Bloodbound to the Lycan King

Chapter 273: Grace: Saving Humanity

My mouth falls open.

There's no smile on his face, no hint of humor in his even tone, just dead (pardon the pun) seriousness and a mild killing intent.

"You can't kill someone for their house."

"Why not?"

"Because it's their house, Caine. They live there." I pause. "At least sometimes." Rich people probably have a lot of houses.

Which is not the point. The point is morality and we can't just kill people to have a house on the ocean in today's society, wolf shifter or not.

He dips his head and presses a kiss to my forehead. Then the bridge of my nose. Then my left cheekbone. "If I can't buy you what you want," another kiss, this one on the curve of my jaw, "I'll take it for you."

My pulse hammers against the spot on my neck that still throbs from his bite. His lips trail down the other side now, mirroring his earlier path, and the contrast between the tenderness of his mouth and the absolute insanity of his words makes my head swim.

"Obey the law," I manage. It comes out weak and pathetic in the face of defending basic humanity.

"No law restricts the Lycan King."

I roll my eyes. "There are laws even for the Lycan King." I think.

His teeth scrape my collarbone and he pulls back to look at me with an expression of total, unshakable calm.

"Then I'll kill everyone who thinks they can control us."

I stare at him in bemused silence, but no, still no hint of humor in his calm face. Just to double-check, I ask, "Are you serious?"

His gaze doesn't waver. "Yes."

I smack both palms against his cheeks.

His head jerks between my hands, caught, and I hold on—pressing his face between my palms so he can't dodge or dip down or distract me with his mouth again. Stubble prickles against my skin. His jaw flexes under my grip. Glittering gray eyes watch me from between my fingers, patient as a predator with nowhere else he'd rather be.

"You cannot just go around killing people," I berate him, wondering how we've gone—again—from a sexy mood to something very different.

I blame the food delivery. This all somehow boils down to the McDonald's sitting on the table.

His hand comes up and wraps around my right wrist, his fingers circling it completely until his thumb presses into the soft skin over my pulse. Then he draws my hand from his cheek and turns it over to expose my palm before pressing a soft kiss into the center.

My heart jumps.

His tongue flicks out into a single, slow stroke across my palm that lights up nerve endings I didn't know existed there.

My breath catches.

"Then you'll have to make reasonable demands of me," he says, and it takes a minute for me to remember we were mid-conversation, saving humanity one line at a time.

Forget it. Humanity's on its own. Sorry; we'll deal with his morality another time, okay? "Fine. I take it back. I don't want a mansion on the beach."

The low rumble of his laugh vibrates against my palm. Then his teeth close around the tip of my index finger.

My brain function stutters dangerously.

He draws it into his mouth while maintaining eye contact, and trust me, even if it sounds awkward, it does not feel awkward. His soft nibbles register somewhere south of my navel and my breathing goes shallow, especially when his tongue curves around the pad of my finger. The sensation is so absurdly disproportionate to what's happening and yet I'm incapable of oxygen.

There is no reason my entire body should be liquefying over a finger, but it does.

He straightens above me abruptly, releasing my hand from gentle torment, and my hand drops like dead weight as I keep reminding myself to breathe. My lungs will thank me later.

His palm settles on my belly and my hips jerk sideways in surprise at how much it tickles. His fingers splay and the heat of them sinks through me, leaving me desperate for more. Everywhere.

Oblivious to the demanding thoughts in my head, Caine says, "I'm lucky to have such a reasonable mate."

Considering I was just thinking about how nice it would be for him to have ten hands touching me in different places, I wouldn't necessarily agree. But then I remember it's because I retracted a request that would end up getting people killed.

Yep. I'm reasonable. So very, very reasonable. I deserve a gold star. Why won't he move his hand more?

Like magic, his hand slides up an inch. Then down. Then up again.

I have no idea what he's doing but it's driving me insane, unable to predict what he's going to do next.

His hand should be between my legs. No, no—too early. Up, higher, touching my breasts, aching and heavy with need.

Caine grabs at the belt of my robe, still knotted at my waist, the last remnant of chastity remaining. He pinches the end of it between his thumb and forefinger and examines it, rolling the end of the fabric back and forth.

Then he tugs at it casually and it just slices apart.

I get the barest glimpse of a claw before it disappears and wonder for a moment—should they be that sharp? How does that even work? But logic disappears when he leans down, down, down, and presses his lips above my belly button.

My hips buck again, both of my hands pressing down hard against the bed. I'm not sure if I'm about to run away or grab his head and shove it further down, but every damn touch at this point is too much, almost painfully ticklish.

"This," he murmurs against my skin. "This is what I've been thinking about."

What, my belly button?

I can feel my pulse in my throat, my wrists, the hollow of my hips. Every heartbeat broadcasts through my body like a signal flare, and I'm pretty sure he can hear it all. Hell, the front desk can probably hear it.

When his fingers brush the underside of my left breast I make a sound I will deny until the day I die.

It's not a moan. It's barely a gasp. It's some wretched hybrid of the two that escapes before I can trap it behind my teeth, and his eyes snap to mine with a hunger so raw my stomach flips.

Caine slides up my belly until his mouth finds the curve of my breast, the soft slope where it swells out from my ribcage. He leaves a hot, open-mouthed kiss there, tracing a line upward with his tongue in a lazy trail, and my back lifts off the mattress before I can stop it, both hands digging hard into the mattress.

"Stop," I whimper, desperate to escape how every touch grazes against my frayed, desperate nerves.

His free hand catches my hip and pins me down, settling all those painful sparks into a more mellow inner glow.

"Stay," he commands, and my body settles under his touch as I gulp down a deep, lung-inflating breath, finally able to suck in air properly.

My spine flattens against the bed once again.

"Good girl."