Page 96 of Noctis

Something in my chest tightened, and not from fear. “Just… don’t kill people, okay?”

Caligo was silent for several steps.

“I will consider it.”

It wasn’t quite a promise, but it was probably the best I was going to get from him.

Chapter Thirty-two

Caligo

Rowan wasn’t pleased with me. I didn’t have to be human to recognize what his silence meant. After our initial conversation, he’d spent the rest of the journey home answering every question I asked with little more than a grunt.

I could have left him alone, but I didn’t want to. Instead, I crept up on him in the bedroom, wrapped my arms around him from behind, and pulled him back against me. He didn’t struggle. He leaned into me, allowing me to take his weight, and we stayed like that for a long moment, neither of us saying anything.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” he finally asked.

I spread a hand possessively over his abdomen, liking the way it looked there. I shifted my fingertips between their humanoid and clawed forms to see whether Rowan would object. When he didn’t, I made the claws longer and curled my fingers slightly, pressing them against his skin through his T-shirt. “What answer are you looking for?”

He sighed. “Were you there all night?”

“Define there.”

He tried to turn, but I held him in place. I moved the hand on his abdomen lower and squeezed him through his jeans. He was already half hard, but his cock stiffened even more beneath my palm as I massaged it.

“Were you in the restaurant?”

“I was outside the restaurant. Close enough that I could see you, but far enough away to give you privacy.”

“So you didn’t listen in on my conversation?”

“No.”

“But you listened in on my conversation with Laura?”

“Yes.”

“She thought you might have a problem with being left alone.”

I toyed with the zipper on his jeans but didn’t unzip it, sensing that Rowan would be even less pleased if we didn’t finish the conversation first. “I don’t have a problem with being alone. I’ve been alone for centuries. I have a problem with not knowing whether you’re safe.”

“So you accompanied me to the restaurant, waited outside, and then escorted me home again? Or at least tried to,” Rowan added, “before our friend with the knife turned up.”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Rowan nodded. “I am grateful. I don’t want you to think I’m not.”

“But?”

He laughed. “How very human of you to realize there’s a but.” He steered my hand closer to his zipper, and I obliged, unfastening his jeans and pushing them, along with his underwear, down to mid-thigh. Then I wrapped my hand around his hard shaft.

He dropped his gaze, a shudder passing through his body. Arousal rather than fear. I could tell the difference. “I never thought I’d have claws that close to my cock,” he said. “And I never thought I’d like it.”

I stroked him, careful not to hurt him, while both of us watched my hand move. My other hand slid beneath his T-shirt, pushing it up to bare his nipples as I scraped my claws lightly over his skin.

“Fuck,” he said. “That’s hot.”

“Yeah?”