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I had no idea what he was talking about, or how that was sweet, so I let it go. I might not have thought about having sex with any of them until now, but I had thought about what Quinton would look like naked, and I hadn't looked away when I'd seen the Salt and Pepper twins naked; I hadn't minded the view even though I'd felt a bit like a perverted Peeping Tom for seeing something they hadn't known I'd been seeing at the time. Maybe I wasn't as sweet as he thought I was. I wouldn't be the one to tell him otherwise, though. I didn't want to disappoint him or take that happy, possessive light out of his eyes because I really liked seeing it there. Months ago, when I'd first met him, I had thought it a miracle to see him smile at all. Now he just did it all the time. And I felt partially responsible for it, because it hadn't started happening on the regular until after I'd moved in with him. He was still serious, and carried around an intensity to him that would likely never go away, but he smiled more when he was around me, and I didn't think I was the only one who noticed.
"If you say so," I grumbled, and his smile got unbelievably bigger.
"I do say so," he said as he titled his chin down and pressed his soft lips to mine.
They were warm, and my lips tingled where he touched them.
His tongue traced across my bottom lip in a slow, unexpected stroke.
I lifted my hand from my stomach and moved it up to his face. I pressed my palm against his jaw and cupped the side of his face. His beard was coarse against the soft skin of my palm. I'd never touched someone's facial hair before. And I'd never kissed Dash this way before, either.
My lips parted, and his tongue slipped inside.
The kiss wasn’t urgent or fast. There was no rush to it. It was a slow exploration of each other. In that moment, with our mouths fused together, we knew one another in one of the most intimate of ways. He knew what I tasted like, and I him. I knew he liked to lead and, in this instance, I had no problem following.
He explored my mouth with his and I let him, gladly, with the front of my body pressed up as tightly to the front of his body as I could get it.
Warmth flooded to between my legs, my most private of places, and I fought the urge to rub myself up against him like a cat. I made a needy noise in the back of my throat, and even I could tell the difference between this noise and the last ones I’d made.
Dash broke the kiss abruptly and pulled away from me. His heat left me cold as he rolled off of me and on to his side, still facing me. He then flopped onto his back, mimicking my position. Both our chests rose and fell heavily, almost in sync with one another’s.
Worried I’d done something wrong because he’d pulled away from me without warning and so suddenly, I peeked at him out of the corners of my eyes, too worried to face him head on. Had I done something wrong? I didn’t think so, and he’d seemed to have been enjoying himself as much as I had been.
"Dash," I said his name in a quiet, uncertain voice.
"Christ," he growled darkly, and I couldn't help it, that one word had surprised me so much I had to turn my head to look at him. He covered his face with both of his hands and rubbed upwards, not stopping when he reached his hair. His fingers weaved into his red hair and he gave a rough tug.
"Dash," I repeated, this time much more urgently, but still quietly. "Stop that; you're going to hurt yourself." I wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, to put a hand on him and make him stop. But I was too afraid to.
He tilted his head to the side and looked at me. What he didn't do was let go of his hair. His mouth was pinched in a tight line, and his jaw was clenched painfully.
"What's wrong?" I whispered. "What did I do wrong?" He finally let go of his hair and reached for me. His fingers smoothed across my cheeks, the thumb on his right-hand tracing gently across my scar. I was past the point of flinching when they touched my scar, it was meant to be a sweet gesture, and I took it as one. Weeks ago, I might not have; it had taken some getting used to. But, then again, so had having people touch me in any kind of nonviolent way, and look at where I was now.
"You didn't do anything wrong," he whispered as his thumb kept gently caressing my scar. "I was trying to distract you because I'd made you embarrassed, and I honestly didn't want to explain why I'd come in here; I didn't want to upset you anymore than I already had."
I leaned into his touch and asked, "Then why did you stop? I thought you liked it."
Some of the tightness left his face and his eyes softened. "I more than liked it, Ariel," he told me. "That was the problem. We had just been talking about how much I liked the fact you're a virgin, then you went and made those sweet noises of yours, noises I hadn't expected to hear come out of your mouth so soon, and I had to stop myself before I took things too far."
I nodded with my head held between his hands. It was hard, and my head didn't move far, but he knew I understood him.
He blew out a heavy breath before moving in and kissing me gently on my forehead. His lips brushed my skin in a whisper of a kiss before he moved back and let go of my face.
He flopped back down on his back. He slipped his left arm, the arm closest to me, underneath my body, between the mattress and myself.
He curled his arm under me and lifted, pulling me into him. I rolled to my side as my body crashed into his. I pressed my hand into his chest, stopping myself from banging my head into his chin. He put pressure on my upper body with his arm and I did what he wanted me to. I laid down against him with the front of my body pressed into his side. I wrapped my arm around his middle as I tossed my leg over his thighs.
"I want you to go back to sleep, if you can." he whispered as he rubbed his chin and his beard against the top of my head. "You don't sleep enough, just like you don't eat enough. When you first moved in here with me, you went to bed late every night and slept in late to make up for going to bed so late. I approved of this. Sleep can be good for the soul, and it's its own form of healing. You've had a lot of bad things happen either to you or around you lately and, I believe you can use as much healing energy as you can get. Now you barely sleep enough; you go to bed just as late as you did when you first got here, but you no longer sleep in, instead, you get up crazy early even when you don't have anything that you need to be doing. You're going to wear yourself out if you keep going at this pace. And, it doesn't help that you don't eat as much as you should."
I snuggled in closer and wrapped my arm a little tighter around his middle. I wasn't surprised to find his stomach hard; I didn't think Dash had any fat on him. I buried my face in his throat and brushed my nose across the skin just below his jaw.
"I don't think I'm ready to sleep," I told him honestly. "I don't think I will be able to sleep until you explain to me why you came in here in the first place. I know you said that you were trying to distract me from being embarrassed. I think you should tell me what I want to know first, what you've been trying to avoid telling me. Then we will go back to sleep. And, hey, bonus for you, if you stay in here with me, then you will actually get to sleep with your cat for once."
I probably shouldn't have kept poking at him about the cat. I didn't want him to lock Binx in his room with him so I couldn't sleep with the little furball. That would be sad, and I would really miss him, then I would totally have to get a pet of my own, and I didn't know how Dash felt about other animals.
Dash sighed, and I felt his body relax against me. Until that moment, I hadn't realized he'd been holding himself so still, so stiff. I'd ask him if he were uncomfortable, but it had been him who moved me over here to lay like this with him; if he were uncomfortable, I assumed he would have said something.
"Fine," he murmured in defeat. "I'll tell you, but it's your own fault if you can't sleep afterwards. You had to push, had to know."
