“Because it keeps being true.”
She holds my eyes, and I know what’s unsaid. She’s worried, but she trusts me. And that’s something I could never have dreamed would happen.
“Let’s go to bed,” I say.
“It’s barely nine o’clock.”
“And?”
The corner of her mouth lifts. She uncrosses her arms. Walks past me toward the bedroom. Pauses in the doorway.
“If these walls are thin,” she says, “that’s your problem.”
She disappears inside.
I check the front door. Check the windows. Cameron’s room is quiet; the kid can sleep through anything, which is either a gift or a survival mechanism. Probably both.
I step into the bedroom, and she’s already pulled her shirt over her head. Standing in the moonlight from the window in her jeans and a bra that isn’t designed to be attractive and is the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen because it’s on her body, in my room, in the cabin where I’ve slept alone for my entire adult life.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“I’m appreciating.”
“Appreciate faster.”
I cross the room. My hands find her waist, the curve of muscle over her hips, the warmth of her skin, the flare of her ribcage. She reaches for my shirt and pulls it up and off, and her palms splay on my chest. The contact—her hands on me, warm on my flesh, exploring—sends a flood of electricity through me. I think it’s always going to be that way.
We’re different now. The desperation is gone, or at least it’s reduced, because I’ll never get enough of her. What replaces it is intention. She’s here. She chose to be here. She walked into this compound and faced a pack of hostile wolves. She stood at myleft and took Edda’s fire. Now, she’s standing in my bedroom, choosing me. Again. Always.
I kiss her. Slowly. Savoring her. She tastes like the mint tea she drank at dinner, and her mouth is warm and sweet.
Her hands work my belt. Mine unbutton her jeans. We undress each other with the measured urgency of two people who aren’t rushed but aren’t patient either. Her bra. My jeans. The last layers stripped away until we’re standing naked in the silver light.
“God. You’re so fucking beautiful.” My voice is hoarse. I raise a hand and trace my fingertips down her chest. Cup a moonlit breast.
She pulls in a breath, then puts a hand on my chest and pushes. I sit on the bed. She stays standing while I sit, and it puts her above me. The look on her face tells me that’s exactly where she wants to be.
“Lie back,” she says.
I lie back. The mattress is the same one I’ve slept on for a decade, and it has never felt like this. The cool sheets against my back, the anticipation singing through my blood, the woman climbing onto the bed and straddling my hips with the deliberate confidence of someone claiming territory.
Because that’s what this is. In a compound where she’s the outsider, in a cabin that belongs to me, in a bed where no one has been but me, she’s claiming it. Making it hers. The wolf in her knows what this means. So does the wolf in me, and he’s more than willing to let her take what she wants.
She settles over me. The heat of her core against my length, not taking me in, just resting there, and the tease of it makes me grip her thighs hard enough that she smiles.
“Patience,” she says.
“Not my strongest quality.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She rolls her hips. A slow, deliberate grind that drags a sound out of me I don’t entirely control. Her hands are on my chest, her eyes locked on mine, and I can feel what she’s feeling: the power of this position, the control, the satisfaction of making a man who commands a company of wolves come apart under her hands.
She lifts. Takes my shaft in her hand. Guides the head of my cock to her entrance and teases me there.
“Fuck,” I choke out.
“Still impatient.” She grins. Then sinks down—slow, inch by inch, her teeth catching her lower lip, her eyes never leaving mine. The feeling of her around me, tight and wet and searingly warm, shuts down every higher function in my brain. My hands find her hips. She pins them to the mattress.
