Bending down, I pick up the key, curl my fingers around it, feel it dig into my palm. “Can I stay with you tonight? It’s cold outside.” I swallow hard, turning to face him. “It’s snowing.”
He blinks, his long lashes wet. “Yeah… Yeah, shit, come on in.”
That’s how I enter his home, his world once more, and it’s as if I belong here, with him, in his apartment, in his arms.
This can’t end well.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Raine
I can’t believe he’s here.
Mingling with afterimages from the nightmare, merging with the incomprehensible shifts in reality and time, I find his tall form in the middle of my living room after I’ve closed and locked my door.
Seeing him in front of me after that dream, alive and well, is a fucking miracle, and I have to stop myself from grabbing him in my arms once more, to make sure he’s really okay.
I rub at my burning eyes. “Shower’s all yours, if you wanna use it. I’ll get you a towel and sheets for the sofa.” I start toward the bedroom to get everything. “I’m glad you decided to stay, with the weather turning to snow.”
Could be why I had the nightmare. I’d seen the warning for snow, and I’d been worried about him, but he hadn’t been at his usual spot when I passed by earlier.
Yeah, I broke my rule and went to check. So sue me. I just couldn’t take it. I have the nightmare almost every night these days. It sucks.
“I’m not staying because of the snow.” Jason strips his sodden jacket, throws it to the corner of the room and comes to put his hands on my shoulders. His dark gaze searches mine. “Okay?”
I shake my head, not even sure I heard him right. “Wha
t?”
“I said I’m not staying because of the goddamn snow.” His hands slide up to the back of my neck, warm and rough. “I’m here because of you.”
My heart thumps hard inside my chest. I swallow hard. “Who are you and what have you done with Jason Vega?”
He laughs then, softly, and it’s the best fucking sound ever. I yank him closer until our breaths mingle, and I kiss him, pouring everything I feel into that kiss—my fear, my worry, my need for him.
He tastes of dark whiskey and snow—but warm, his mouth is so warm, fucking hot, his tongue pushing into my mouth, short-circuiting my brain.
This time he’s the one who shoves me back against the wall, slams my shoulders into the plaster. He pushes a muscular thigh between my legs and swallows my grunt at the sudden pressure on my dick, his hands mapping my arms before returning to tangle in my hair. Angling my head to deepen the kiss.
Oh fuck. Tongue, teeth, lips, his hands on me, and everything’s turning into sensation. Fire sparks down my back, down between my legs to my dick. My breath comes out in a groan when he rips his mouth away to suck on the juncture of my neck and shoulder, panting.
“Jase…” I need him, now.
He bites down, teeth sinking into my flesh, and my whole body jerks, my dick iron hard and aching from the pressure. I won’t last long, not when he’s attacking me like he’s hungry for me. Frantic.
Faintly I think that maybe it has to do with the nightmare, this reversal of our roles. Normally I’m the one asking to touch him, wanting it, hell, paying for it, and I guess I was never sure he was into it.
Into me.
He lifts his head only to crush his mouth to mine again, brutal, and it’s heady, realizing he wants me just as much as I want him, and that he’s strong, tall like me. Resilient. Able to inflict damage. All the previous times he was too banged up and exhausted for me to test his strength.
Not that he’s free of bruises today. I saw the dark ghosts of violence on his face when he appeared on my doorstep earlier, but he’s moving confidently if urgently, molding his long body against mine, pushing me into the wall. I’m humping his leg, and I’m past caring. I can’t fucking believe this is happening, and I don’t want it to stop.
Wrapping my arms around him, I drag him closer, snag my fingers into the hem of his tank top and attempt to haul it off him without breaking the kiss. But tonight’s magic can only stretch that far, and he draws back, huffing a laugh, lifting his arms so that I can undress him.
I feel drunk as I whip the tank top off him and start working on his pants, undoing the button and reaching for the zipper. He grabs me by the waist and walks me backward toward the sofa. I lose my grip on his pants, and grab at his arms not to fall.
He pushes me down on the sofa and lowers himself over me. He’s hard, his hard-on pressing into mine, and I arch up, gasping. When I manage to focus on his face, I find his dark eyes wide, his mouth slack.