Page 29

Exquisite. There was no other word for it.

I rose over her. She lay flushed and dazed in the firelight, her chest heaving, and she looked up at me in wonder.

She pulled me down and kissed me, no doubt tasting herself on my lips. Breaking free for a breath, she gasped out, “I need you,” and reached for my trousers.

Her fingers were steady, determined, until she freed me. When she wrapped her hand around my length, her breath hitched, and she flicked her gaze up to mine, searching.

“Is it too much?” I asked.

“Yes.” A slow, wicked smile curved her lips. “Perfectly so.” Then she pulled me to her.

I settled between her thighs and braced my weight on my forearms. For one long moment, I held there, looking down at her. Into the gray eyes of the woman who’d walked into my cottage to kill me.

My mate.

I pushed into her slowly, inch by inch, and the world narrowed down to her.

She was tight and hot and slick, and she gasped as I filled her, her nails biting into my back. I stilled once I was fully sheathed inside her, trembling with the effort of holding back, letting her adjust. Something in my chest pulled taut, bright and fierce, like a thread drawn between us. My wolf went utterly still, the way he did on a winter night when the whole forest whispered in the silence.

Home, he said.

Ruby rolled her hips beneath me, and I lost the ability to think.

I moved in her, slowly at first, deep and deliberate strokes that drew soft sounds from her throat. Responding to my movements, she then met every one. She wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper. The warmth of the firelight slid over our skin. Her scent filled every breath I took until I was drunk on it. The bond hummed between us, stronger with every thrust, as if my body had been waiting its whole life for this moment and knew exactly what to do next.

Faster. Harder. She urged me on with her heels around me and nails into my back. Her gasps and moans filled my ears.

My canines lengthened.

It simply happened, the wolf’s intuition surging up from somewhere older than thought. My mouth found the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and I felt her pulse racing beneath my lips. Every instinct I had roared at me to bite her. Mark her. Make her mine in a way no order could ever undo.

My teeth grazed her skin.

Ruby went still.

It took all my control to ease back. I couldn’t, not yet. Not without asking her or before telling her she was my mate.

My wolf snarled inside me, hungry and frustrated. I held him down with everything I had.

I moved my mouth to find hers. She kissed me, slow and deep. She was worth the wait.

Then she tightened her legs around me and whispered, “Keep going.”

I moved in her again, and this time she met me with a fierceness that stole my breath, her hips rising to meet mine, her fingers laced through my hair. The pressure built at the base of my spine, winding tighter and tighter, and when I felt her clench around me and heard her cry out a second time, shuddering beneath me, I let go.

I came with her name torn from my throat, spilling deep inside her, pleasure crashing through me so hard my vision whited out at the edges. Wave after wave of it, until there was nothing left of me but her.

For a long time, neither of us moved.

I wasn’t sure I could. Most definitely, I couldn’t think a single rational thought. Not after I’d felt so damn much.

The fire crackled. Somewhere outside, an owl called, then fell quiet. Ruby’s heart beat against my chest, slowing little by little, and I rolled us onto our sides so I wouldn’t crush her, pulling the blanket over us both.

She curled into me as if she’d done it a thousand times. Her head fit beneath my chin. Her hand rested flat over my heart.

My wolf lay down inside me, content. For the first time in years, he wasn’t prowling, searching for more.

I stroked her hair and watched the flames burn low. Senses slowly returned to me. She’d pulled me back from her throat, and she was right to. It was too soon. Whatever came of the bond, she’d choose it with clear eyes, not in the heat of a night that might be our last. I could wait. For her, I’d wait as long as it took.