Page 28

“It was me.” He smirked, his face still glistening with me.

“How did I not know?”

“You did.” His eyes dropped to the bite on my throat as his thumb stroked it. “You said my name in your sleep.”

My face went hot. “You heard that?”

“Little lamb, I hear everything.”

I should’ve been horrified. I laughed instead.

He groaned. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“You squeeze me like a fist when you laugh.”

I whimpered. “How are you getting harder?”

He chuckled, low and real, and pulled my mouth to his.

Our first kiss.

Blood, salt, and woodsmoke. I opened for him, and his tongue claimed mine, and I tasted myself on him. Slow and sensual, until I forgot where I was.

“Mine,” he murmured against my lips, thumb pressing gently over the mark.

My gaze dropped to his bare throat. My teeth ached.

Soon.

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“First, I take you back to your nest. Your heat isn’t over.” His eyes softened. “I’m going to take care of you through your heat. Through everything.”

He grinned, a real grin, and it was so much worse than the mask. “But before any of that, I’m going to take you again.”

“Again?”

He didn’t answer. When his knot eased, he laid me on my stomach, dragged my hips up, and sank into me from behind.

It was twisted.

My cheek was pressed into the blood on the floor. Rhett was dead now, and he lay six feet away. But a smile tugged at my lips anyway.

I was happy.

Chapter 10

Ru

Day two of my heat, and everything but him had ceased to exist.

Time came in pieces. The shower after the screen room, his hands washing Rhett off my skin until the water ran clear, his tongue on my mark every time it bled.

He’d knotted me three times since, and I was content. For now.

His phone buzzed. He answered without moving, one hand still in my hair, his voice too low for me to follow.