‘What can you smell right now?’ I set my empty bowl on the floor for Tim and Albert to lick clean. While eating, Callum and I had covered his healing abilities—phenomenal—and his strength—I no longer needed to worry he might hurt his back hauling me about the place during sexy times. But I was freaked out by the advanced senses the book talked about.
Callum put his bowl on the coffee table—much to the disgust of the goats—and closed his eyes.
‘This would be different outside. I can scent across most of the island when there’s nothing in the way. I would be able to smell the goats and the village and my old home.’ A small frown marred his perfect features. ‘I can just about smell all that now, but the scents in the cabin are much stronger.’
‘What are they?’ I shifted to sit cross-legged, facing him.
He breathed deep. ‘Our dinner. The garlic is strong. I can smell the goats, the fire, the chopped wood. The freshness of outdoors on my clothes, the flowers from your bath.’
That was a lot of things to absorb at once. It didn’t stop my squirmy discomfort. ‘Can you smell me at all?’
Callum’s eyes snapped open. ‘I can always smell you.’
‘Shit.’ I grimaced. ‘Sorry. That must be annoying. No wonder you didn’t want me here when I first came to the island.’
Callum scowled. ‘I could smell you as soon as you arrived.’
‘Is everyone like that, or am I particularly pungent?’
His eyes narrowed, then he tugged on my arm. He kept tugging until I straddled his legs. He pushed his face into the join between my neck and shoulder.
‘Aster, the day you arrived on the island I couldn’t concentrate because of a new scent I couldn’t get a handle on. I didn’t know what it was.’ He inhaled against my skin. ‘When you came up here, I didn’t know how I would keep away from you. All I wanted was to breathe you in.’
‘Oh.’ I swallowed. ‘So being able to smell me all the time is a good thing?’
Callum took a shuddering breath. ‘I’ve never smelt anyone remotely like you. Other people stay the same. Theirkey scent might change depending on what they’ve done that day, but the core remains unchanged. But you. You’re the smell of dawn on a spring day. You’re the freshest bread and new roses and crashing waves. You’re sweet and warm in a hundred different ways.’
I clutched at his shoulders. ‘Is it because I’m a witch?’
Callum pulled back from my neck, his eyes glazed like he was drunk on my unpindownable scent. ‘I don’t think so. It’s because you’re you.’
I blinked at him. I didn’t know how to take that. Callum kept saying things like this, things that—if we didn’t have a clear end date to what was happening between us—I could interpret in deep and meaningful ways. Callum couldn’t mean it like that though. He knew the deal. He just thought I smelt nice. Anything extra I interpreted from that was wishful thinking.
I lent forwards and inhaled against his neck. Because of the position Callum had pulled me into, I could feel how it affected him. His jeans tightened, his back arched. A low rumble vibrated in his chest.
‘Do you like it when I smell you?’ I sat back.
Callum nodded, his eyes even more unfocused. ‘Especially there. It’s a vulnerability thing, baring my neck to someone. It feels dangerous, but in a good way.’ His eyes flicked between mine. ‘I trust you with every bit of me.’
There he went again, saying something that could easily be misinterpreted to mean way more than what was allowed. To avoid saying something that needed no unpicking to be seen as way over the line, I leant in to trace my nose up his neck.
Callum groaned. His hands leapt to my waist when I repeated the action with my tongue.
‘How does being a werewolf affect sex?’ I whispered into his skin. ‘Is that why you waited?’
Callum shuddered as I ran my teeth across his collarbone. ‘No. I think that’s a me thing.’
I smiled. ‘Don’t avoid the first question, Cal.’
His skin heated under my lips. ‘I’m not sure. It makes things more intense, maybe? The smell of your cum is a concentrated shot of you.’
My turn to moan. Who knew being smelled so intricately and intimately could be a turn-on?
Callum stilled underneath me, so I raised my head. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth.
‘Whatever you have to say, I want to hear it,’ I reassured him.
His eyes fixed on my chest, he said, ‘It was the reason I didn’t want to top. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to keep my claws and fangs inside.’
