Elise’s tongue darted out, wet and pink, and left her lips gleaming. Her eyes dropped down to look at his before flicking back up. Then she leaned in and kissed him.
It was gentle at first, exploratory, and Nico groaned as her tongue swiped against his lips, asking for entrance.
He would deny her nothing.
He opened his mouth, and her tongue swooped in and met his. Anything gentle about it turned into passion as he took control, wrapping his other arm around her and holding her so tight that not a molecule of air could find its way between them.
He devoured her. The taste of her could drive him insane. He wanted to scoop her up and lay her back down on the bed, wanted to find out if she tasted the same everywhere, or if her secret places tasted even better.
His hand trailed down and brushed against her ass, and that seemed to be the step too far.
Elise's grip shifted until she was pressing against his chest rather than holding on tight, and Nico let her go. She stared at him, eyes wide, mouth panting, chest heaving, and swiped the back of her hand against her lips.
"What? Oh my god. No. We can't.” Her words came out fast, frantic. “What are youthinking? You kidnapped me. What the hell?" She took two stumbling steps backwards until she bumped into the bed, and then she scooted to the side as if she was afraid it was going to come to life and pull her down in some sort of evil alliance with Nico's hard cock.
"Youkissed me," he said. It was almost mean, but he wasn't going to let her ignore her own actions. Especially not when his wolf was so close to the surface and demanding that he convince her to give in to exactly what they both wanted.
He couldn't do that. He was a bastard already for kidnapping her, and twice a bastard if he had left bruises on her wrist from tugging her out of Cole's room.
He wouldn't add to that by taking things further than either of them knew they should go. He forced himself to breathe through his mouth and tried to ignore the lingering taste of Elise and the way her scent seemed to be taking over his room.
"Stay in here till sunrise," he said. "Don't go wandering again. I can't promise what will happen to you if you get caught."
"And where are you going to be?" she demanded and crossed her arms. Whatever lust she was feeling was clearly being transformed into anger. He understood the impulse. After all, his own anger had been transformed into lust.
"I can't stay here tonight," he said, and he left the room without giving her any more explanation.
Chapter
Twelve
Alone in Nico's room,Elise didn't get a wink of sleep. Not exactly surprising after all of the excitement of the night before.
Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined Nico getting all up in her space and burying his face in her neck and breathing her in like he could ingest her soul. It should have been an uncomfortable reminder that he was a werewolf if he hadn't been so fucking hot.
She wassoout of her depth.
What was it about him? Was this a werewolf thing? Did they affect all women this way? Was this why witches were supposed to stay away from them? So that they didn't do insane things like kiss their kidnappers in the middle of the night after they were almost caught performing secret magic on the pack alpha?
Because if that was the case, she could definitely understand. But she feared it was something about Nico, specifically, because she wasn't feeling this pull to any of the other betas. In fact, she would really like to run and hide from Reece.
Unfortunately, the person she wanted to hide behind was Nico, which was not helping anything.
Just after sunrise, she paced back and forth in Nico's room and debated whether she could find a corner to hide in all day. His window was probably big enough that she could jump out of it and try and escape, but they were on the second floor, and her legs were unfortunately very breakable, even if she did manage to get away from the house.
She was miles from the city, and there was a giant forest to get lost in. She thought she was a pretty capable woman, but she wasn't stupid enough to try and outrun a bunch of werewolves in the woods. That just screamed insanity.
Sitting put like she was felt a little bit like giving up, but what else was she supposed to do? She didn't know how to hotwire a car, and she hadn't gotten anywhere near their garage anyway. She couldn't fight the werewolves. And if she tried, she would give away the fact that she was a witch.
The truth was, her best option at this point was to try and heal the alpha and hope they let her go. It was so passive, and she hated it, but she didn't see another option.
Where were her sisters? It had been days now. They'd had plenty of time to scry out her location and find her. Of course, if theyhadfound her, they would realize she was in the middle of a werewolf pack, so that would present its own problem because it wasn't like a handful of witches could expect to win against dozens of werewolves. Not without a lot of planning.
But she would have expected a message orsomethingby now. They really needed to have some kind of"what to do if one of us gets kidnapped"protocol in place, and she would be suggesting that at the next coven meeting. Just as soon as she was no longer kidnapped.
After a shower and another fifteen minutes of hesitation, Elise forced herself out of the room and down the hall to Cole's room. Nico had said she was free to leave his room after sunrise,and she would take him at his word. He was waiting for her in Cole's room when she got there.
There was a small tray on the dresser with a muffin, a banana, and an insulated carafe of coffee that smelled divine.
