“And you don’t like that I call you ‘baby.’”
“I don’t care if you want to call me baby,” I corrected him. “It’s when you treat me like I am one that I get annoyed.”
“So why not just say that?”
I shot him a look.
“Seth?” he prompted.
I sighed. “I don’t particularly want to talk about it,” I retorted. I didn’t. I didn’t want to talk about the fact that I didn’t feel comfortable criticizing anything Elliot said or did as long as I was living in his house. As long as I needed him to provide me with food and shelter.
As long as I was stupidly in love with him and he didn’t know it.
He patted the couch next to him. “Come sit with me?”
I wanted to. It was also a terrible idea. I did it anyway, the weight of my body sinking into the couch with its brown fake suede and overstuffed cushions.
I didn’t expect Elliot’s hands on my thighs, and I sucked in a breath, sharp and fast, something musky and pungent in my nostrils. Something that ripped through nervous system like fire, going straight to my groin.
I made a small, half-strangled sound as Elliot ran his hands down my legs, over my knees, then inside my thighs. He pushed them wider, and I shuddered, fighting the surge of energy thatrushed through me, the pins-and-needles feeling of shifting washing over my skin.
Elliot froze—not in fear, just… going still. “Deep breath, baby shifter,” he said softly, and I could have kicked myself at the look of guilt that flickered across his face when he said it. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said, quickly, the urge to shift subsiding. “I really don’t mind.” I didn’t mind. In fact, I kind of liked that he had a nickname for me.
I just didn’t want him to think of me as ‘too young.’ As ignorant or childish. As not a romantic option. Even though I knew I shouldn’t be.
Rule Two.
The doorbell rang.
I jumped, my heart rate spiking.
“It’s just dinner,” Elliot said softly, getting up to go answer the door.
My thighs felt cold where his hands had been, and my balls ached.
And then the smell of Chinese food—General Tso’s Chicken, some sort of eggroll, fried rice, something with shrimp, sweet and sour… My stomach rumbled loudly.
Elliot was sittingon the floor, leaving me semi-sprawled on the couch, my hands on my now slightly-rounded stomach, thanks to more Chinese food than I think I’d ever eaten in one sitting before in my life. I was sleepy, full, comfortable.
And still unbelievably horny.
I couldn’t think about that. Both because I didn’t want to shift and because?—
One of Elliot’s hands slid up my calf—under the loose leg of my sweatpants.
My whole body went electric.
Elliot’s hand stilled. “Deep breaths, baby shifter,” he said, repeating the same thing he’d said right before dinner arrived. This time, though, he didn’t apologize. Instead, his fingers flexed slightly, just the fingertips brushing against skin and hair on my calf.
I drew in a shuddering breath. My skin felt tight, my mouth too full of teeth. I swallowed, then drew in a shuddering breath.
Elliot’s fingers kept up their gentle motion, gently rubbing my skin, but doing nothing more.
I took another breath. Then another. And a third, the tension in my body easing, my pulse coming back under control, the tingles on my skin dissipating.
“Good,” Elliot all but purred. “That’s good.”
