Page 49 of Shattered King

He turned to me when I walked in.

Our gazes locked then dropped, traveling, taking the other in, like it was the first time we’d laid eyes on each other. Not like I’d just sat with him chatting while we ate thirty minutes ago, which had also been weird. I was struggling big time with our new arrangement.

I had no idea what he was thinking, or feeling. He gave none of it away. He just aimed those blue eyes at me, intense, deep, so damn deep, fathomless. There was so much going on behind them, too much. Too much for me to get a handle on.

I swallowed, hard.

Jesus. The man was perfection. Seriously perfection. Rough, growly, dirty perfection.

“Movie?” I blurted, because how long could we just stand there staring, no one saying a damn thing?

He lifted his beer to his lips and took a sip, swallowed, inked neck working, and somehow, that was sexy, too. “Sure.”

Excellent. Watching a movie meant we didn’t have to talk, which was a good thing. A very good thing. But Hunter didn’t seem in the mood to talk either. He tagged the remote, handed it to me to pick what I wanted to watch, then grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the chair I’d just taken and brought me to the couch. And like the weak-willed woman I’d recently become, I went with him without a single word of protest.

He sat, pulling me down, too, and tucked me into his side. Right into his side, so there was no room between us. His heat surrounded me, his scent. The hardness of his body against my softer one felt amazing, and I fought back a delicious shiver. I instantly became enthralled with the way his chest rose and fell, the way his breath brushed the top of my head with each exhale.

“You gonna pick a movie?”

I heard words coming out of his mouth, but with the way I was superglued to his side, the way my entire body was zeroed in on his, I didn’t actually hear the words, I felt them. They hit me right between the thighs, making my nipples tingle. I forgot what he said.

“Lulu?”

I twisted to look at him. “What?”

He grinned. “Movie?”

“Oh . . . right.” That grin did things to me as well, things that felt way too damn good to be healthy.

I flicked through the movie channels and picked something with plenty of action. I decided this was the safest way to go. Avoiding anything with romance and or possible love scenes would stop any awkwardness.

I was wrong. There were sex scenes. Several of them. And they weren’t fade-to-black, either. They were also sexy as hell.

As the heroine of the movie wrapped her arms around the hero, his body rolling on top of hers, while some beautiful song played in the background, my heart started to race faster, harder. I wriggled against Hunter, trying to get some distance between us. I was burning up and having all that hard heat plastered against me was not helping.

His hand snaked down to my hip, fingers digging in. “Stop.”

I twisted, looking up at him again. “I beg your pardon?”

“Beg all you like, cupcake, you aren’t going anywhere. So stop fighting and fucking relax.”

“You’re bossier than you used to be,” I snapped.

He took another sip of his beer and shrugged. “I’m a lot of things I never used to be. That doesn’t change the fact that where you are now is where you’re supposed to be.”

Oh God.

He looked back at the TV, watching the movie like he hadn’t just said what he had. I was still trying to process, and he’d moved on, chuckling at some cheesy one liner, while cars exploded all over the screen.

I woke up sometime later, plastered against Hunter’s side. The TV was off, and the lights were dim, like we’d left them. He was on his back on the couch, and my body was half on him, half on the couch on my side. One of his hands was on my ass, the other in my hair. My knee was cocked, lifted over him, and his thigh was between mine, the heavy muscle right there, providing enough pressure to give me very happy tingles. He shifted and his thigh rubbed against me. It felt good, so damn good.

I was still sleepy and confused and before I knew what I was doing, I’d shifted my hips against him, seeking more. Then I did it again—and again.

What the hell was wrong with me? What was I going to do, lie here and dry hump Hunter’s thigh until I got off?

I moved my hips again.

Yep. Looked that way.