Collaring Chaz (Dante's Infernal #2) - Joel Abernathy

Chapter 1

Chaz

“Not so hard,” Raf muttered, his hand fisted in my hair and his voice strained from being so close.

I pulled back and licked him in apology, and the blissed-out moan on his lips said all was forgiven. He stroked my hair, and the affectionate gesture was almost enough to push me over the edge, because I was just that pathetic.

His grip tightened up suddenly, and he shifted back, pushing my head away. I looked up in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Get over here,” he said, patting his lap. He was still mostly dressed, his leathers unzipped as he lay back against the couch. A gaming session had turned into something more, as it did more often than not lately.

His words weren’t exactly a romantic sonnet, but they made my heart skip a beat all the same.

My head spun from getting up so fast, but fuck, I wanted him. My hands were trembling, and I was taking too long undoing the button of my jeans for his liking, so Raf pushed my hands aside and finished unzipping them himself, yanking the jeans down past my hips. I was still stepping out of them when he dragged me onto his lap.

“Where’s the bottle?” he asked breathlessly.

It took a sec for me to think about the question, mostly since the not-so-sexy waiting screen music from the game was still chirping away in the background, taunting my ADD brain. Not that it had ever stopped us before.

“In the bedroom,” I answered, leaning in to kiss him. It might as well have been on the other side of the world. The look of distress on his face told me he thought I had plans of actually bothering to go in there. “Just do it, my spit’s enough.”

He raised an eyebrow, amusement briefly touching his glazed eyes. “Really a shame we don’t let you write the lyrics.”

“Oh, shut up,” I muttered, crushing my lips to his once more. He dug his fingertips into my thighs as I positioned myself above him. I braced myself on his shoulders and bit my lip as I lowered my body.

The whole no-prep thing might’ve been a mistake in retrospect, as I was promptly reminded of how stupidly huge he was.

Oh, well.

I gripped his shoulders for balance as I lowered myself a little more, enjoying the glassy look of pleasure in his eyes.

“Fuck,” he breathed, giving my thighs a hard squeeze.

My lips quirked, but the sharp pain of my body adapting to him kept it from being an all-out smirk. “Better than all those groupies, huh?”

His only response to my taunting was to pull me in for another kiss, forcing me down all the way in the process. I dug my nails into his skin as retribution, but he was perfectly angled, and it felt too good not to respond. Letting my head fall back, I ground against him, slow and easy at first, building up to desperate rocking in sync with his movements.

“Mmmh,” I moaned as Rafael’s tongue dipped into my mouth again, tasting like cherry and bourbon.

My two favorite flavors.

I slipped my fingers into his hair, tugging a little. He got the hint and began to caress me. I was already on the edge, so it didn’t take much to push me off the brink.

“Raf,” I panted as we finished at the same time, in sync with one another as we often were. We embraced each other, his skin hot against mine, like he was filled with fire. I wished I could stay in his arms forever, his fingertips digging into my trembling back, but I knew I needed to climb off him before he realized just how much I was enjoying the intimacy.

The fear of being needy pushed me to begin to peel myself off his lap, but he didn’t let me go.

“Just give me a minute and we’ll go for round two,” he promised, pulling me back into another kiss.

I moaned my approval against his lips, enjoying the rare moment of tenderness.

I loved doing it hard and rough and at a moment’s notice. Just...sometimes, I kind of wished we could be close even if we weren’t screwing around.

Every time I had a thought like that, I had to pull the reins back hard.

We were friends with benefits. That was it. Yeah, they were shirt-ripping, lip-biting, earth-shattering benefits, but it wasn’t a relationship. Raf wasn’t the type, with one notable exception, and I sure as hell wasn’t it.

I knew that. I was good with it.

Most of the time.

After a