Praying for Rain (Praying for Rain Trilogy, #1)(33)

Shaking my head, I close the distance between us with a final step and continue in a slightly less homicidal tone. “Our job … is to say fuck ’em and survive anyway. That’s it, Rain. That’s our only job. That took me twenty-two years to figure out, and I wish you had twenty-two years to figure it out, too, but you don’t. You have two fucking days. So, I need you to man the fuck up because I can’t do my job without you.” Emotion—one I don’t remember feeling since I was a kid—strangles me, cutting off my voice before the last syllable of my confession.

Rain shakes her head as a new song begins to play. “That’s not true.” Her voice is quiet but strong. “Because I’m not gonna leave you.”

The singer begs her to save his heavy, dirty soul, but she drops him onto the bed and buries her face in my heavy, dirty soul instead.

Her embrace on my bare chest makes me feel like I’ve been skinned alive. I’m nothing but raw pink meat in her arms. My scales, my fur, my leathery hide … it’s all been ripped away. Rain’s touch penetrates through every layer of defense I thought I had, reaching places that have never seen the light of day. I hate this feeling. Every muscle in my body tenses in response to the pain, but I hold her to me anyway.

Wrapping my arms around her warm, curvy body, I slide a hand up her back and thread my fingers into her short, damp hair. “Oh, I know you’re gonna leave me,” I growl, pulling her head back so that she’s looking up at me in the dark. “So, until then, I’m gonna use … you … up.”

Rain presses up onto her toes at the same moment that I dive for her parted lips, and our mouths collide like the train wreck that we are. I tilt my head sideways and plunge my tongue into her mouth, unable to get my fill. I’m gripping her hair too tight, but I’m powerless to release her. Instead, I slip my free hand under that sad excuse for clothing and grip her full, round ass. My heart jackhammers in my chest as I swallow her responsive moan.

Her hands slide up my back and around to my front, skirting over my pecs and locking behind my neck. I feel her nipples against me, hard as pebbles beneath that unworthy dipshit’s jersey, so I pull it off over her head and toss it to the floor. I can barely see her in the darkness, but I don’t need to. My hands read the curves of her body as they skim every square inch of her goose bump–covered flesh. She shivers as I knead her perfect tits, and when I break our kiss to pull one perky, needy nipple into my mouth, her hand reaches for me.

She grips me through the silky fabric of the athletic shorts, which were already tented and struggling to contain what she’s done to me. My cock is at full attention, swollen and throbbing in her hand, as she gently holds my head to her breast. Her touch is so tender; it causes another surge of emotion to tighten around my throat. It hurts, the way she touches me. It’s fucking killing me.

And I’m going to let it.

Rain slides her hand up and down over my shaft through the slippery material as I suck and tongue and worship her other nipple. My every breath on her flesh elicits a reaction, and when I kiss my way back up to her mouth, when I slide both hands over her full ass and tease her slick folds from behind, that reaction is a purr so sweet it vibrates every nerve in my body like a guitar string.

Rain dips her fingers into the waistband of my shorts and guides them down, carefully releasing me. Then, her lips take the same amount of care as they travel from my mouth to my jaw, forging a trail of lingering kisses down my neck and sternum. She takes a step back and bends at the waist as she continues her descent. All I can do is stand here and let her cut me open. That’s what her trail of kisses feels like—the slice of a fucking scalpel. She’s peeling back my layers, exposing all of my unlovable insides, and she’s pretending that she likes what she sees.

But she doesn’t. No one ever has, and no one ever will.

The second she sinks to her knees, just before she puts that lying mouth on my cock, I grab her by the hair and pull her head back to face me. “You don’t have to do this,” I rasp. And, for once, I’m shocked to realize that I mean it.

I want to be inside of her but not like this. This is how the bar flies try to please me. The tourists and college girls and drunken divorcées. They get down on their knees and look up at me like porn stars while they suck me off, practically begging me to fall in love with them.

Daddy issues, all of them.

This bitch has daddy issues, too, and here she is, looking up at me with big, desperate eyes, about to put my cock in her mouth to win my approval … just like the rest of them.

“You don’t want …” Rain’s voice trails off as I drop to my knees, too.

Grabbing the backs of her thighs, I pull her forward until she’s straddling my lap. Her tits are flush against my chest, her lips are once again grazing mine, and I’ve got her plump, round ass in both hands.

“Perfect,” I whisper.

Rain smiles against my mouth as she begins to slide her wet pussy along the length of my shaft. I devour that smile. I chew it up and swallow it. And I feel it burn like fire inside of me, illuminating things I thought were gone forever.

Things I hoped would stay that way.

I don’t want to press her to have sex. Hell, I don’t even know if she’s done it before. But, when Rain threads her fingers into my hair and cradles my head in her hands and sinks down onto me with a gasp, I’m suddenly the one feeling inexperienced. This isn’t sex. This is so far outside the realm of sex that I don’t even know where I am.