“You shouldn’t.”The words scraped out of my throat, each one a surrender.“I can’t be what you need.What you deserve.I’ve done things, Lena.Things you can’t imagine.Things that would make you look at me differently if you knew.”
“Then tell me.”She stroked her thumb across my cheekbone, her touch impossibly gentle against skin that had known nothing but violence.“Tell me everything.And let me decide for myself what I can live with.”
I couldn’t.The truth would destroy us.The wolf, the revenge, the web of lies I’d built our entire relationship on.If she knew I was the one holding her father’s debt, that I’d orchestrated her downfall from the very beginning, that I wasn’t even fully human.That the man she was touching was also the beast that haunted her nightmares.
But she was looking at me with those eyes.Those impossible, trusting eyes that saw something in me I’d never seen in myself.And the wolf was howling inside my chest, drowning out every rational thought with a single, primal demand.
Claim.Take.Keep.Ours forever.
“I can’t tell you everything.”My voice came out raw.Wrecked.“Not yet.But I can give you this.Tonight.Me.”
I pulled her into my arms, crushing her against my chest, burying my face in her hair and breathing her in like I was drowning and she was air.Her scent surrounded me, that sweetness that had been driving me slowly insane since the first moment it hit me.
“Is that enough?”
Her answer was to kiss me.
Not gentle.Not controlled.Not the careful, calculated seductions I’d deployed to break down her walls.This was desperate and hungry and raw.Every ugly thing I’d ever felt or done or wanted burned away by the heat of her mouth.She tasted like chamomile tea and honey and home, and I couldn’t get enough.
She kissed me back with equal ferocity, her fingers tangling in my hair, nails scraping against my scalp.Her body arched against mine, all that softness pressed against my hardness, and when I lifted her, when I carried her toward the bed, she wrapped her legs around my waist and whispered my name against my lips like it was a prayer.
Claim her.Mark her.Make her ours forever.
The wolf’s voice was thunder in my blood, drowning out reason, drowning out caution, drowning out everything except the woman in my arms and the need clawing at my chest.I fought against the instinct to bite, to claim, to complete the bond that had been screaming for completion since the first moment I’d caught her scent.My teeth ached with the need.My jaw hurt from clenching against it.
Not yet.Not like this.She didn’t know what she’d be binding herself to.What it would mean to bear my mark, to carry my scent, to be mine in every way that mattered to my kind.
But I could have this.Tonight, I could have this.Her body beneath mine.Her breath in my lungs.Her heart beating against my chest like it belonged there.
Tomorrow, the Pakhan’s words would still be waiting.The borrowed time would still be running out.
But tonight, she was mine.
And I was hers.
28
LENA
The bed hit the back of my knees and I fell, pulling him down with me.
His weight settled over me, solid and warm, pressing me into the mattress.It felt right.Like he belonged there.The kiss broke just long enough for him to look at me, really look at me, his gray eyes searching my face in the firelight.Looking for doubt.For hesitation.For any sign that I wanted to stop.
He wasn’t going to find one.
“Are you sure?”His hands trembled where they braced on either side of my head, and I could smell him and the violence he’d done tonight still clinging to his skin.This man who’d beaten someone bloody hours ago, who’d walked in with death on his knuckles, was shaking because of me.“Lena, I need you to be sure.Because if we do this, I don’t think I can stop.I don’t think I can let you go.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
The words came out steadier than I felt.My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears, and my hands were unsteady as I reached for him, pulling him back down to me.But I meant it.Every syllable.
I’d spent my whole life being careful.Being good.Being the daughter who didn’t make waves, who smiled through her father’s disappointments, who buried her own wants so deep she’d forgotten she had them.And now, with this man’s body covering mine and his breath hot against my lips, I was done being careful.
I wanted.I wanted him.And for once in my life, I was going to take what I wanted.
He kissed me again, slower this time.Unhurried.His mouth moved over mine like he was memorizing the shape of it, the taste of it.Like he had all the time in the world when we both knew we didn’t.His tongue traced the seam of my lips and I opened for him, letting him in, letting him take.
His hands found the hem of my borrowed shirt, the one I’d pulled from his closet because it smelled like him.He tugged it up slowly, his knuckles dragging against my stomach, my ribs, the undersides of my breasts.I shivered at every inch of contact.The calluses on his fingers caught against my skin, rough and real.When he pulled it over my head, the cool air hit my skin and I felt exposed in a way I never had before.
