Page 118 of Dance of Defiance

Val grabs the last few cans of beans off the counter and turns to open a cupboard above the fridge. Then he winces loudly, his face twisting in pain.

“Fuck.”

Before I even realize it, I’ve crossed the kitchen to him.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just…” He scowls and suddenly pulls off his shirt, right in front of me.

His gorgeous, sculpted shoulders flex and the tattoos down his arms ripple as he lifts them and glances at the bandage around his middle.

“These fucking bandages,” he grumbles. “Always coming loose and pulling at my skin like a motherfucker.” He sighs. “I should go change them. Make yourself at home.”

Val slips past me, close enough that my knuckles brush his arm. Then he heads across the main open space of the loft and down a hallway, presumably to his room. I wait in the kitchen and pour myself a drink, sipping slowly and walking around themain space, eyeing the brick walls and huge factory windows enviously.

“Fuck!Shit! MotherFUCKer!”

The response is as immediate as before. One second I’m stationary, the next I’m bolting down the hall as if a kitten needs rescuing from a burning building.

“Well, hi.”

I stumble to a stop in the bedroom doorway. Val’s standing by a floor-length mirror, his beautiful torso twisted as he awkwardly tries to bandage his ribs.

And he’s naked.

Okay, notnaked, but as well as being without the shirt he tossed away in the kitchen, he’s now alsosanspants. He’s standing in front of the mirror in just a tight pair of black boxer-briefs that mold to every fucking inch of his ass. And in the front, which I can see in the mirror’s reflection…

My face heats.

I don’tthinkhe’s even hard, but his cock looks fuckinghuge, bulging at the front of his briefs.

Christ, his body.

It’s fucking work of art. Sculpted, lean, yet muscled as hell. I’m built like a tank, butfuck. This motherfucker's abs are on another level. The tattoos swirling over his skin only add more forbidden heat to the whole picture.

Over his chest and shoulders, up his neck. Down his muscled arms. My eyes slowly drag over every inch of him, pausing here and there on a certain tattoo—the dragon near his ribs. Thephoenix on his hip. Even one weird one on the back of one arm—this scrawled looking thing of chaotic and random ink.

“See something you like?”

My face throbs with heat, my eyes snapping from his dick to his face.

“I—”

“Come here.”

The room goes silent. Slowly, Val turns to me, wrapping the last of his bandage around his ribs and taping it in place. His head tilts to the side, every muscle in his body slowly coiling like a snake getting ready to strike.

Slowly, the bulge in his briefs begins to thicken, harden, lengthen. It pulses and then swells, until he’s rock hard in front of me.

“I said…” He looks right at me with those piercing blue eyes as he turns his palm up and crooks two fingers. “Come. Here.”

It's like I’m in a trance. Or drugged. Except I’m not. I’m just walking of my own free will—eagerly—toward him when he beckons.

Helpless to stop. Knowing I won’t.

“I—I thought you were hurt?—”

“Did you, now.”