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The undergarments he wore were so tight that they looked painted on his sculpted thighs.

By my forest, this human takes my breath away.

Nikolai set one knee on the mattress, cautiously, as if he was expecting me to stop him.

“Jules?” His voice had dropped another octave, making it dark and growly. A voice to raise goosebumps.

“Bunny?”

“Do you remember the safe word we discussed?”

“Pomegranate,” I muttered.

“Mine is red.”

“Your pomegranate?”

“My safe word,” he chuckled. “If you want me to leave, tell me now, okay? Because I feel like I am going to die if I don’t get to touch you, but I’d rather stop now than once I have my mouth on your body.”

“I want you to stay, Bunny. Please. And to touch me. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“I’ve got you, Jules.” Nikolai brushed my foot with his hand then moved forward on his knees.

My body trembled like an aspen tree in the summer breeze when he set a hand on my thigh.

I knew I could trust him to handle me with care, but tell that to my stupid heart.

Then my beautiful human leaned in and pressed the gentlest kiss on my sternum as if to pacify the organ beneath it.

Moving lower, he placed licking kisses on my skin all the way down to my navel.

“May I take your shorts off?”

“You may,” I gasped, raising my hips a few inches from the bed so he could slide the cotton undergarments down my legs.

Then he just looked and looked until I started fidgeting my backside on the bed.

Does he not like it?

I was of half a mind to pull the cotton shorts back on when a warm hand on my thigh stopped me from moving.

“My God, Jules,” he breathed and his fingers tightened around my leg. “You are beautiful.”

Thirty-five

Nikolai

Ifoundithardtobelieve someone as gorgeous as Jules existed in real life. And if they did that they wantedmeof all people.

But maybe this is all a hallucination. Maybe you are just spaced out and this is all a dream.

He felt so real, though. And so did the raging erection drooling all over my boxers.

I trailed my fingers up his cool, lightly fuzzed skin to his hips. I needed to get my mouth on him, needed to taste his body in places nobody had in three centuries.

I still can’t believe it.

But if he spent most of his time as that grumpy old dude I had met on the path, it was no wonder.