Novel23 Chapter 320: Comfortable, Bug?
Chapter 320: Comfortable, Bug?
"Begged, actually. Pretty sure that was begging." His thumb traced a circle against her spine, and she shivered, remembering exactly what she’d begged for, and the blush spread down her neck to her chest, which only made the marks more visible.
Voss pushed off the wall. She felt the floorboards shift under his weight as he crossed the room in three strides, and then his massive frame was blocking the light from the lantern, casting her in shadow. He looked down at her at the bruises, at the way she leaned into Dimitri’s chest like her bones had given up on structural integrity, and the hard line of his jaw eased. Not by much. But enough.
"You’re swaying," he said quietly.
"I’m fine."
"You’re not." His hand came up, calloused and rough-skinned, and cupped the side of her face. His thumb brushed the edge of a hickey on her jaw. She watched the muscle in his cheek jump, a flash of possessiveness so raw it bordered on fury before he swallowed it down. "Come here."
He didn’t wait for Dimitri to release her. He simply reached in and gathered her up against his chest, one arm under her knees and the other cradling her back, and Dimitri let her go with the easy confidence of a man who’d already left his marks where everyone could see them.
The smell of Voss cedar and salt and the particular musk of wolf surrounded her as he carried her to the bed and set her down against the pillows with the kind of careful precision usually reserved for things that could shatter. Her chest ached. Not from pain. From the unbearable tenderness of being handled as if she mattered more than anything else in this broken world.
"You know," she murmured, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt before he could pull away, "you could just ask me to come to bed. Like a normal person."
His lip twitched. "Where’s the fun in that?" He pressed his mouth to her forehead, brief, firm, claiming, and his wolf ears angled toward her like she was the only frequency worth tracking.
The others closed in like a tide.
Victor appeared on the left side before she’d finished settling, his wing draping over her like a shield of silver-and-midnight feathers, his hand finding hers and threading their fingers together with a grip that bordered on painful. She squeezed back. Some of the iron in his shoulders released, though his gaze kept returning to her neck, cataloguing every mark with that barely contained fury of a man who hadn’t been the one to put them there.
"Stop counting them," she whispered.
"I’m not counting." He absolutely was. His thumb swept across her knuckles, back and forth, a rhythm that steadied them both. "I’m memorising."
"That’s worse, Victor."
"Is it?" Not a question. His wing tucked tighter, cocooning her in pine and frost and the electric ozone smell of his power held in check.
Damien materialised on her right, his body coiling against her side in a sinuous line, scales smooth and heated where they pressed against her arm. His hand settled on her stomach, possessive, reverent, and she felt the low rumble of contentment in his chest vibrate through her ribs. His forked tongue flickered against her shoulder, tasting her skin, tasting the other men on her, and instead of the jealousy she expected, his grip tightened with satisfaction. She was here, and she was theirs. That was enough.
"You smell like every male in this room," he murmured against her collarbone, the muted hiss threading through the words.
"And whose fault is that?"
His golden slit-pupil gaze lifted to hers. "Mine. Partially." The corner of his mouth curved dangerously, pleased, unapologetic. "I started it."
Ivan took the foot of the bed, sitting with his back against the post, one massive scarred hand wrapping around her ankle like a tether. His mist curled lazily around the room, a living thing that pressed against the walls and windows like a secondary perimeter. When she wiggled her toes against his thigh, the stern line of his mouth softened into a ghost of amusement, and he squeezed her ankle once. Grounding. Present.
Lucan teleported to the other side of Victor space folding with that brief visual distortion, stuttering slightly as it always did near her. Close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him, but not touching. Strategic. Always strategic. Except his hand settled on her calf, just below Ivan’s grip, and his molten gold gaze flickered to hers with a vulnerability he would deny if she named it.
"Lucan," she said softly.
"Don’t." he paused, His thumb moved against her calf, a single stroke. "I’m here, and that’s sufficient."
"You’re allowed to touch me. You know that, right?"
His jaw tightened. Then his hand slid higher, fingers curling around the curve of her knee, and the breath he released was controlled but not steady. Not quite.
And Dimitri, Dimitri climbed in behind her, his chest against her back, his arm draping over Damien’s to rest on her hip. She felt his breath against the shell of her ear, satisfied and slow, and his thumb traced idle patterns over the bruise he’d left on her hipbone through the thin fabric of the shirt.
"Comfortable, Bug?" he murmured, and she could hear the grin in it.
"You’re all ridiculous," she managed.
"And yet." His lips grazed the hinge of her jaw. "Here you are."
Seven. A tangle of limbs and heat and territorial energy so thick she could barely breathe through it. Every inch of her was touched by someone held, bracketed, claimed from every direction. The weight of them should have been suffocating. Instead, it felt like being held together.
Her tail uncurled from around her leg for the first time all night, the pale gold fur settling against Voss’s thigh where he’d positioned himself at her side, and she let out a shaky exhale that turned into a sound dangerously close to a sob.
"Hey." Victor’s voice was rough. His free hand came up to cup her cheek, tilting her face toward him, and the anger in his eyes had been replaced by something far more devastating, a concern, raw and naked. "What’s wrong?"