‘Come on, Cal.’ I wiped the excess lube on the blankets and used vaguely clean hands to pull him on top of me. ‘I want you inside me.’
He growled. Literally growled. He’d done it before, but I hadn’t registered how animalistic he sounded. Now I knew a wolf prowled under the surface, evidence it was breaking free sent a weird thrill down my spine.
Callum lifted one of my legs, slotting my knee over his elbow. He breathed deep, his eyes fixed on where our bodies met, then pressed forwards.
It was impossible to tell who emitted what sound as Callum pushed relentlessly into me. We made a fucking cacophony. It was fortunate everyone else on the island livedmiles away because there was no way we wouldn’t have woken the whole village—humans and werewolves alike—with the amount of noise made.
Then Callum moaned in a way I’d become delightfully familiar with. I pressed my fingers into the muscles of his back, gasping at the shockwaves of pleasure riding through me as he hitched his hips in tight thrusts.
‘You came?’ I clarified after he stilled, his head resting on my chest. ‘That’s okay, Cal. It was your first time. No one lasts their first time. And you didn’t wear a condom. They make everything way less sensitive.’
Callum lifted his head and I schooled my expression into one of gentle acceptance. There was no shame in blowing his load quickly. Hell, I hadn’t lasted more then ten seconds my first time inside another person.
But the expression on Callum’s face wasn’t embarrassment or regret or any of the other things I might have expected. More than ever before, he looked hungry. Ravenous.
He growled, low in his throat. The vibrations shot through our every point of contact. In the split second before he blinked, his eyes burned with a strange yellow light.
Then he pumped his hips, and every other consideration except getting more of that action fled.
I should have remembered Callum could get hard again in two seconds flat. He might have orgasmed immediately upon getting inside me, but that didn’t mean this was over.
I groaned as he pulled further back, then snapped his hips forwards. More than lube made the way smooth and slick.
I wanted to comment on his ludicrous refractory period. I wanted to ask about his eyes’ yellow glow. I wanted to checkhis mouth and hands, see how wolfy he was. But that all required diverting my focus from where Callum drove himself inside me with the perfect amount of speed and pressure.
I cried out when he hit my prostate. From then on, thoughts of anything other than making this last as long as possible and getting as much of my skin on as much of Callum’s skin as possible was lost. My existence zeroed in on the beautiful man on top of and inside me.
He kissed me, his tongue pressing into my gasping mouth. I did the same, and could feel his sharpening canines. His hands braced on the mattress either side of my shoulders. I’d bet anything there would be claw marks in the blankets.
I felt so close to coming, but didn’t follow the temptation to grab my dick. I wanted to come from Callum inside me, his stomach rubbing over my erection, his mouth licking and kissing across my neck.
He raised his head. Nothing stopped, nothing changed, but in the maelstrom of chasing our orgasms, there was a moment of stillness. Callum didn’t speak, but I felt like he said things with that look. Things we weren’t meant to say. Things I wanted to say. Things I wanted to hear.
Then the moment ended. I was left wondering if I’d imagined it when Callum gave one long thrust and came a second time. The thought was enough to send me spiralling over the edge.
It took a long time for our breathing to calm. I whined in an incredibly adult way when Callum moved off me. He was tender as he attended to the mess we’d made, his fingers gentle as he cleaned my skin.
He settled in his habitual space at my side, his head resting on my shoulder and one arm slung over my chest.
‘Again.’ Words finally returned after my post-orgasm daze cleared. ‘We have to do that again.’
‘It wasn’t too much?’ Callum snuggled into my side.
I raised my arms to hold him closer. ‘It was freaking amazing.’
I could feel him beaming against my skin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CALLUM
It took me a while to identify what I felt the next day as I trekked across the island to check on the goats living on the other side of the loch. They were a determined lot, obsessed with the six-foot-high fences around the island’s dairy farm. Normally, my mind settled into a fragile sense of contentment while I worked. Since Aster came to the island, that contentment had felt stronger, robust. Even verging on happiness.
This feeling was different. Only when I sat down for lunch, watched by goats who had become far too familiar with a human sharing sandwiches with them, did I identify it.
Hope.
My mind hadn’t been filled with tasks to complete or working over memories of the night before. Not all of it. At times a flash of what it was like to be inside Aster almost brought me to my knees.
