“I’m truly flattered.”
“But?”
“Nobut.And.”
“And?”
I’m burning up when he slides his hands under my dress and peels off my underwear.
He presses them to his nose, inhaling my scent. My breath stutters, my entire body begging for more.
“I’m grateful to be invited to officially meet your family,” he says, dropping my panties to the side.
I whimper and arch my back as his hands find my calves, skimming them up to the backs of my knees.
Arousal trickles down my thighs from that simple caress. Except it’s not really simple. Not innocent either, when it’s him touching me.
It’s electric.
“This is everything I never knew I wanted.” He guides my leg up, and though I’m trembling, needy, desperate, I shift instinctively, angling my hips toward him while he settles my calf on his shoulder. “The dinner andthis.”
He levels me with a meaningful look. One I’m too overwhelmed to decipher.
“This?”
“As I said before, taking care of you.” He twists his head, his soft lips pressing a kiss to my calf. “You don’t need to go through a panic attack alone. You have me.”
Oh, no. He’s noticed just how broken I am. How bad the panic attack was.
It’s so humiliating I could die.
My hands fly up to hide my face, but before they get there, Alaric gives me a sharp shake of his head.
The need to please him overrides the embarrassment, and I drop them to the sides.
“Good girl. Don’t ever hide from me. Making sure you’re okay is a part of who I am now.” One hand steadies my thigh. The other bunches up the skirt of my dress. “That means I’m the lucky fucker who gets to be on his knees for you. Who makes you come as many times as you need until the panic subsides, until all you feel is pleasure.”
My lips part and close several times. I want to sayokay, badly, except what if he’s doing it out of pity?
“You don’t have to,” I whisper.
The dress fabric is being shoved into my hands. “Hold on, little devil.”
Relieved at having my answer, I latch onto it. A month ago, the thought of exposing myself to a man’s famished gaze would’ve made me blush. Stutter. Hide. I was a virgin.
Things have changed since Alaric claimed me. He’s owned my soul for years. Now, my body is his too.
I crave the depraved look in his eyes, stripped of pity.
I’m obsessed with his unwavering attention as much as everything else about him. It’s why the last of my panic vanishes when he gets this close, his breath hot on my wet skin.
I want. I need.
“Oh, fuck,” I grind out through clenched teeth when he starts licking me.
His tongue is vicious. Swirling, flicking, lapping at my sex. Alaric’s blue eyes burrow into mine, pupils blown as he does the most obscene, most mind-blowing things to my pussy.
When his thumbs part my lips, I feel what he has planned for me.