His fingers still against my shoulder, and for whatever reason, there's a heavy, foreboding feeling creeping into my heart.
"Were you planning on doing it a second ti?" he asks, his voice perfectly even-keeled and yet sohow still so very, very dangerous.
All my danger senses are blaring, making my entire body go stiff.
Then, strangely, there's a whiff of what feels like a transfer between us. Or maybe it's my imagination.
More importantly, his question leaves nonplussed. "Er… How many tis do you think a person can do it?" I ask tentatively, wondering if there's so sort of re-virgining I've never heard about. I an, shifters heal fast, so I guess it's possible…
But then again, I'm a human, so…?
And yet it feels a bit like I've shoved my foot into my mouth as the truck suddenly decelerates.
Uh-oh.
My hand shoots out to brace against the dashboard, even as his hand drops to my waist, holding back and giving the stability any reasonable person would crave after a sudden braking on the highway.
Caine pulls onto the shoulder. The occasional car whizzes by without a care.
Then, after a deliberate shift into park, he turns to face with the full, undiluted weight of his Lycan King aura. His hand slides up my back and behind my neck, and my body, blissfully ignorant to the sudden turmoil of the situation, shivers under his touch.
His fingers curl into the hair at my nape, infinitely gentle, contradicting the absolute storm in his gray eyes. And for whatever reason, I keep feeling like he's pulling my energy again, only it's such a whisper I'm pretty sure it's not happening.
Maybe.
But more importantly: I'm in trouble. For so reason.
"You will not do this with anyone else," he states, still with that absolute level of calm. The kind where my stomach quivers with nervousness.
I nod imdiately, even though I'm still not sure why I'm agreeing not to lose my virginity to a second person. Still, I'm not about to argue with a territorial alpha.
That would lead to, well, an argunt.
And then it would delay… things.
Much more fun, highly anticipated things.
So no, I'm not opening my mouth this ti.
At all.
For sure.
But then my mouth opens on its own and I say blankly, "Can it happen a second ti?"
It's the burning question here, isn't it?
Both of his brows swoop down, just a tiny fraction, but it's enough to have verbally scrambling. "I an, who else is supposed to be on the nu? Aside from you, there's no one."
His nostrils flare. The storm behind his eyes dissipates, and his thumb traces a slow line up the side of my throat to the hinge of my jaw. Whatever strange whisper of energy between us disappears.
Then he smiles. "Good girl."
I breathe a ntal sigh of relief. Crisis averted.
He rubs his thumb against my jaw a few tis, before finally leaning over to kiss my forehead.
Then he turns around and the truck rumbles back to life, as if this brief interlude never happened.
We rge back onto the highway without another word.
* * *
Rose petals.
Everywhere.
Red ones, scattered across the floor of our posh little suite, like soone committed a very romantic murder. They trail from the door toward what I assu is the bedroom in a deliberate path, so clumped in little piles where whoever did this got overenthusiastic. A few have already curled at the edges, which ans they've been here a while.
On the small dining table to the left, a bottle of wine sits in a silver ice bucket that's perspiring in the warmth of the room. Beside it, two glasses. And beside those, a neat stack of folded clothes. I step closer.
A simple pink blouse, jeans, and socks.
And underneath—
I lift the blouse's edge with one finger.
A bra. Nude, lace-trimd, and—I check the tag—yep, my exact size.
Next to it, a matching pair of underwear that is decidedly not the kind of underwear I would pick for myself. Not because it's bad, but because it's the kind that exists solely to be removed.
My face burns, and I promise myself to never feel bad for Jack-Eye again.
Ever.
I press my palms to my cheeks, which does absolutely nothing to cool them.
There's a loveseat in cream fabric, a flat-screen TV mounted to the wall, and a small kitchenette with a coffee machine.
It's nice. It's genuinely, unexpectedly nice, and my heart warms.
Thankfully, the simring tension of the car ride has cooled considerably, even if the conversation we need to have hasn't been had. Granted, it was kind of hard to bring it up…
Caine steps behind to take a quick look at my clothes, giving an approving hum before he tosses a shopping bag onto the loveseat without further ado. It's the only piece of luggage he brought in, so I'd assu it's his clothes.
I'm a little curious what they look like, but more than that, this is… awkward.
We're in a hotel room. To have sex, basically.
And how the hell does one segue into that?
"There's a bedroom," I say, pointing toward the half-open door at the far end of the suite, because it seems like relevant information and also because I apparently can't survive an awkward mont in silence.
He makes a soft, affirmative-seeming sound.
That's promising.
I take that as acknowledgnt and head toward the door, stepping over a cluster of petals that stick to the sole of my shoe. Before I even take a second step, an arm hooks around my waist, flipping my world upside down.
My feet leave the ground and my stomach lurches as I grab onto anything to hold myself steady.
Anything turns out to be the back of Caine's shirt, and directly in my eyesight is his butt, flexing as he walks.
I… am over his shoulder.
Over. His. Shoulder.
Like a sack of potatoes. With a great view, but still, potatoes.
"What—"
But he's already moving. Three strides and we're in the bedroom, where I catch an upside-down glimpse of a king-sized bed with white sheets and more rose petals before blood rushes to my head and rational thought kicks back in with the force of a freight train.
"Wait—wait—"
His hand presses flat against the back of my thigh, holding in place with the kind of casual strength that suggests this requires zero effort on his part. My ribs dig into his shoulder. My hair dangles toward the floor. One of my shoes falls off and hits the carpet with a sad little thwap.
"Caine. Caine!"
He stops. Not because I asked, I suspect, but because he's reached the bed.
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