Page 26

She bites her lip and gives a half nod. Then she says, "I've never done this before."

"Mated?" I ask.

She pulls her lip into her mouth and chews it until I bring my thumb to wrest it back out. "Any of it."

Never mated. Never gone through a heat with an alpha. That's what I hear, because that's what my tiger wants to hear. The possibility that she means something else can't be true.

The breath locks hard behind my ribs.

I catch her wrists, pinning them overhead with one hand, the other braced beside her face, forcing her to look at me. My tiger claws for her, my cock strains against the restraint I force through both hands. I force the words out anyway. She's my mate, not prey.

"Listen," I growl, my voice more animal than human. "You're in heat; my tiger's in rut for you. If I don't stop now, I don't know if I can. Tell me no, and I'll carry you back, lock you somewhere safe, and stand guard in a frozen lake until your heat passes. If you need time, I'll give it to you. My tiger will hate me, but better for my tiger to hate me than you." My hips press into hers, and we both groan. "But understand something, little mate. Waiting won't make me want you any less. Tomorrow, next week, ten years from now, you'll still belong to me." I lower my forehead to hers. "Tell me yes, and I'll give you everything. Am I mating you, Cienna?"

She stares up at me. Her chest heaves. Her scent coats my tongue, sweet with heat and already tangled through mine.

Then she bares her teeth at me, my fierce little cougar, and wraps her legs around my hips and drags me into the cradle of her body.

"If you don't," she pants, "I'll kill you myself. Yes, Ivan. Yes. "

I don't kiss her yet. I drag my mouth down her body, and when I settle between her thighs for my first full taste, my roar scatters birds half a mile off.

Salty-sweet and scalding against my tongue, I lick a long stripe through her folds, my tongue wide and tiger-rough. She comes off the ground with a cry. I return to the same swollen point until her fingers rake my scalp hard enough to hurt. The pain makes me growl into her pussy.

"Ivan, oh my God, your tongue, what, don't stop —"

I have no plans to stop. I lick her open, suck her clit into my mouth, rolling it against my tongue. I kiss between her thighs, nip up and down her leg, roll her over and lick between her butt cheeks, kiss the globes of her ass, drag her back to me and feast again, slower and then harder, until she breaks apart in the snow, sobbing my name, her thighs quaking while the heels of her feet paddle my back.

She clamps around my head, and apparently this is where I choose to die. Fine. There are worse graves.

I don't give her time to recover, licking her through it softer now before sliding two fingers into the hottest, tightest—

Fuck. Fuck. She's tight. Untried. The knowledge hits me again, but she's dragging me back up, hips chasing my hand. There's only her. She's panting in the snow, wrecked and glowing and mine, my cock throbbing so violently it aches.

I rise over her slowly. I lick my way back up, taking my time, ignoring her frantic pulls. I caress, suck, lick, and love on her breasts and the crevice between them, pulling them together, sucking both nipples into my mouth at the same time until she arches and cries out. Only then do I take her mouth, letting her taste herself, and she moans, licking into me greedily. My tiger roars for me to take her, fighting every inch of my restraint, but her first time won't be in the snow like animals.

"Where—" she gasps as I haul her into my arms and head for the trees.

"Need a bed." I bare my teeth down at her. "And a door that locks."

She lets out a jagged laugh against my collarbone, clutching my neck as I tear through the brush.

The cottage hugs the compound's far edge, tucked against the trees where the lake freezes black in winter. My fishing cottage. My grandfather built it; my father rebuilt it; I keep it plain enough for a fisherman and secure enough for a vor who needs his fucking privacy. One great room with a hearth big enough to stand in, heated floors under wide planks, windows overlooking the ice, and a bed built for a tiger. I keep it stocked with vodka, food, and firewood for when I need solitude.

I have never brought a woman here. There has never been a woman. There will only ever be this one.

We don't make it to the bed. I set her down on the Persian rug before the hearth, building the fire one-handed because the other won't stop touching her. She watches me with those huge brown eyes, knees drawn up tight against her ribs. Firelight travels over her skin, catching in the sweat-dampened hair at her temples.

"You're staring," she says.

"Da," I say.

I crawl closer, and she lies back. I take my time. Ignoring my tiger's urgency. Instead, my hands hold the weight of her breasts, and my mouth sucks at the tight points of her nipples until she whimpers. Only then do I trace the soft swell of her stomach, the crease of her hip. I open her with my fingers again, stretching her, finding the spot that makes her heel drum the rug and her head thrash side to side.

"Ivan," she pulls at my shoulders, "please. I need, please."

"What do you need, little one?" I know, my tiger knows, but we need her to say it. "Use your words."

"You," her nails dig into my back, "all of you, now, now, Ivan, I'm dying—"