Chapter Six: Her Kitchen

Dane didn't take her to dinner.

Dane came to her apartment with grocery bags and a bottle of tequila and said, "I'm cooking for you. Don't argue."

She didn't argue. She watched him move around her tiny kitchen like he'd been there for years. He was too big for the space. His shoulders nearly touched both walls when he reached for the cabinet. He found her one good pan, her dull knife, and the spice rack her mother had sent from Tucson. He made enchiladas verde from memory, from a recipe he said his grandmother taught him, and they were better than her mother's, which she would never tell her mother.

"You cook," she said, watching him plate.

"I do many things." He set the plate in front of her. Sat down. Poured tequila. "Eat."

They ate. They drank. The tequila was good, smooth, the kind that didn't need lime or salt. They sat on her kitchen floor because her kitchen had two chairs and one was holding a stack of books and a terrarium she'd started and then abandoned. Her legs were stretched across his lap. His hand was on her ankle, thumb drawing circles on the bone.

"Tell me about Tucson," he said.

"Hot. Dry. Full of people trying to be somewhere else."

"And you left because."

"Because the person I was trying to be somewhere else with decided to be somewhere else without me."

"His loss."

"You say that like you mean it."

"I do mean it." His thumb stopped circling. Pressed. "I've been meaning it since the latte."

The tequila made her warm. Made her loose. Made her lean forward and put her hand on his face, her thumb on his jaw, the one that looked like it had been carved by someone paid by the hour. His skin was warm under her hand. Not as hot as Harlan's, but warm. A different kind of warm. Wood-fire warm instead of furnace warm.

"You have a really nice face," she said. "Has anyone told you that?"

"Once or twice."

"I'm telling you again."

"Josie."

"Dane."

His hand came up and covered hers on his jaw. He turned his head and kissed her palm. His lips were soft. His stubble was rough. The contrast made her stomach drop.

"Can I stay tonight?" he asked.

"Yes."

She led him to her bedroom. Her bed was smaller than his. Her sheets were cheaper. Her room smelled like the candle she'd been burning, something cedar and sage. He didn't care about any of it. He looked at her like she was the only expensive thing in the room.

She kissed him first this time. She pressed him against the door and kissed him and his hands found her waist and lifted her like she weighed nothing. Her legs went around his waist. He walked them to the bed, still kissing, and laid her down.

He stripped her slow. Piece by piece. Shirt, then a pause to kiss her stomach. Bra, then a pause to put his mouth on her. Jeans, then a pause to kneel at the foot of the bed and press his lips to the inside of her knee.

"You're taking forever," she said.

"I'm savoring."

"Savor faster."

He laughed. That big, warm laugh that changed his whole face. He pulled her underwear down and she was bare and he was still dressed and she said, "Your turn," and he pulled his henley over his head.

Dane's body was different from Harlan's. Where Harlan was lean and cut, Dane was dense. Thick muscle. A chest like a wall. His stomach was solid, not defined in clean lines but in mass. His arms were bigger than her thighs. And his skin was warm, so warm, almost radiating.

He unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down and she looked at him and her mouth went dry.

He was thick. Thicker than Harlan. Not as long, but thick in a way that made her body clench in anticipation. The head was broad, flushed dark, and the shaft was veined and straight and heavy between his legs. He was already hard, already wet at the tip.

"See something you like?" he asked.

"I see something that might be a problem."

"I'll be gentle."

"Don't you dare."

He smiled. Knelt between her legs. Put his hands on her thighs and opened her. His mouth found her.

Dane ate her differently than Harlan. Where Harlan was precise and controlled, Dane was enthusiastic. His tongue was long, longer than she expected, and it moved inside her, licking into her, tasting her, before it slid up to her clit. He groaned against her, a sound that vibrated through her whole body, and the vibration made her hips buck off the bed.

"You taste good," he said against her. "So fucking good."

His tongue circled her clit, wide and wet, then flicked. Fast. Back and forth. His hands held her thighs apart and his mouth worked her and she came in about ninety seconds, her hand in his dark hair, her hips grinding against his face. He didn't stop. He kept licking, slower now, easing her down, and then he slid a finger inside her and curled it and she came again, a second one stacked on the first, and she said his name like a curse.

He kissed his way up her body. Her stomach. Her ribs. Her nipples, one then the other, sucking each one until she was squirming. His mouth on her neck, her jaw, her mouth. She could taste herself on his tongue.

"Condom," she said.

"Wallet." He reached for his jeans. His ring clinked against the buckle. He rolled it on and came back to her.

She pushed him. Flat on his back. Straddled him.

"My turn," she said.

She sank down onto him. Slow. He was thick enough that she felt every inch of the stretch, the way her body opened around him, the pressure building as she took more. She braced her hands on his chest and lowered herself and he groaned, a deep, rumbling sound that came from his chest like an engine turning over.

"Fuck. You feel."

She rolled her hips. Experimentally. His hands went to her waist and held on. She moved. Slow at first, grinding, finding the angle. Then faster. Rising up and dropping down, taking him deep on each thrust. The stretch was intense, almost too much, and then her body adjusted and it became something else. Fullness. Pressure. A building heat in her core that spread outward with each roll of her hips.

His thumb found her clit. Circled it while she rode him. She dropped forward, hands on the pillow on either side of his head, and he thrust up into her from below. The angle changed. Deeper. His hips were powerful, driving up into her, and each thrust hit something inside her that made her gasp.

"You're mine," he said. Not asking. Stating. Like Harlan stated things, but warmer, like a gift instead of a command. "Say it. Tell me you're mine."

Her mouth opened. The word was right there. "I." She stopped. Shook her head. Something in her gut, some instinct deeper than the tequila, said no.

"Not yet," she whispered.

His jaw tightened. His thrusts got faster. His hands on her hips, pulling her down onto him, and she felt him swell inside her, felt the condom stretch, and his whole body went rigid. He came with a groan that was almost a roar, his hips bucking, his fingers digging into her waist hard enough to leave marks.

She came with him. The clench of him inside her, the pressure of his thumb on her clit, the rawness of it all pushed her over. She collapsed on his chest. His heartbeat was a drum under her ear. Fast. Hard. Animal.

His skin was hot. She noticed it now, really noticed. Not just warm. Hot. Like he was burning from the inside.

"You're so warm," she murmured against his chest.

"Runs in the family."

She lifted her head. Looked at him. His amber eyes were darker now, almost brown, and there was something in them, something he was holding back. His jaw was clenched and his nostrils were flared and he looked like a man fighting something.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing." He kissed her forehead. Pulled out. Disposed of the condom. He came back to bed and pulled her against his side and his hand was on her back, tracing lines, and for a second she thought she felt something on his fingers. Rough patches. Like calluses, or scales, on the pads of his fingers.

She blinked. Smooth skin. She'd imagined it.

"Dane."

"Hmm."

"You said I'm yours. Why?"

He was quiet. His hand kept moving on her back. "Because that's how it feels."

"It feels like that to me too. But I didn't say it."

"I know." His chest rumbled under her ear. "I know you didn't."

In his jeans on the floor, his phone buzzed. She saw the screen light up through the fabric. The name on the notification was blocked, but the message preview said:

*Did she?*

He reached down and turned the phone face-down.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"Work. Late email. Ignore it."

She closed her eyes. She should have asked. She should have pushed. But his chest was warm and his hand was on her back and the tequila was still in her blood and she was tired.

She fell asleep with her head on his chest, listening to that too-fast, too-hard heartbeat that sounded less like a man's heart and more like something bigger. Something that had more chambers. Something that pumped more blood through a bigger body than the one she was lying on.

She dreamed of a ring with a claw inside it, spinning, and two shadows standing over her bed, and a word she couldn't say caught in her throat like a bone.