“Aurora!” he bites back, suddenly closing the gap between us and snatching my nape with a forceful hand.
My breath hitches when I have nowhere to hide from his penetrating eyes, darker now as they stare into the depths of my being. My heart is pounding, my mouth is going dry as I forget how to breathe. I’m mesmerized by his closeness, his touch, his mere breath as the heat fans my face.
My undoing is flicking my eyes to his succulent lips, because when I meet his burning stare again, I witness him matching my curiosity as those brooding eyes fall on my mouth. When he lifts them, they're vibrantly dark, and a sigh escapes my parted lips with consent.
He pulls me in harshly as he crushes his lips to mine. A wave of relief washes over me, startling me as the torment of my heat subsides.
This is exactly what I wanted—to feel his lips on mine—even before I experienced a heat cycle. I wanted this years ago, and now that it’s here, and I get to taste the rich, inebriating essence of his mouth, there’s only one problem that sticks out like a sore thumb.
He breaks the kiss, and the short breaths I’m able to grab allow me to admit, “I’ve never done this before…”
Chapter 7 - Elias
The frantic kiss is what helps me lose my mind, throwing caution to the wind and setting it ablaze with the intensity of my desire.
The moment my airways filled with the pheromones Aurora was exuding as a product of her heat, I couldn’t resist. My wolf turned rabid, feral with the intense need to calm her wolf and soothe it with what she needs the most.
Gone are my inhibitions as I break the kiss, riding on the high of her sweet essence swirling on my taste buds. I’ve tasted her, and it’s my undoing. I can’t fight my wolf any longer.
As I pull back to see the effects of the kiss on Aurora’s swollen heart-shaped lips, a surge of awareness pools between my thighs. The heightened sensitivity strains in the confines of my sweatpants, and my brows pull into an anguished frown.
Aurora licks her bottom lip and turns her eyes away, panting from the kiss.
“I’ve never done this before,” she admits sheepishly as she averts her eyes, her creamy cheeks flushing the deepest shade of pink.
My heart skips a beat, as if my wolf itself has found a renewed sense to become honorable. The kiss was far from it, but she’s just admitted something I wasn’t expecting.
How…?
She’s at least twenty-three years old, and she’s never been kissed?
Suddenly feeling frighteningly compassionate, my hand moves from the back of her head to her cheek.
“You’ve never been kissed?” I whisper in disbelief, and she confirms it with a terse shake of her head.
While the remnants of the heated squabble between us hang overhead, I can’t ignore my inner wolf’s most primal need—to satisfy the she-wolf in heat. It’s not like she’s the first she-wolf to be around me in this condition, but she’s the first one whose wolf seems to call out to mine.
There’s a bestial need to rip off her clothes and claim her body, but it’s soothed by the balm of her shy doe eyes that turn to me.
“We can’t…” she whispers, her voice tapering off as she shakes her head timidly.
Fighting the urge to stop before I do something I might regret, I’m about to draw my hand back when a flicker of sharp awareness courses through my arm and extends into my fingertips, stopping me from moving. I gasp lowly, feeling the stirring of my inner wolf that keeps me frozen, forcing me to stare deeply into Aurora’s eyes.
In the warm depths of brown, I envision a scene I’ve only witnessed in my dreams…
The dreams about my fated mate—a faceless she-wolf with golden-brown hair and smooth ivory skin.
I take a deep breath for composure, not wanting to believe in fate and instead focusing on what’s going on now. All I know is that my inner wolf demands to soothe Aurora’s wolf—out of duty or because her heat is so intense, I’m not sure. But I suddenly feel so much empathy for the pain she must be feeling when she winces, and a hand flies to her lower belly.
Grimacing as if I can feel her pain, too, I shake my head with solemn conviction as I shift closer, startling her as her eyes widen.
“I can’t explain it, but this needs to happen,” I explain, stroking the apple of her cheek with the pad of my thumb, drawing out more heated color on her flesh.
All she does is blink at me in disbelief, a faint whimper escaping her moist lips as her brows knit shyly. It takes her gentle nod for me to heed the command of my inner wolf, closing the distance between us with a sweet kiss that tingles my nerves.
Aurora doesn’t protest as I deepen the kiss with my tongue, lapping at the roof of her mouth as she makes pleasant sounds of delight. Drinking in her moans that seem to quench an inherent thirst, I find myself floating and seeing stars in the backs of my eyelids.
I’m drunk on the taste of the kiss, internalizing my suspicion that the pull I felt toward her in the past might not have been absurd, after all. I felt it then, just as I feel it now—that forceful urge to claim her and devote my life to her well-being.
