand between her legs. In, in, in, she wanted him inside of her.
“Good,” he murmured, plucking her earlobe gently with his lips. “Show me what you like. And then I’ll show you what I like.”
Okay then, hell yes then! Rocking against his hand, she put pressure on his knuckles, and he slid two fingers deep inside of her. God, she just about buckled right there against the wall. Her locked arm wasn’t going to support her, so she went to her elbow. Rolling her hips against his hand, she urged him inside again.
“Fuck, you’re so ready for me,” Nox murmured against her ear as he pushed into her again. “Do you know how hard it is to keep from burying myself in you right now? I want to fuck you so hard and so fast you’ll know exactly who you belong to.”
His words and his touch were building a fire in her middle, and when she rolled her hips against his hand faster, he allowed it. She was panting in tiny bursts now, moaning each time he hit her clit just right. This was everything and not enough all at once. And when Nox sucked hard on her neck, hard enough to make a hickey, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to mark her for a day, she lost it. “Nox, Nox,” she said mindlessly, begging for more, but unable to put her needs into words.
He pulled her into him tightly, his hard dick pressing against the fabric of their clothes, right against her ass. His fingers were driving deep inside her now, and even though she wanted more of him, she couldn’t stop either. Didn’t want to. This pressure he was building felt too good, and she was already on the edge of— “Oh! I’m coming, I’m coming.” Mindless. She was mindless and boneless, and Nox was holding her up, controlling her body with touch in a way no man ever had.
“Say it,” he growled in an inhuman voice.
Her voice steady, and confident, she said, “Fuck me, Nox,” just as her orgasm shattered her.
He now was bucking against her back in the same rhythm as he was fingering her, and she was right in the throes of a desperate need that eclipsed anything she’d ever felt before.