Page 23 of Phantom’s Mate

His panther gave another growl. “You have no idea,” he said. “How bad I am, or how much I like biting.”

“I can’t wait to find out.”

He proceeded to show her, covering her neck and chest with little love bites, soothing them with kisses. When she was writhing against him, he kissed her lips again and said, “What are your thoughts on re-creating that bed I saw in here earlier?”

“You going to help me?”

“Hell yes.”

This time the rush of energy between them was stronger. The bed across the room turned from a dusty single to the lush four-poster he’d been fantasizing about getting her into.

Wrapping his hands around her luscious ass, Nick rose to his feet, taking Britt with him. She locked her legs around his waist and ran her tongue all the way down the tendon at the side of his neck, which fuckin’ led straight to his dick, apparently, by way of tingles down his spine.

He could sense how much she needed this, needed him, and something expanded inside him. He wanted to make her feel better, had to, had to take her pain away and make her feel only pleasure.

He knee-crawled onto the bed, laying her out and lowering himself between her legs, rolling his hips so she could feel his hard-as-a-rock dick against her barely-covered pussy. She moaned, pressing herself against him.

“Damn, you feel so good,” she said. “You are so fucking gorgeous.”

That place inside him expanded more at her words. Not pride, exactly. But it felt so good to have a woman look at him like that. To feel her writhe against him, to hear her soft moans.

She deserved this. Deserved to feel good. To not feel alone anymore. And fuck all, it felt good to be wanted.

He shifted his weight onto one elbow, combing her hair out on the pillow with his free hand. “Your hair is the most amazing color,” he said. “Chestnut and red and gold, all mixed together. And those eyes.” He traced her eyebrows with his fingertip. “The first moment I saw them, spitting fire, I was totally bewitched.”

He saw something in her eyes then, something akin to what he’d been feeling. The wonder of having someone look at you in a way that made you feel hot and badass and maybe even better than you really were.

That made you feel special.

That feeling made him have to kiss her again—this time slowly. Softly. In a way that said I see you. I appreciate you. You make me feel… He didn’t even know what he felt. All those things he’d never been able to put into words, that he probably would never be able to.

So he said them with his hands, with his lips, with gentle kisses on her cheekbones and closed eyelids, fingertips skimming her breasts and the curve of her hips, the sensitive skin of her thighs.

“You know what I’ve been thinking ever since I accidently made your Kraken costume disappear?” he murmured in her ear.

“What?”

“How much I want to unlace that fucking thong with my teeth.”

He could have sworn he heard a little growl in her throat, and he almost lost it right then.

“On one condition,” she said.

“Name it. It’s yours.”

“You let me take your pants off first.”

He threw his head back. “Woman, you are KILLING me.”

Britt loved that. She loved the way Nick looked at her—Chaz had never looked at her like she was setting him on fire, or touched her like she was precious and rare and beautiful.

Britt took her time undressing him, unzipping his jeans and freeing the holy-cow-that’s-huge shaft that had been practically bursting his seams.

She couldn’t stop herself, she had to bend her head down and taste him, swirling her tongue around the head and inhaling his masculine scent. He threw his head back again and gave a sharp gasp, his fingers tightening on her shoulder, and she drew him into her mouth, reveling in how she could make this gorgeous, sexy man moan.

Then he turned the tables on her, pushing her flat onto the bed and kissing down her belly until his mouth found the laces of her thong.

She’d thought he was kidding about unlacing it with his teeth, but…