Chapter 272
Fighting laughter is even harder, but I manage. “Looks like the wrong order,” I comment, since he doesn’t seem capable of saying anything.
Caine sets the bag and drink on the dining table. Still not a single word.
He doesn’t look at the food again; no, his eyes are already on me, dark and intent, and he stalks across the room with tight focus.
My stomach flips.
“Wait.” I hold up a hand and take a step back, my attention still focused on his dragons—no, on the McDonald’s. “Call the delivery guy p>
He doesn’t slow down and I take several more steps back until I hit a wall.
“Caine, call him back. Tell him he brought the wrong food and he needs to come back with p>
“I’ll order it again,” he says simply, settling his hands on my waist.
My body leans forward, already accepting the vibes he’s giving off. But my frugal brain keeps screaming about McDonald’s and how there’s a vast difference between a Big Mac and an expensive seafood dinner.
“You already paid for—how much was it? Call him, it’ll take two seconds, or at least get a refund p>
“Later,” he says calmly, yanking my hips forward until my robe is squished up against his dragon pants. And his dragon. You know—his dragon.
Yeah.
That one.
My eyes bounce around, unable to accept the money he’s literally throwing away. “Just check your phone. One call. Thirty seconds. Then p>
“Grace p>
“You can’t just throw money away because you’re—” I wave at his bare chest, at the dragons, at the general situation, “—impatient p>
One arm hooks behind my knees, the other around my back, and I go weightless as he lifts me to his naked chest.
I grab at his shoulder as he turns and walks us into the bedroom, looking back at the forlorn, mistakenly ordered McDonald’s on the table. “It’s a waste of money!” I try again, unable to let it go.
“It’s my money to waste p>
I smack his shoulder. Hard enough that my palm stings, not hard enough to register on whatever planet his pain threshold exists on, wolf shifters be damned.
“That’s not the point p>
The blasted man tosses me.
My back hits the mattress but before I can even orient myself, his hands find the collar of the robe and yank.
The man seems to have a gift for tearing seams because it tears apart like it was made for it, even though all he had to do was untie the front in half a second.
“Hey p>
But the we’re-gonna-have-to-pay-for-that outrage dies in my throat as his warmth settles over me, both palms flat on the mattress on either side of my head. I’ve been caged in a frame of tattooed skin and raw sexuality and oh my God, why does he smell so good?
I sniff as discreetly as I can, hoping my nostrils don’t flare like an overworked horse.
He didn’t take any cologne into the bathroom, so this is his natural scent, overwhelming even the hotel shampoo and body wash.
Caine’s knees bracket my hips. The tattered front of my robe wings out to either side of me, needlessly ruined. The only thing to survive is the belt still tied around my waist, and for some reason I shiver despite being enveloped in body heat.
His stormy eyes stare down at me in silence and I can’t meet them, looking left, right, and anywhere in between, but not at his face or the gaze boring into mine.
The brief high of Grace Power is long gone, submissive in the face of his dominance, even when I try to kick myself into taking the reins.
But it doesn’t work, because even I’m capable of realizing the difference between Caine holding back and Caine bulldozing forward. Anything I do would just fast forward what’s about to happen, which—while enticing—still comes with the memory of pain, mixed in with the excitement thudding behind my ribs.
His mouth finds my ear and teeth graze the lobe with the faintest pressure in the gentlest and most excruciating nibble. Warmth pools low in my abdomen and I wriggle uncomfortably.
“Are you really that hungry?” he asks, every syllable hot and pulsing in my ear.
What’s food? What’s money? The concept of a refund flies out of my head without a single farewell.
I shake my head.
“It’s not about… it’s the principle of the… you know, money doesn’t grow on trees…” The mumbled words don’t even make sense to me, with 99.9% of my brain power focused on how his left leg is pressed right against my thigh and how there’s a faint buzzing every time his mouth brushes my skin.
I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s almost like the arcana in my body is shivering.
His lips drag from my ear down the side of my neck, and the first kiss he presses there is so gentle it barely qualifies. The second is firmer. The third lingers, his mouth open and warm against my pulse point, and my toes curl against the bed.
It’s not my imagination. My arcana’s shaking, like it doesn’t know what to do with itself. Or maybe it’s just me trembling like a rabbit cornered by a hungry wolf.
“I’m not so poor,” he murmurs into my throat, “that a single dinner will bankrupt me, Grace p>
The vibration of his voice hums against my skin, but I barely register the words he’s speaking. At some point my hands make it to is shoulders and I dig my fingers into the hard muscle there, wondering why his skin still feels so cold while radiating so much heat.
Caine’s teeth close on the curve of my neck, firm and deliberate, not quite a bite but nowhere near gentle, and I suck in a sharp breath. My muscle-digging grip evolves into a flat slap of my palm against his shoulders in automatic protest.
The pressure eases immediately.
“I never said you were poor,” I mutter, finally rewinding my brain to hear his words properly. The words are a bare sputter of breath and sound, but his teeth ease against my throat, replaced by the slow drag of his tongue against the spot he just claimed.
He grunts, and the resonance makes me shiver again.
He rises just enough to hover over my mouth, close enough for his breath to ghost across my lips. The kiss is shockingly gentle, a mere press of his lips.
“I have enough money to take care of you and the kids,” he says simply.
I nod because his mouth is right there and his hand’s sliding over my abdomen and up, his thumb brushing against the underside of my breast. Coherent thought has packed its bags and left and if the man thinks I’m listening, he’s crazy.
Another kiss. Softer. His lips part just enough to taste mine and I whimper at the tease of his gentle affection.
“For the rest of your life,” he adds. His thumb drifts higher, but not high enough, and I shift impatiently. “Anything you want p>
The words he’s speaking finally break through my one-track mind and I stare up at his no longer stormy and yet still so intense gray eyes. Warmth blooms in my heart this time as the part of my brain still capable of rational function processes.
Which, granted, is the size of a pea right now, but it’s fighting valiantly, okay?
A laugh bubbles up before I can stop it. It isn’t as if what he’s saying is funny, but his earnest attempt at providing me reassurance over a simple messed up order and a lack of refund is just too endearing.
“So you can buy me a giant oceanfront mansion, then p>
He stills. The lazy heat in his expression shifts, as if he’s running calculations behind his beautiful gray eyes. “I can kill someone for theirs if you really want it p>