I'd worked out most of my anger and showered away the rage by the time Atticus knocked on the door of my room. I made a noncommittal noise and he stuck his head in, dark eyes reflecting the light. "Hungry?"
I held up half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made from supplies squirreled away with help from the servants, and spoke around a mouthful of peanut butter. "You want one?"
"Sure." He eased into the room and the partial kitchen, and held out a large plate with three lumpy, chocolate-covered pieces of heaven and a travel mug. "I'll trade you."
I inhaled from the mug and my knees weakened. It smelled like pure dark chocolate. I drained half of it before I managed to slap some peanut butter on a couple slices of bread, then bumped the fridge closed with my hip as I held up two jars. "Strawberry or grape?"
"Grape," he said. Atticus perched on one of the stools next to the high counter across from the fridge, watching me closely as I juggled the bread, knife, jelly, and hot chocolate.
"Good." I concentrated on the bread, stacking up three sandwiches for him and his lion-sized appetite. "Strawberry is blasphemy." I slid the plate in front of him and helped myself to one of the desserts. Living with a chef even part time was dangerous. If it weren't for all the fighting with Atticus, I would have gained ten pounds just breathing the air around Natalia. The woman practically dripped butter, heavy cream, and caramel.
The silence stretched as he ate. His expression remained guarded and I feared I was the cause. So I steeled my courage as I licked chocolate from my fingers. "I shouldn't have yelled at you. I'm sorry."
He glanced up. "What?"
"In the gym. I shouldn't have yelled at you." I shoved away from the treats before I ate a second creampuff, and paced into the living area behind him. "It wasn't fair for me to diminish your struggle just because I can't do this."
Atticus turned on the stool to face me, his eyebrows drawn down. "I deserved it."
I made a face. "A little, maybe. Definitely not all of it."
He smiled with half his mouth, rubbing his shoulder. He held up the remains of a sandwich. "You fed me. We're even."
I didn't buy it, and I didn't like debts unpaid. But Atticus only got up to retrieve a creampuff. He winced as he stood, pressing at the small of his back, and faced me with chocolate smeared on his face. "So this afternoon — what?"
"Over here." I threw a blanket over the dining room table, which looked just sturdy enough to support his weight, and moved the chairs out of the way. He just looked at me, eyebrows raised, and chewed. Irritated, I snapped my fingers. "Seriously. Shirt off. On the table."
His laugh rumbled as a smile spread over his face. Atticus finished the creampuff and licked his fingers slowly, his gaze on me the entire time, and heat sparked low in my stomach. I could just imagine him licking something else entirely. He sauntered toward the table, drawing his t-shirt off in a smooth motion that set his abs to rippling.
My breath caught and I swallowed hard. Okay, maybe giving him a massage wasn't the best idea. I tried for stern, though, and held my ground as he paused right in front of me. He radiated heat and still smelled sweaty from the morning workout, and his eyes sparked with gold as he studied my mouth. A grumbly noise revved in his chest, almost a purr, and his palm drifted down his chest and across his ripped abs. "What are you going to do to me, Sophia?"
A giggle bubbled in my throat and I had to gouge my nails into my arms just to keep a straight face. In all the fighting and exercising over the previous days, the perfection of his body escaped me. Usually because I focused only on hurting it. I pointed at the table. "You hurt your back."
"So you're going to strip me down and lay me out on a table?" His smile spread into a grin. "Even if you're doing all the work, I'm pretty sure I need my back to —"
"Massage," I blurted out, just to cut him off. If he finished that sentence and the full mental image assailed me, I might not have the strength to leave his pants on. I turned on my heel and retrieved some of the cocoa butter lotion I'd found in the bathroom one morning. Not looking directly at his flexed muscles and the dusting of chest hair that trailed down into his gym pants helped preserve what remained of my dignity. "If those muscles seize up, you'll be useless this afternoon. So we fix it."
"Shifters heal pretty fast," he said, but the table groaned under his weight. "I doubt there's much you —"
"Obviously you've never had someone who knows what they're doing." I tripped over the words, though, and my cheeks heated. At least he lay face-down, head pillowed on his arms, and closed his eyes. The bastard still smiled. So I found refuge in the details and put on my lecturing tone. "If your ch'i is not aligned properly, you will not be centered or content in the world regardless of how strong you think you are."
He snorted and muttered something about ch'i but tensed when my palm drifted across his lower back. I spread lotion across the smooth expanse of his skin. "Maybe that's the problem with your lion. His life force is not properly aligned to yours. If the energy is out of balance, it disrupts everything else."
Atticus lifted his head and frowned at the wall, then glanced back at me. "Huh?"
I bit back a smile and knelt on the table next to his hip so I could dig my thumbs into the knotted muscles of his back. "You said it feels like you're losing control, that something changed and now you can't do what you need to. Something must have changed. If your life force is off, if the energy isn't flowing through you and into you in the correct ways, that would disrupt everything else in your life."
"So what, I meditate and everything is fixed?"
Typical male bravado. Stress gathered in his shoulders and knotted his neck and jaw; he carried the weight of his brothers' expectations, his own ego, the need for secrecy and control. All of it pushed him down. I hmmm'd as I straddled his lower back and dug my elbow into a knot below his shoulder blade. "Meditation, acupuncture, martial arts... Everything together, along with some attitude changes, might help." I punctuated 'changes' with a particularly deep shove and he grunted.
I got more lotion and went back to working my fingers from the base of his skull down his neck. A purr kicked up immediately, vibrating against me as I crouched over him. I started to feel warm as well, sweaty with the effort of manipulating those giant man muscles, and worked in silence so I wouldn't make a fool of myself.
Atticus sounded half-asleep. "If this meditation crap works, why didn't it fix your seizures?"
My hands paused on his sides, and for a moment I only stared at the back of his head and the unlikely cowlick in his dark hair. "Probably because I don't have seizures, do I?"
"Yeah, but —"
"Listen." I pressed on either side of his backbone, working my way down until I sat on his thighs and his muscular butt confronted me. Concentrating on ch'i presented a significant challenge with such a fine posterior pressed against my thighs. "I really believe in this stuff. It's helped me in many ways. Don't belittle it."
"I'm not belittling." He went up on an elbow and half turned to look at me. "I want to understand."
I wobbled and almost fell off the table, and Atticus's long arm reached back to steady me, his hand massive and strong and protective against my side. Heat flushed through me and set my heart racing. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." His voice went all husky, doubly enticing with the purr still rattling through the air between us.
Having a philosophical conversation about the nature of ch'i and the universe didn't flow well with him still holding me and me still perched on his thighs, so I dumped more cocoa butter on him to buy time. "I don't know anything about this shifting stuff, but I'm guessing that you and the lion are like this." I held up my right hand and flipped it back and forth, waiting for understanding to dawn across his expression.
His frown deepened. "Huh?"
I sat back a little more, flustered, and showed him my palm. "The lion." I showed him the back of my hand. "You."
Atticus just blinked at me. "Babe, I know you think you're making sense, but..."
Babe. My heart tripped and whatever I'd been about to say got stuck in my throat. Atticus remained oblivious, though, because he abruptly rolled to his back so he could look at me without contorting. Which left the evidence of how much he'd enjoyed my massage on display through his workout pants.
I concentrated on his face as my cheeks burned. My voice came out too loud as Atticus started grinning. "Two sides of the same hand. You and the — the lion are two sides of the same hand." He gripped my thigh, just above my knee, and squeezed. I talked faster. "And when you try to hold on even tighter to the lion, it throws the man side of you out of balance. So the ch'i is disrupted and —"
My voice went high and a little squeaky as his hand slid to the small of my back and he pressed me down and down until I lay over his chest and he could wrap his arms around me. Atticus bumped his nose to mine, and the purr rumbled still louder. "You want to align my ch'i, baby?"
I laughed and started to wriggle free. "That is the worst —"
His arms tightened and I went still. Atticus studied my mouth, his fingers tracing the length of my back. "I like you, Sophia."
My elbows bumped the table at his sides, and I floundered for an answer.
"It's okay," he said. His head tilted so his lips grazed my chin. "We've only known each other a couple of days. It's weird, I know, for it to feel like —"
"I like you too," I said, in a rush so good sense wouldn't bite the words back. I swallowed the uncertainty and instead basked in the warmth of his smile, the gentle stroke along my spine. "As weird as this is, it's — better because of you."
He kissed me, tentative at first, though something ignited between us until he devoured me. His fingers dug into my hips to press me against the hard line of his cock trapped against my stomach. I murmured against his mouth and ran my fingers into his hair. He tasted like chocolate and cream and unbridled lust. His hand slid under my yoga pants to squeeze my butt, and Atticus broke the kiss to nuzzle behind my ear. His words almost disappeared in the haze of desire that settled over us. "When I said I like you, I meant I love you."
My heart stilled and I blinked. "I, uh —" Even the mantra didn't help get my equilibrium back.
"It's okay," he said. He dragged my shirt off and tossed it across the room. Atticus leaned and took my lower lip in his teeth as his hips pressed up until my center rode over the ridge of his cock. The friction sparked desire low in my stomach, lightning arcing through my center, and I moaned against his mouth. He kissed me, repeating the maneuver in a gentle thrust, and mimicked the stroking with his tongue.
The haze of lust distracted me from what he'd said and my world shrank down to the pleasure of rubbing myself against him. I braced my hands by his shoulders to get better leverage and closed my eyes, his skin hot and rough against mine. My breath came faster as I moved, arching my back, and I put his hand on my breast, squeezing until I cried out.
Atticus chuckled, his hips punching up, then he held me close and sat up until I straddled his waist. He kissed and sucked at my throat, leaving deep bruises against my flesh as I moved faster, grinding in his lap because I was so damn close sparks dotted my vision. Atticus gripped my braid and yanked my head back until my back arched, my breasts pushed in his face, and as he sucked my breast into his mouth, I moaned. He growled and the sound vibrated through me until my nipple tightened and my muscles clenched. His fingers dipped into my yoga pants and then stroked into me, against me, rubbing my clit until I froze against him and the climax rolled through me in a tidal wave.
My eyes closed as I leaned back and moved against his hand as the aftershocks rippled, and Atticus tugged on my hair.
"I don't want to fuck you on a table," he said, all grumbling and growls.
"Then don't." It came out in a breathy moan and he lurched up, off the table. Threw me over his shoulder and strode into the bedroom where he dropped me on the mattress.
I sucked in a breath and scrambled closer to the headboard. "Turn off the light."
"I want to see you." The words came out husky and heated, matching the glowing gold eyes that tracked me as if I were something delicious to eat.
"The birthmarks are —"
"Make you look more like a leopard." Atticus crawled toward me on his hands and knees until he caught my ankle and I shivered. He yanked me toward him, under him, until his knees trapped my thighs and he pinned my shoulders.
I stared up at him, trembling, and his face dipped until he nuzzled behind my ear. "I want to see every inch of your body, Sophia. I want to rub myself all over you until you smell like me and I can find you anywhere in the world."
I sighed and squirmed at the teasing. I wanted him to rub all over me, too. I swallowed all the memories of being bullied and tormented for the birthmarks and wriggled my hands free to capture his face. "Be careful with me."
"Always." He grumbled and kissed a trail down my throat and collarbone to my breasts, mouth hot and wet on my nipples.
My heart fluttered and I struggled to breathe. He caught the waist of my pants and peeled them off, and I closed my eyes. His breath huffed against my stomach. I gripped the sheets as the rough stubble on his cheeks dragged against my inner thigh and everything caught fire. Even the mantra on repeat couldn't bring the world back into balance.