Free Cursed: Brides of the Kindred 13 by Evangeline Anderson

there, stretched out in the passenger side chair. “I would be lying if I said otherwise.”
    Charlie struggled to sit up and he put an arm around her shoulders and eased her gently into a sitting position. The clean scent of his skin, masculine and warm and somehow spicy filled her senses. Her already fuzzy head seemed to get even lighter until it felt like someone had replaced her brain with a fluffy pink wad of cotton candy.
    “Mmmm.” Instead of letting him go, she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his neck, inhaling deeply. “Y’ smell damn good too,” she murmured, slurring her words a little. She knew it was the medicine talking for her—and acting for her too—but at the moment it didn’t seem to matter. A big, sexy guy was holding her in his arms and it had been a looong time since that had happened. Actually, it had been a long time since she’d even wanted it to happen. And she’d never expected to want it to happen with a Kindred. Not since Missy—
    But even in her drug impaired state her mind wouldn’t let her to go there. She’d worked too hard to bury it to bring it up now.
    Now she just wanted to enjoy herself.
    “Mmmm,” she murmured again, snuggling closer. “God, you smell incredible . Makes me wanna just lick you all over like a big ol’ ice cream cone.” Only the very barest trace of common sense still lingering in her brain kept her from doing just that.
    The big Kindred—who had stiffened at first—relaxed and let her hug him.
    “You smell good to me too. Are you well, Charlotte?” he asked, his breath warm against the side of her neck.
    “Never better,” she purred. “And don’t call me Charlotte, I never liked that name. Call me Charlie.”
    “All right…Charlie.” He said it hesitantly, as though tasting the name. “And you may call me Stav if you like. Uh…” He shifted and she realized he was bending over her awkwardly since she still had her arms around his neck.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, not letting go. “Are you getting a backache standing like this?”
    “It is not the most comfortable position in the world,” he rumbled. “Although I would endure it gladly for your sake. But I do need to keep an eye on the viewscreen.”
    “This seat isn’t very comfortable for me either,” Charlie loosened her grip a little bit and gave him her best pouty face—the one she hadn’t used since she was a little girl and wanted something from her daddy. “I liked it better when you were holding me—like you did at my place.”
    “I can again…if you like. I could still keep an eye on the instrument panel that way,” he offered. When she nodded eagerly, he scooped her up and settled back into the captain’s chair with her in his lap.
    Charlie sighed contentedly and put her arms around his narrow waist and her head on his broad shoulder. Somewhere inside a little voice was screaming that she was acting a fool, that she would pay for all this later but she didn’t even care. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so good. So warm and comfortable and protected. Some instinct buried deep in her subconscious told her she was in the arms of a male who would kill or die to protect her. She didn’t know how she knew it—she just knew it and that knowledge as well as the feeling of his big, muscular arms around her was incredibly comforting.
    “You are acting…very differently from when we first met,” Stav remarked.
    “Mmm-hmm. If you mean I’m not holding a gun on you, it’s ‘cause I don’t have one here. You kicked mine under the bed,” she reminded him.
    “I wanted to keep you from pointing it at me,” he rumbled. “Getting rid of your weapon seemed the best way to avoid getting shot.”
    “You really think I would’ve shot you?” She looked up at him, all wide-eyed innocence.
    “I don’t know—would you?” He looked down at her curiously.
    “Hell yes—if you needed shootin’.” For some reason this struck her