Not at all.I tuck her close, turning her head so she can’t see my face and the vulnerabilities she’s now torn open. “Rest.”
“We should talk.”
Talking is in our future, but I’ll be damned if she ruins tonight.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Oh. That.Dad’s death feels so far away. I should be at the camp, celebrating his life alongside my pack, with a feast. Similarly, Carina should be home safe and in her bed.
“Life and death are part of nature. I’d like to think he’s with Mom now and they’re happy together.”
Knowing what I do,feelingwhat I do, it’s no wonder he was so eager to find her in the Otherworld. Years spent without his mate is something I never really comprehended before Carina.
“I’d believe that too,” she murmurs sleepily, yawning. I drag my fingers through her hair, encouraging what her body’s urging her to fall victim to. “You guys don’t believe in Hecate, but She does care for all. If your version of the Otherworld is anything like Summerland, She’s looking out for them.”
“Sleep, Carina. In the morning, you can begin helping me move some of the pack into the mountains.”And stay there yourself.
“Sounds good.” The O’s drag out with another yawn, and her body slumps heavier.
Tucking her closer, I bury my face in her hair and stare up at the stars, counting them until her paced breaths blow over my chest. Once she’s asleep, I let myself drift as well.
In the course of an hour, both of our futures have been changed.
Forty
CARINA
Ryder wakesme once in the night by tugging me atop him. Sex is quick, intense, and ends with me on my back and him nuzzling my neck again before we both drift off for a few more hours of sleep.
When the sun breaks over the trees, I wake with his head on my chest, body partially on top of mine. He’s not heavy enough to be uncomfortable, and he’s warm enough that the autumn morning chill hardly registers.
To say the experience of having sex with Ryder is lacking would be a boldfaced lie Hecate would see through. The place on my neck where he bit me no longer stings, and other than four puncture marks from his teeth, the skin is smooth and healed. As I brush my fingertips over it, a shiver encases me. I arch into him, wantinghimto touch me there.
My reactions seem…visceral. But nothing I can stop, either—nor want to. I’ve never felt so needy for another person. Not in the way I want Ryder. Every day, all day. For him to never stop touching me. For my day to begin with me on top and end with him above me. He gave a part of himself to me last night, encouraging a craving forallof him.
It’s a gentle tugging in my sternum, almost magickal if I didn’t know shifters don’t have those kinds of powers. Whether this is normal or not will be a question for later, right after the one regarding the bite on my neck that he continues to pet.
Even now, he nuzzles the spot in his sleep. I tilt my head, wanting him to, because as he does, a softness drags my limbs down. Peace, as if all is right in the world. When he caresses the bite, my body is wrecked by another kind of orgasm—one only he can pull forth. One that leaves me limp and only available for him.
It means something—I know it. He’ll tell me later, and if not, I’ll drag the truth from Leah. It’s something primal. Something that takes sex with a shifter to new heights.
As Ryder begins waking, his lips curl into a smile, kissing where he bit. He rolls me onto my back and comes on top of me, hands pressed into the ground beside my head. Despite being half asleep, with his eyes barely open, his tongue drags from my neck to my chest, waking and attuning all my senses to him.
My skin is wired with sensations beneath his fingertips. His earthy scent fills my nostrils. His low growls match my own breaths, as if he’s breathingfor menow. Sex permeates the air, my tongue lapping the taste until he can replace it with his mouth. All I see ishim, every part of him, inside and out—soul and surface.
He nips down my breasts, pausing to lavish each nipple, and then over my stomach, my hip, and finally pauses over my pussy.
“How is it possible to want you again?” In a matter of hours, he’s taken me twice and it’s not enough.
It’ll never be enough.
Ryder presses the flat of his tongue to my clit in response, and he doesn’t let up until I’m screaming his name. And when my core is tight, he slips his tongue—which can partially shift—inside me. I’ll need some time to fully reflect on that fact.
When he forces two orgasms back to back, he climbs up my body and thrusts his cock, also an inhuman length, inside me. He holds my hands above my head and hikes my leg around his hip to alter the angle.
“Why’s this feel…not enough?”
“Because it’s the first of many and your body knows it. Knowsme. Knows…” A strange expression crosses his face. It’s one of many odd looks in the past few hours. There’s something he’s not telling me, and I vow to figure it out.
