CHAPTER 21
BLANCHETTE
We broke through the last of the trees, the darkening sky splitting wide before us.
Jonathan skidded to a halt at the cliff’s edge, claws gouging stone, muscles coiled and tense as we stopped. The movement was so abrupt and feral my breath snagged.
I gasped, clutching his fur as the world opened around us and I realized where he’d brought us.
Cryer’s Point. The same place where he’d brought me to watch the stars.
Below, the valley stretched like a painting. The moon hung low, large and pale, casting long shadows across the Everwick lights in the distance. Wind lashed my hair across my face, smelling of juniper, stone, and something older. The silence felt alive.
Meanwhile, Jonathan loomed, still in his monstrous form—broad, shadowed, otherworldly—fur rippling in the wind. The night air was humid, my heartbeat was pounding in my throat…and his glowing eyes never left mine.
I should’ve been afraid of him. That was the logical thing, wasn’t it?
A natural human fear when staring into the eyes of a much more powerful creature?
Because even though I’d grown up around all kinds of magical and supernatural folk, there had always been an undercurrent of fear when it had come to Lycans.
But this was Jonathan…
And he’d just saved me from whatever had been back in those woods.
So, no…I wasn’t afraid of him. I was only afraid of what was still out there, the thing we’d heard in the woods…and at the same time, I feared the dangerous heat that had started to bloom under my skin.
Jonathan Wolfe had saved me. Protected me. It was primal. I was surprised how that knowledge curled under my skin. It pulled at something deep inside that I couldn’t understand. Something unexpected.
My hands were trembling. When I tried to climb down from his arms my knees buckled, and he caught me easily, claws brushing my hip, steadying me, keeping me there. The touch jolted me—hot, strong, possessive.
Then his body shuddered. Bones folding inward, muscles shifting and reshaping, fur evaporating off like smoke.
The monster unraveled, but it wasn’t pristine.
It was slow, wet, and dark…like the night giving up its shape to form a man.
His breath turned to a growl as he fought it down, until skin replaced fur and claws transmuted to hands. Naked hands…
My breath hitched.
And a naked body, I added silently, seeing his clothing tear in my memory the moment he had shifted.
He was hunched, panting, glistening with sweat. Every inch of him bared to the moonlight.
My gaze traced his physique—broad shoulders, taut lines of muscle across his chest and abdomen, every breath pulling tight against his ribs. He was now in his human form, but something about him still felt unchanged. Like an animalistic residue was still clinging to him.
And then my eyes dropped lower.
The weight of him, thick and rigid, hung between his thighs, impossible to ignore.
There was no hiding it…his cock, bold and brazen in the moonlight.
Shocking heat pooled low in my stomach, hard and fast. And truth be told, I was a little embarrassed by the reaction, given the circumstances of what we’d just escaped, leading to all the nakedness before me now.
Then something else caught my eye. A dark crimson bead winding slowly down his forearm, sliding off his fingers to the ground. The cascading drops falling to the dirt path on the cliff and soaking into the earth. Blood.
“Oh my gods! You’re hurt!” I breathed, rushing forward.
His upper right arm was gashed open, a dark gory line where something had slashed him during the run. The wound looked raw and angry.
He glanced down at it with the same annoyed indifference someone might give a torn coat sleeve. “It’s not bad.”
He didn’t stop me as I pressed fabric from his torn shirt, still hanging off his body in tatters, against the wound, wrapping it as best I could. My fingers dragged across his skin—hot, damp from sweat, thrumming with restrained power.
“May’ll stitch it.” His voice was low, rougher now, like he’d swallowed gravel.
Our faces were close. His breath hit my lips.
My body still thrummed with adrenaline and the memory of him carrying me out of danger.
It twisted into something unexpected and magnetic…
raw want and need. I didn’t know what to do with the way I felt in that moment—the pulse that jumped when his eyes met mine again. Not fear. Hunger. A slow, molten bloom.
Jonathan’s pupils were wide, his nostrils flared.
The wolf in him recognized it first. He reached, almost instinctively, his hand sliding to my hip, claiming.
A wolf, or in this case, a Lycan, didn’t ask permission.
In nature they weren’t bound to social cues.
At least not human ones. But he paused for a moment, his eyes searching mine for the smallest flicker of resistance.
Only there wasn’t any.
I should’ve stepped away, but I didn’t.
My lips parted in invitation, and that was all Jonathan needed. His mouth crashed down onto mine, all heat and hunger, ache and urgency, years of long held restraint I felt bottled in him breaking all at once. His hands gripped my hips, pulling me flush against him, and I moaned into the kiss.
I felt like I was unraveling. It was lust and permission, my own. A potent blend of adrenaline, heated attraction, and release. The tension I’d been holding in my body and soul for a year now suddenly exploded with violent need.
I could feel him completely…his chest, broad and searing, the wide set of his shoulders, the possessive strength in his grip. And lower…his cock, thick and growing, pressing hot and unmistakable against my stomach.
My body felt cool—a stark contrast to Jonathan’s, raging like an inferno.
All around us was the edge of the world. The deep valley of the woods stretched behind us like a half-forgotten dream.
“Blanche…” he whispered, forehead pressed to mine, breath hot and trembling.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I pleaded back.
So he didn’t.
He kissed down my jaw, trailing heat along my neck like he was tasting something sacred.
Gods, it felt good. It had always been one of my favorite things…
when a lover knew how to kiss your neck just right, that tantalizing blend of gentleness and wildness.
My neck was sensitive, and it was like he knew it.
He kissed and nibbled instinctively. Hungrily. Perfectly.
Our bodies aligned. In a strange way, it felt like we were always meant to find each other here, now. In this very place and moment. My breath hitched as his cock swelled harder against me, a pulsing, urgent presence between us.
I let my fingers trail downward, slowly, over his taut abdomen. The rippled muscles flexed under my touch, ridged and hard like carved stone. Their grooves guided my touch lower, until I reached the space between us.
There, slick against his tip, was a bead of arousal, waiting for me. I brushed the pre-come with the tip of my finger and then lightly teased his head. He groaned. Low, feral, like it had been dragged out of a slumbering beast.
His mouth returned to my neck, rougher now. More desperate. He bit just enough to make me gasp. I could feel myself getting lost in it—in him. My hand found his cock again, firmer this time. I wrapped my fingers around the base, or tried to. Gods…I could barely get them to meet.
His breath caught. His whole body shuddered.
“Squeeze it,” he growled, voice guttural. Not a request. A command.
I froze. But it wasn’t from fear. It was in surprise.
No one had ever spoken to me like that before. Not with that raw unapologetic edge. It was carnal, primal…and gods, it shouldn’t have thrilled me the way it did.
But it did.
My pulse thundered. The heat inside me surged. I didn’t think. Just obeyed, as if he alone controlled me. My fingers slid along his full length, gripping him tight and squeezing, like he demanded.
His breath rippled, rough and uneven, as he insisted, “Harder.”
I tightened my grip. His groan resonated raw and guttural against my neck.
His tongue dragged up the side of my neck as tingles raced up my spine with it.
I could feel him pulsing in my hand, like a thermal explosion might come at any moment.
He leaned into the motion, into me. Like the beast inside him needed it. Needed me.
And he loved it. Every damn second.
But gods…so did I.
I was wet, could feel it between my thighs. Panting like I was in heat. The humid, summer air was beginning to feel like fingers trailing against my flesh. I needed to get out of these clothes.
“Jonathan,” I whimpered, squeezing him hard.
“Fuck, Red,” he breathed. One of his hands gripped my ass.
His other slid down the front of my jeans, and I moaned when his thumb dragged across the seam of material that ran right between my legs.
Sparks lit up in my vision, my neck lolling back.
Sublime frustration rose. It wasn’t enough pressure, and I needed more.
“Get them off,” I pleaded.
“Impatient,” he purred.
Maddening, I thought silently in return.
But Jonathan unbuttoned my jeans swiftly, with a practiced and smooth ease, and I shuddered when he delved his hand inside, slipping beneath my underwear, his fingers sliding across my clit.
His touch was so precise, so electric, it stole sound from my throat.
My legs trembled, nearly buckling. He knew, instinctively, how to undo me.
His touch went lower, and he slid a finger inside. I arched into him, helpless against the wave of sensation. A lifetime of wanting to be seen, to be wanted. It all unraveled at once. He moved with purpose, like he’d dreamed this before. Like he was reclaiming something that had always been his.
And gods…I wanted to give it.
That was when he uttered the words, rushed and primal, “I want to taste you. Have dreamt of it, Red. Won’t wait any longer.”