He stopped and drew her in close once more, pressing her head into his shoulder, still holding her off the floor. “You have made me so happy,” he said. “I didn’t think I could be this happy in this beast-state. I thought it was a curse, but how can it be a curse when you seem to like me like this?”
“Leto, here’s the truth that I know about who you are: You could turn into a raving ghoul, and you would still be the finest man I have ever known.”
He grew very still suddenly, so she continued, “I can remember the first day I met you. Of course, this was so long ago, but I was fighting with Thorne, begging him to be more careful. He had just joined the Warriors of the Blood, and I feared for him every day because he was reckless. He had come home, and just as I punched his arm, you folded into the room, into my home in Rome Two, so many years ago. Do you remember?”
“I do,” he said. “You were so angry and you glared at me.”
“I blamed you for introducing him to Endelle, for making him a Warrior of the Blood.”
“‘So you must be Warrior Leto.’ I’ll never forget your icy tone,” he said.
“But you merely smiled and looked at me, and I looked back. I … I’ve never told anyone this, but I had the worst crush on you.”
“You did not.” His eyes were wide, disbelieving.
“I did, and it lasted decades,” Grace said. “I made excuses to be near you. Did you ever think of me—back then, I mean?”
“Yes, I admit I did. Don’t you remember that I would always talk to you? Always ask how you were doing?”
“I thought you were being polite,” she said, smiling.
“I was smitten. You were so beautiful and so compassionate even then. But you were young, so very young. It wasn’t right. By then I was twelve hundred years old.”
And there was another truth of his character as he held her a foot off the floor, his body altered into the beast-state. He hadn’t pursued her because she was young.
With a rueful smile, he added, “And you know Thorne would have taken me apart if I’d courted you.”
She chuckled against his shoulder. “Yes, he would have. He was always very protective of me. Of both Patience and me.”
He held her tight, his arms compressing some of her wing-locks in the nicest way. She felt secure, even safe. Now, there was a novelty—that she felt safe, if for just this moment, in a world at war.
He drew back and let her slide to plant her feet on the floor. He smiled. He was so beautiful. He kissed her, then said, “I want to feel the backs of your knees over my shoulders. How does that sound?”
She blinked very slowly, and as soon as she understood his meaning, she squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered, a full-body shudder that went all the way down into her heels. She opened her eyes. “I would like that, Leto, very much.”
He kissed her again, and his tongue pierced her mouth. He moved in and out seductively. He sent, Can you feel that even my tongue is bigger?
She didn’t have time to answer him because suddenly she was airborne as he lifted her over his shoulder. He thumped across the floor to the bed and tossed her on her back. She bounced and laughed, but he didn’t so much as smile. He caught her ankles, and as he pulled her toward him, he dropped to his knees beside the bed and split her legs wide.
Her laughter drifted away because suddenly the room was full once more of forest scent and his head was easing down in the right direction until he was chuffing, making that resonant growling, huffing sound that somehow relaxed her pelvis. He brought her legs across the new breadth of each shoulder, and the fit was perfect.
She threw her arms back and closed her eyes, drowning in his scent.
Then he went to work on her.
* * *
Leto was being educated right now. When his beast-state had begun to rise five months ago, he would never have believed that it would have led him here, to a point that he felt comfortable in his skin. He was relaxed in his beast-state as his tongue plowed his woman, his breh.
He was getting used to the feel of his body, and, yes, parts were bigger. His tongue felt thicker, which made talking a challenge, but there was definitely an advantage as he licked in a wide slow path over Grace’s flesh, pressing his tongue into her folds, drawing away, then pressing and licking some more.
He used one arm to keep her h*ps seated because she was enjoying his attentions and kept moving around, her h*ps arching into him. It also stunned him just how sensitive she was, more than he had thought possible, but with each lap he could feel what she was experiencing. Add to that her sweet meadow scent, and his c**k was a missile again. But what he wanted still involved his tongue.
He dipped low, and as he entered her, driving deep, Grace let out a cry and a whimper all in one. He plunged now, and used the muscles of his tongue to change the position. He could feel her tight walls dragging over him, and he could feel what it was like to be invaded in that way. Her h*ps rocked steadily now, that motion as familiar as time, explaining the exact way he could please her.
Her gasps and cries grew steady and rhythmic. He wanted her to come. He slid his free hand beneath her waist and caught her lowest left wing-lock. Her cries turned low and guttural. “Yes” came out as a hoarse plea.
He rubbed first, then reached the sensitive aperture and flicked back and forth with the tip of his finger as he continued to drive his tongue ruthlessly.
He felt her come, the quick pulses deep within, the sudden jerks of her body, and the way she screamed from deep within her throat, as though his movements had set her on fire. Her body began to glow again so he drove deeper and harder. This time he pinched her wing-lock until she was thrashing on the bed, her heels pounding into his back. Her hands were now on the back of his head pushing as he thrust so that his tongue and chin slammed into her.
He loved it and only stopped when she stopped, when her body grew slack and her legs grew quiet.
“Oh, that was good,” she whispered, breathing hard.
“It’s amazing to feel what all this feels like to you.” He was breathing hard as well but for a different reason. He was ready for her again. He wanted to take her, to thrust into her with his h*ps pistoning fast. But he wanted something else, he just didn’t know what.
He rose up so that her legs fell to the sides, now draped over the bed. He stood in front of her looking down. The two inches of added height gave him a different perspective. She looked a little farther away, which made her appear more fragile. He loved how different they were, that she was woman, and in a physical sense more vulnerable than he would ever be. He leaned over her and planted his broad hand on her chest, his fingers spanning her, reaching easily from nipple to nipple.