Page 63 of Rescued

I can, his wolf said. We are better as wolf. We should take her and make her ours. The beginning of the Change rippled through him.

Stop that!

He jumped to his feet, turning away from Breanna, his bones crackling and his tendons rippling. He might be a monster, but he didn’t want her to see him become one.

“You have to get out of here,” he said thickly. “My wolf’s about to come out, and I don’t know if I can control him.”

Even admitting that filled him with shame.

She said, “You did before.” He heard her stand up, though, felt her body tense. He could feel her just like she was standing right next to him.

“Don’t you get it?” He turned around then, so she could see his monstrous face in the shadowy light. “I have teeth. Claws. My wolf could rip your throat out in two seconds.”

That beautiful, biteable throat.

He said, “You can't handle what I am.”

She thought all wolves could be tamed with cookies. She really had no idea what she was dealing with.

She said softly, “Let me see your wolf.”

“Stop pretending this is a fucking TV show!” he snarled. “You think I'm this hot, exciting guy who can do all these incredible things, like on those stupid fantasy shows you watch. Just like the last world you were trying to live in was a fantasy—rich guys dropping a hundred grand on a jacked-up bar bill, surrounded by girls that same money was paying to have brought there, thinking it was their ticket to stardom.

“The world you think I live in, it’s all in your head.” He gestured around him at the pathetic cabin. “This is real. Smoke and darkness and shadows and scary things in the forest. A life on the edges. You want something better. That’s your dream. Your illusion. You can’t face the fact that Wal-Mart and a plumber are as good as it gets.”

He was as cutting as he knew how, but she didn’t back down. She got in his face—his ugly, half-wolf face. “Maybe you don’t know me either,” she snapped. “You don’t know what I want! Maybe I just want to matter. To someone. To anyone. To save someone.” Her voice got very soft. “Like you saved me.”

She put her hand on his arm, and his face melted back to human. “You can’t save me,” he whispered.

She looked up at him with those irresistible eyes. “I can for tonight. Let me try.”

The gods help him, he bent his head and kissed her.

Switch’s lips touched hers, and Breanna felt his emotions exploding through her. Anger and loneliness and pain.

And love.

He’d been holding himself back, holding his wolf back the whole time she’d known him—and now he couldn’t do it anymore.

For the first time, she felt his real self—dark and dangerous and intense and wanting—wanting something deep down he’d never put a name to, but that was like a black hole inside him, filled with rage and desire and frustration.

It was intense and raw and painful to witness, and it woke up something in her she hadn’t known existed, like she was expanding inside.

Switch’s emotions rushed into her, igniting her own. Everything she’d been searching for—to feel intense and alive and courageous, to have a purpose, to matter—was right here in her arms, in this cabin.

She felt like she was balanced on the edge of a cliff, and it was dangerous as fuck, but the only safety was in jumping off.

She pressed herself against him, running her hands over his naked body, the tight hard muscles of his back and his butt. He smelled hot and musky and sexy, and his mouth devoured her—lips, cheek, neck, and then back to her lips like he couldn’t get enough of her.

She moaned softly, loving the way he drank her in with his kisses, lighting fires in all her nerve endings.

He shoved her jacket off her shoulders without removing his mouth from hers, then backed off just enough to pull her sweatshirt over her head. With a single rip her bra was gone, and he gave a little growl when he saw her naked breasts.

His eyes turned golden. Wolf. Somehow that was even hotter.

He bent over her, licking and sucking on her breasts like he really would devour them, and she felt herself getting hot and wet. He seemed to sense it, because he knelt and unbuttoned her jeans, yanking them down roughly.

Closing his teeth around the top edge of her panties, he jerked his head and ripped them apart. Breanna moaned.