Her nostrils flared, just slightly, and whatever her wolf read in my scent satisfied the part of her that needed satisfying, because the tension in her shoulders released to an extent.
“You found the motel,” she said.
“I found the motel.”
She watched my face, reading it the way she read everything, with that focused intensity that missed nothing. “I handled it.”
“You did.” I held her gaze. “You also ran from me again.”
Her jaw set, her chin lifting. I knew that angle by now, knew it meant she was loading a counterargument and preparing to deliver it.
I didn’t give her the chance. I pulled the blanket down to her waist in a single motion. She gasped, her hand flying to her chest, but I caught her wrist and held it gently against the mattress beside her head. “I’m not going to bother spanking you this time, little mate.”
Her eyes held wariness, but beneath that burned a heat she couldn’t hide.
“It’s time I put a baby in you.”
Her breath stopped. Not a gasp, a full cessation, her lungs going still, her ribs locked. Her pupils dilated almost instantly.
The sweatshirt she’d borrowed was rucked up above her navel, showing a strip of bare skin. I reached for the hem and began to lift it. Slowly. Not because I was giving her time to object, but because I wanted to take my time revealing every inch of what was mine.
Her breasts came into view, her nipples already drawn tight despite the warmth of the room, and I paused with the fabric bunched above them. She lay beneath me with her chest bare and her hair fanned across the pillow, her dark eyes holding mine with an intensity that was equal parts defiance and desire.
I roamed my gaze over her body, taking it in the way I’d wanted to since I first set eyes on her. Without urgency. Without my wolf trying to claw his way out of me to hunt. Justlooking.
My eyes found her collarbones first, the hollows at their centers catching shadows. Then lower. Her breasts were perfect, each one a handful, the nipples a shade darker than her skin and so stiff they cast their own tiny shadows in the dim light.
I ran one finger down the center of her chest as it rose and fell with each rapid breath. Between her breasts, over her sternum, following the midline. The muscles of her stomach contracted in my wake, and goosebumps raced outward from the path of my fingertip.
“Every time you run,” I said, “every time you go off traipsing on your own, you risk the skinwalker finding you before I can track you down myself. That can’t happen again, little mate.”
“Knocking me up isn’t going to?—”
“Your belly swelling with my pups is exactly what you need to remind you that you’re mine to protect now.” I pulled her shoes off one by one, then hooked my fingers into the waistband of her leggings and pulled them down.
Slowly.
Over the swell of her hips, past the shaved mound between her thighs, down the length of her legs. She lifted her hips to let them pass, and the act of cooperation, that small yielding arch of her pelvis, made my cock throb against the constraint of my jeans. “It will complete the bond. Your wolf will fully activate. You’ll be able to shift. And the next time that thing comes for you, you won’t be fighting it with a lamp. Plus,” The leggings cleared her feet. “it’s the perfect way to put a disobedient mate in her place.”
I tossed the leggings aside and looked at her, fully bare now except for the gauze on her arm and the socks she was still wearing.
I pulled the socks off too.
She lay naked on the bed in the dim spillover from the kitchen light, and I took my time enjoying the view.
Her legs were long and lean, shaped by years of climbing and trail running. Her thighs were toned, the skin there paler than her forearms, smooth and warm when I ran my palm along the inside of one. She flinched but didn’t pull away.
I met her eyes briefly, then let her watch my gaze drop lower. Her mound was bare and slightly pink, and beneath it the lips of her pussy were already flushed, glistening with the evidence of what my words and my proximity were doing to her body. I could smell her arousal, thick and sweet and unmistakable in the close air of the room.
“Look at you.” I traced the crease where her thigh met her hip, and her breath stuttered. “Soaking wet already and I’ve barely touched you.”
She turned her face into the pillow. “I can’t help it.”
“I know you can’t.” I brought my other hand to her opposite thigh and parted her legs wider, watching the resistance in her muscles give way. “Your body knows exactly what it needs.”
I knelt between her spread thighs and looked down at her. Her pussy was swollen and slick, her inner lips parted just enough to show the deep pink underneath. I ran my thumb over her slit and she arched off the bed with a sound that was not quite a word.
“This is what you were made for.” I pressed my thumb against her clit, just hard enough to make her gasp, then held it there. “Not a law degree. Not hiking and climbing and bouldering. Those are things you chose, and I know they matter, and you’ll have them back if you want them. Butthis—” I circled slowly, watching her hands fist in the sheets. “This is what your body has been waiting for since before you were born.”
