“Hard, Jolyn. Tell me you want it hard.”
I didn’t recognize his voice. “Yes,” I agreed, wanting it so much.
His hands spanning my hips, he lifted me, adjusted our positions, and entered me in one swift movement. Stars sparked behind my eyelids. My body welcomed him, slick and ready. I groaned at the stretch, the way he filled me up. He moaned in an echo of pleasure, then held me there, the pair of us getting used to each other after years apart, the sensation both familiar and new.
His mouth pressed against that same space at my neck. “If you hadn’t run from me, I never would have let you go.”
My lips parted. I didn’t know what to say. Not when he was inside me and it felt like the best thing I’d ever experienced.
He pulled out and thrusted. Sparks exploded in my eyes. It feltso good, so right, and I never wanted it to stop.
“More,” I said, pushing against the tree to increase the friction.
He gave it to me, pulling out and thrusting with force. His teeth scraped the place where my neck met my shoulder. A moan reverberated through his chest into my spine. My eyes rolled back in their sockets.
He pounded inside me over and over again. I usually couldn’t come without clitoral stimulation, but I felt my orgasm building. His cock touched the magic place inside me until I couldn’t think, could only feel my body disintegrating into a million pieces.
“I love you!” The words ripped from my throat, half plea, half promise.
His teeth sank into my flesh, a sharp pinch that brought pinpricks of tears to my eyes. Something changed inside me, something profound, a connection I couldn’t define. It pushed me over the edge and I came so hard my teeth ached. I screamed his name and lost myself to it. Pleasure wasn’t a good enough word. It was existential joy, a perfect moment in time I never wanted to end.
He kept pumping inside me, frantic now, my stomach pressed against the bark of the tree. I could only hold on as shudder after shudder wracked through my limbs. Then he let out a great groan, one worthy of a bear. It reverberated through his teeth into my shoulder.
The world around us paused. Time didn’t matter. Our location didn’t matter. Euphoria and being joined together in more ways than one were the only things of significance.
My senses returned in a trickle of sight and sound. The sky brightened and the birds sang a morning tune. Far off, voices conversed in baritones.
Still inside me, Landon wrapped his hand around my belly and pulled me away from the tree to hug me against his chest. He let go of my neck. I gasped at the separation and turned my face to lean into him, my new wound twinging. His scent surrounded me: musk, crisp linen, and outdoors.
We remained that way for a while, each of us catching our breath. Then he bent his head and ran his silky tongue over his bite marks. New shivers swept over my skin.
“I need to clean you up.” Gradually, inch by inch, he pulled out.
I gasped, not wanting him to leave me, but he turned me around with gentle hands. My discarded clothing separated my bare feet from the forest floor. I had no idea where my boots were.
When I saw the look in his eyes, my chest warmed.
“I love you, Jolyn.” His hand slid over my hips, then down my bottom. “I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old.” He pulled me up against him, my inner thighs cradling his cock. Fire glinted in his eyes, possessive.
My heart raced. He’d loved me that long? I wound my arms around his neck, my bra-covered breasts pressing against the muscles of his chest. “I won’t run away from us. Never again.”
24
LANDON
I shovedmy hands in my pockets and kicked a rock with my loafer. I hated recess. I was always on my own. I didn’t want to play basketball, or wrestle, or do all the other things most shifters my age wanted to do.
A flash of orange hair paused my steps. Jolyn. She was two years younger than me, but I’d had a crush on her ever since I understood what crushes were. Her eyes shone with fierceness even though she was quiet most of the time.
She stopped when a group of older shifter boys said something to her. The posture through her spine told me it wasn’t anything good. I knew those types picked on the weak because they thought they wouldn’t fight back.
“Keep walking,” I whispered to no one, taking a step toward them.
She didn’t keep walking. The group laughed. Tom, a councilman’s son, said something else. She spun around, curls bouncing, and launched herself at him.
Dammit.I ran toward them. A tiny human girl taking on a shifter? Didn’t she have any self-preservation instincts?
By the time I got there, Tom had pinned her beneath him and punched her in the face. My bear bellowed inside me. I lunged, but others grabbed me, holding me back. He wouldn’t stop hitting her.
