I love you, Lloyd, her heart cried.I always will. I just need this.
Surrendering to need, Elaine kissed Connor with everything in her. Lips. Tongue. Teeth. Every beat of her faulty heart. She prayed Lloyd would forgive her, and yet she knew he’d never want her to feel a need for forgiveness.
In her mind’s eye, she saw him walking away, and she let him go. Even her bear bowed its head in a final tribute to its alpha.
A tear slipped from between her closed eyelids and into their mouths. Tasting it, Connor opened his eyes and wiped it away.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You feel whatever you need to feel.” With the gentlest of touches, he kissed each of her eyelids.
His touch seemed to take away the heaviness of her eyelids. They didn’t want to droop anymore. She certainly didn’t want to cry.
As the lump in her throat faded away, Elaine reached behind her back and unhooked her pink lace bra. She removed the garment and let it fall to the floor.
Connor stared, seemingly rapt, and touched a reverent hand to her breast. His other hand followed suit. He kneaded her flesh, tweaking and tugging her nipples until she thought she might cry for other reasons. Her nipples had already pebbled to the point of pain because it had been a while since they’d been touched in this way. His mouth found her neck again, and his breaths grew shallow. As he caressed her breasts, he ground his hips against her pelvis.
A pillar of rock-hard desire rubbed against her.
Connor hoisted her up by the ass, and she wrapped her legs around him. Sucking her nipple, he carried her into the bedroom. He threw her down on the bed and flicked on one of the bedside lights. She didn’t mind. She wanted to see him. Throwing off his sweater, he lay atop her and worshipped at her breasts. Elaine closed her eyes and raked her fingernails across his undulating back muscles.
His tongue flicked at her nipples, and then he licked his way around her entire breast, moving in slow circles. When he reached the spot above where her heart lay, he turned his head and rested it on her chest.
It took her only a second to realize he was listening to her heart.
When he raised his smiling face, his beauty almost made her dissolve. “It sounds good. Strong and steady.”
She stroked his face. “You’re the one with the good heart.”
His jaw ticked at the compliment, but when he tugged at her jeans zipper, his face changed. The uneven glow cast by the bedside light threw him partially into shadow and his features lengthened. As he pulled off her jeans and socks, he grinned, but his teeth seemed sharper, feline.
She wished she’d matched her panties to her bra, but she hadn’t been in a panty-matching frame of mind for some time. As a result, she now wore a pair of flowered boy shorts. They were cute but didn’t exactly throw off the kind of sexy vibe she would have preferred.
Connor knelt at the edge of the bed and inspected them, tracing their outline with one finger. “I like these.”
“All my nice lingerie is packed away.”
“Elaine, I said I like these. They’re pretty and soft.” His finger roved toward her inner thigh, making her clench in anticipation. “So soft I can see your hairs through them.”
Oh God. When was the last time she’d shaved down there?
“Do you have any idea how fucking sexy that is?”
She giggled. “So you don’t mind a full bush?”
“Sweetheart, if it’s decorating your pussy, you can bet I don’t mind.”
She sighed. Dirty talk. God, how she’d missed dirty talk.
Connor spread her legs and lowered his face to her panties. He breathed in. She knew shifter males appreciated a woman’s scent, especially when she was aroused.
And God was she aroused. He still hadn’t touched her there. Would he ever?
As if in answer to her prayers, Connor dragged his forefinger along her seam. The pleasure was so intense, so unbearably foreign, she bucked on the bed and let out a shout.
He removed his finger. “I know it’s been a while. Let’s go slowly. I don’t want to wear you out.”
“Connor, please.”
He slid his fingertip under the elastic at her belly. “Yes?”
