The Hidden (Shadowed Wings #1)(33)
A distant screech pulls me from my naughty daydream, and Zeph’s heated gaze flashes up from mine to the sky. He searches for something, and I feel his body shifting from need to action. Why am I disappointed by that? I don’t even like this guy. Yes, I got a little swoony as he fixed me and gave me some petting, but he’s also the reason I was fucked up in the first place. Zeph rises suddenly from his crouch and starts moving swiftly through the forest. I bite down against the pain that strikes through me at the jostling of my arm, and hope that my shifter genes kick in soon and start healing me.
Zeph moves from tree to tree, his eyes darting from the path he’s tracking through the forest up to the sky, checking for whatever threat he’s anticipating. I stay quiet, not wanting to distract him or do anything that could clue whatever is hunting us in on our location. Another screech fills the air, this one closer, and Zeph’s muscles tense as he freezes under a canopy of branches and needles. He holds me bridal style, and his grip tightens as he turns and presses me against the tree. The bark against my slowly healing shoulder fucking hurts, and a whimper I can’t help sneaks out from my lips.
“Shhhhh,” Zeph’s deep whisper brushes over my face, his mouth a hair’s breadth away from mine. His gaze goes distant, and I can tell he’s listening for something as our breaths mingle and the drive to kiss him bubbles up inside of me.
“Not the time or the place, Pigeon,” I scold. “Your bullshit has caused enough trouble already,” I add, and then I wet my lips with my tongue and try to ignore the fact that if I just leaned in a little, I could claim his full lips as mine.
After a couple beats of silence, Zeph starts to move again, but the erection slapping against my ass as we run makes me horny as fuck and aware that Zeph is not unaffected by my naked body in his arms. Maybe I’m not as indifferent as I thought to this asshole. Or maybe I just need to get laid, and the position we find ourselves in would make anyone start to think dirty thoughts. I latch onto the second explanation, much to Pigeon’s dismay, but it has to be that. I know she’s attracted to him on some instinctual level, but on a logical level, I am not.
He’s a dick, and I can’t just excuse that because he happens to have a pretty one I would like to play with right now. We just need to make it through this fucked up episode of Naked and Afraid, and then I’ll find some other pretty dick to play with. A growl rumbles in Zeph’s chest, and I look up in alarm to see what set him off. I search the sky like he’s been doing, but I don’t see or sense anything. My eyes dart to Zeph’s, and his stare is fixed on me. He’s angry, and his hold tightens on me. I wiggle uncomfortably until he stops squeezing me, and he looks away, irritation and fury in his eyes.
Yep, definitely need to start hunting for a pretty dick attached to a nice gryphon who’s down for a little no strings attached fuckery, I decide, and I stop myself from nestling into Zeph’s chest the way Pigeon wants me to as he starts running again.
12
“What is this place?” I ask, not able to help it as I’m carried deeper into a cave of red rock with black veins crawling through it.
“It’s a hidden shelter. We have them scattered around for situations just like this,” Zeph tells me as he makes his way further in.
Our voices crash against the rock and bounce back at us, but Zeph is talking, so I figure it’s safe to keep doing the same.
“And what exactly is it that we’re running from?” I press. He said it wasn’t safe on this side of the lake, but I still have no idea what’s going on.
“The Avowed patrol this side of the lake. It’s the furthest their territory reaches. You could have been spotted any minute, which is why I—”
“Made me crash,” I interrupt, and he narrows his gaze at me.
“Saved your life,” he corrects, and then he sets me on a cold rock and hurries away from me like I have something contagious.
“Saved my life, almost killed me, potato, po-tah-to,” I snark as I stand up in an effort to save my ass cheeks from frostbite.
Fuck, it’s cold in here. I fold my arms over my diamond hard nipples and try to rein in the teeth chattering that’s started. Zeph pulls wood from a massive stack toward the back of the cave and has a fire flickering to life in a matter of minutes. I step closer to it and try not to be mesmerized by the fire shadows now dancing over Zeph’s massive and well-muscled body. He bends over a large wooden chest that’s been situated against a wall of the cave and starts to rummage through it.
I tilt my head in appreciation. Fabric smacks me in the face, and it jerks me away from the pervy thoughts starting to rise up in my mind. Maybe if I fucked him once, it would get it out of my system? The eager head nod I can practically feel Pigeon giving me makes me suddenly leery of that thought. I hold up the bunched, dark green fabric in my hands to find a large long-sleeved shirt. I pull it over my head, ignoring the musty smell, and it falls just shy of the tops of my knees. The laces that cinch up the neck dip down to my naval, and I start pulling the leather ties tighter and covering up. I roll up the sleeves until I can find my hands, and by the time I’m done making the large shirt fit, I find Zeph in a pair of too short and too tight pants.
I can see the outline of his cock a third of the way down his left thigh, and I’m not sure which is worse, staring directly at it or at the hint of it now in his pants. How about you don’t look at it at all, Falon? That just might help the too horny for your own good situation you’ve got going on right now. I nod in agreement with my internal scolding and lift my eyes up from Zeph’s dick, vowing that my gaze will be waist high for the rest of this fucked up adventure.