Page 57 of Hungry Like the Wolf

He dreamt of her. Not kissing her. Not fucking her. Simply holding her, just like he was in real life. And in the morning, he wondered if she’d really been there in his dreams, too.

CHAPTER 25

“Right there. Right there, baby. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, god, that’s so good. Harder. Harder, baby. Fuck. Fuuuck.”

Nadja smiled collapsed to the bed next to Robbie’s prone form.

“My thumbs are sore,” she said with a laugh.

Robbie rose up onto his forearms and looked down at her. “Aren’t you some sort of immortal demon or something, Doc? I wouldn’t think your kind ever got tired, especially not after a little back massage.”

“Immortal demon trapped in a human body, sir,” she corrected. “Or something. And your back is a mess. More knots than a sailboat.”

He bent his head toward her and kissed her.

Nadja didn’t think she’d ever get tired of kissing Robbie. She hadn’t done much kissing in her thousands of years of existence. She’d avoided it almost categorically, in fact. But now it was new and exciting and made her heart race. Every time he leaned in, she felt as if the organ shivered in her chest. And then there was the way he cradled her jaw in his palm, his thumb on her cheek and his fingers wrapping behind her neck, the way he sometimes dragged his thumb over her bottom lip, the way she wanted to bite it. Not hard, just enough to leave the indent of her teeth, a lover’s mark, even if it was temporary.

Another thing to get used to was the feeling of having energy—at full capacity—that was entirely new. She’d never felt so full in her life, so strong. Even kissing him, being kissed by him, filled her well in a way nothing else ever had. She could feel the energy coursing through her body with every swipe of his tongue against hers.

Robbie kissed her cheek and then her neck before blowing a raspberry, loud and mortifying against her pulse point. She shrieked with laughter and tried to wiggle away from him, but he was stronger now, too.

His hair was growing out from the buzz cut he’d had when he walked into her office the other day. He had the beginnings of a beard as well. It suited him. She stopped struggling and lifted her hand to feel the bristles. He rubbed his cheek against her palm, much like a dog would. Nadja smiled.

“You’re scruffy.”

“Like a wolf?”

She laughed. “Like a ragamuffin.”

He dropped his chin to her chest. “I can shave.”

She shook her head. “Only if you want to. I like it.”

He smiled. Not his full smile, but the one that she had come to realize meant he was feeling shy.

“I like you,” he said.

She rubbed over the soft shortness of his hair and felt that familiar free fall of when he kissed her, but more somehow.

“I like you, too, Robbie,” she whispered.

Her life in World’s End had once seemed ideal, or as ideal as it could have been under the circumstances of banishment. But it felt rather empty and gray when compared to the technicolor that Robbie injected into everything he touched. She’d had a house, plants that she kept buying with a heart full of hope and then inevitably killed despite all of her best intentions. She’d had Magda, her only friend. She’d had clients that she always looked forward to seeing, like Hank Dove. But had she laughed? How often did she smile?

Magda made her smile, mostly because Magda was bananas, but this was different.

“Wanna go steady?” Robbie asked.

“Aren’t we already?” she said with a laugh.

“I guess you’re right. Mating feels about as steady as it gets.”

“Fake mating,” she said, and regretted it the moment she did.

Robbie’s face fell.

“Right,” he said. “Fake mating.”

He pushed himself up off of her and moved to climb off the bed but stopped when she grabbed his forearm.