Her head rested against my shoulder like it belonged there.Her guard was completely down, every wall demolished by single malt and exhaustion.She was warm and soft and she smelled so good it was making me dizzy.Apples and cream and whisky, and underneath that, the warm musk of a woman who was aroused whether she knew it or not.
“Here.”I held a piece of dark chocolate to her lips.“Last bite.”
She took it from my fingers.Then, instead of pulling back, she caught my thumb in her mouth and sucked the chocolate off.
I stopped breathing.
Her tongue traced along my finger, collecting the last traces of sweetness.She did the same to my index finger, her eyes half-closed, completely unselfconscious.Then she took my middle finger into her mouth and sucked gently, her cheeks hollowing around it.
The wolf was going insane, howling and clawing and demanding.
Take her.Now.Claim her.She wants it.She’s offering herself.Take what’s ours.
I clenched my free hand into a fist, fighting for control.My cock was iron-hard against her hip, and she had to feel it, had to know what she was doing to me.
She pulled back, licking her lips.Her eyes were hazy with whisky but there was something else there too.Curiosity.Desire.
“Are you going to fuck me tonight?”
The words hung in the air between us.Obscene.Direct.Not something I’d expected from her innocent mouth.
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”She shifted on my lap, her hip pressing against my erection.“I can feel how much you want to.”
“You’re not ready.”
“I feel ready.”She wriggled again, on purpose this time.“You feel ready.”
I grabbed her hip, stilling her movement.If she kept that up, I was going to lose what little control I had left.
“By the time I take you,” I said, my voice rough, “you’ll be begging for it.You’ll be wet and desperate and you’ll think you’ll die if I don’t give you my cock.That’s when I’ll fuck you.Not before.”
She considered this with the earnest concentration of the thoroughly drunk.Then she nodded, apparently satisfied with this answer, and rested her head against my shoulder.
“Okay.”
We sat like that for a while.I didn’t move.I barely breathed.The weight of her on my lap, the warmth of her body against mine, the soft sound of her breathing… I felt something shift in me.Something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
The wolf was quiet now.Content in a way I’d never felt before.Mate,he murmured.Safe.Ours.
I told him to shut up.
Time blurred after that.We sat in the candlelight, her weight warm against me, her breathing slow and deep.The fire crackled.Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed the hour.I didn’t move.Didn’t want to disturb whatever fragile peace had settled over us.
Eventually, her breathing changed.Deepened.
She fell asleep against me.
One moment she was warm and pliant, making soft sounds of contentment, and the next she was unconscious, her head lolling against my shoulder, her breathing deep and even.
I should have woken her.Sent her to her room.Made her walk there on her own two feet.
Instead, I gathered her into my arms and carried her.
She weighed nothing.Her arms wound around my neck without conscious thought, and she pressed her face into my throat, breathing me in.Nuzzling into my scent like she belonged there.
The gesture of trust from someone who had every reason to fear me did something I didn’t want to acknowledge.Woke an ache I thought I’d killed years ago.
