His fingers stroked slowly, gently through the satin, and the pressure building inside me rose toward some mysterious carnal conclusion. “Under,” I gasped, my voice a breathless whisper.
Jace’s tongue trailed toward my neglected nipple as his thighs spread beneath me, making more room for his hand. His fingers pushed aside the strip of cloth I still wore and he groaned against the swell of my breast. “You aresowet.”
I hardly heard him. I heard only the frantic rush of his pulse. I felt only the steady pace of his fingers, stroking, teasing, building. “Oh!” I breathed, and he sucked my nipple into his mouth. “Jace! More!”
He gave my breast one more quick lick. “Do you want my fingers inside you, Abby?”
“Yes,” I moaned. “Please.Now.”
His hand shifted between my thighs, then his thumb stroked gently as one finger slowly slid deep inside me. “Ohhh…” I moaned, as he pressed forward and up, and this new pressure found a hidden sensitive spot. “Jace!” I rocked against his hand and that delicious friction exploded in wave after wave of a throbbing pleasure I’d never imagined. Every muscle I had tightened, clinging to that sensation. Riding it. The world unraveled all around me as he stroked, and sucked, and drew from me a release I hadn’t known my body was capable of.
And as the pleasure finally faded, ebbing with little aftershocks, Jace’s hand withdrew and I fell forward against his chest, resting my cheek on his shoulder. “That was incredible,” I whispered, and his chuckle rumbled through me.
“It was a good start.”
“You’re saying it gets better?”
“Well, generally, as a couple gets to know each other physically, they get more comfortable, and as they learn things about each other, their sex life can reach all new…heights.”
Couple.
Jace was saying he and I were a couple. With a sex life. That concept seemed unbelievably normal and healthy, and almost too good to be true.
He shrugged. “Although you seemed like you had a pretty good time, and they say a good first time can be pretty hard to beat.”
“First?” I sat up and frowned, trying to understand. “But we didn’t even have sex. And I’m not technically a….”
“A virgin?” Jace said, and I could only nod stiffly. His hand slid into my hair again and his gaze locked onto mine. “Abby, sex is intimate and consensual, and neither of those descriptors apply to what happened to you in that cage. But I hope you see how they apply here, with us. And how they always will, as long as you want me.”
I nodded. I did understand that.
“And as for virginity…” He shrugged. “That’s an archaic concept anyway, and a hazy one at best. There’s no biological or physical definition. If you don’t believe me, justtrytelling a woman who’s only ever enjoyed the company of another woman that she’s still a virgin.”
“So, there’s no such thing as virginity? Seriously?” Why had no one evertoldme that?
“Well,Ilike to think of virginity as a state of sexual inexperience, and I believe that it can’t be taken. It can only begiven, in exchange for a consensual, illuminating, and hopefullyreallyfulfilling introduction into the carnal arts,” Jace said, and the heat in his eyes burned right through me.
“So, then…” My heart thundered in my chest, and my cheeks burned. “I just gave you my virginity.”
Jace nodded, and gently pulled me close enough to whisper into my ear. “And I will treasure it for the rest of my life.”
NINE
Jace
Something buzzed in the dark, and it took several seconds for me to recognize the sound of my phone bouncing on a hard surface. At some point, I must have put it on vibrate.
I rolled to my right, reaching for the nightstand, and the soft creak of the mattress beneath me was unfamiliar. I blinked, suddenly wide awake. Unfamiliar beds were nothing new, but I never stayed out overnight unless I had pressing Pride business elsewhere, because an absent Alpha makes for a vulnerable territorial capital. And I wouldneverleave the Pride during a crisis like…
Abby!
I inhaled as my phone vibrated again, and her scent was suddenly everywhere, and it wasdeliciouslymultifaceted. I smelled her skin, and her hair, and her sweat, and another, more intimate moisture that had already soaked into her panties by the time I…
My phone clattered again, and when I reached for it, my hand landed on Abby’s warm arm instead. I’d slept on the wrong side of the bed, because the bed was actually the foldout couch in the living room of the west cabin.
I hadn’t left Abby; I’d stayed with her. All night.
Irritated by the buzzing, I reached over her to grab my phone from the end table, my eyes perfectly adjusted in the dark, even in human form. With a glance at the number on the glaringly lit screen, I accepted the call as I slid out of bed, trying not to wake her.
