Chapter 11 #2
His gaze returned to Selene, and his irises flickered with warmth. “But loss isn’t the end of life. Simply part of it.”
Setting her towel aside, she placed her hand on his wrist. Even that light touch sent a current up her arm and through her body. She looked at the place her fingers rested on his skin, willing herself to understand why she felt such a connection to him.
“Are you afraid of me?” Fen asked. “Or of what might happen between us?”
She could feel her pulse thudding as she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I’m afraid you’ll break my heart.”
Her confession seemed to put him at ease, which surprised her.
“Because of Miriam?” His eyes searched hers.
Rather than answering the question directly, she asked, “How long were you together?”
“A little over a century,” he answered, not breaking her gaze.
“A century—” Her throat closed, but it wasn’t fear or jealousy that stopped her words. It was the fist that tightened around her heart. “Oh, Fen.”
Without thinking, she reached up with her other hand and cupped his cheek in her palm.
“I won’t deny that I loved Miriam,” Fen told her, leaning into her touch.
“But it’s important to me that you grasp the nature of our relationship.
When you are with someone for that long, they become a part of you.
Our connection was a gift, and I don’t regret it, despite the pain of losing her.
However, we became mates not because we fell in love, but because we met at a time when we were each leading a pack of our own.
Joining the two packs made us stronger in a time when separately we were vulnerable to our enemies.
That initial partnership was built on friendship and respect, and over the years love did grow between us.
But it was love sustained by trust and affection, not passion. Do you understand?”
Selene withdrew her hand and nodded.
“If I promised to never cause you heartache, it would be a lie,” he continued.
“Because opening yourself to another is the greatest kind of risk, and I cannot predict the future. Nor can you. But I want to take that risk by sharing this truth with you: I want you as I have never wanted another. I am drawn to you in ways I can barely describe.”
She didn’t speak . . . because what was there to say to something like that? No one had ever uttered words that reached inside her and unlocked the door to her soul. It left her shaken, needy. Overwhelmed but captivated.
His confession frightened her but also reassured her.
Fenris didn’t see her as a replacement for someone he lost. And his attraction to her unnerved him in a way that mirrored her inexplicably primal response to him.
That someone as powerful as Fen was willing to reveal his vulnerability made him even more alluring.
“Let me into your life, Selene.” He turned his hand over and clasped her forearm. His fingers stroked her skin. Selene’s breath became quick, shallow.
She desperately wanted him to kiss her. But Fen remained stone still, and after a minute she found herself stepping toward him. When his lips curved in a slow smile, ribbons of heat snaked over her hips, between her thighs. That heat became a throbbing ache as his other hand slid around her waist.
He bent his face toward her. Her free hand came up and touched his jaw, and her thumb traced the shape of his lips.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” He caught the tip of her thumb between his teeth, making her gasp.
“I would think that was obvious,” she said, and he laughed at the echo of his own words from the previous night. A low rumble of mirth that she felt all the way to her toes.
“Ask me.”
“What?” Selene frowned at him.
“Ask me to kiss you,” he said.
“Why?” Frustration made her wriggle against him.
He held her fast, his gaze intent. “Because I won’t take anything from you that you aren’t ready to give.”
Oh.
Her muscles turned to liquid, and he had to steady her to keep her from falling. “Fen, I need you to kiss me. Please kiss me.”
Instead of bending his face to hers, Fen lifted her up, setting her on the kitchen counter. He stepped between her legs and tugged her forward until her hips were flush against his, and when she encountered the undeniable evidence that he wanted her, she whimpered.
“Yes, Selene.” Fen brought his mouth to hers in a light caress. “Feel how hard you make me. Know how much I crave you.”
His hand slid into her hair, pulling the comb free so waves of auburn tumbled over her shoulders.
He wrapped a thick handful of strands around his fist and tugged, tipping her face up.
Then he nipped her lower lip, chased the bite of pain with a soothing brush of his tongue, then took her mouth.
There was no gentleness in this kiss. Only hunger and heat. His claim.
Selene clung to him. Her nails dug into his shoulders when his tongue stroked hers. He tasted rich and wild. Every breath she drew carried his scent of rain-soaked woods. Wrapped up in him, she felt like she’d stepped into another plane of existence. One made entirely of sensation.
Instinctively, her legs wound around his waist. She was already pressed tight to him, but she needed to be closer.
To feel more of him. When her ankles locked at the small of his back, Fen growled and rolled his hips.
The thick, rigid length of his cock rubbed against her sensitive core, an illicit connection that made her shiver.
Nothing in her life had ever felt so good.
The exquisite ache left her wanting, needing.
He rocked into her again. Her body quaked.
An unmistakable tension coiled within her, molten and insistent.
She almost couldn’t believe it was happening—that he could manifest such an erotic torment when she was fully clothed.
But there was no denying how quickly and easily he had her riding a knife’s edge of pleasure.
And he knew it. Every purposeful shift of his powerful body, each seductive caress of his hands made that clear.
Fen broke their kiss to look into Selene’s eyes. “I could make you come right now. But I think you’d rather I didn’t, given the place and time.”
There was no doubt Fen could bring her to climax on the next breath.
She was that close. And god, she wanted it.
She was desperate for it. She was ready to forget herself, forget the world.
She was ready to beg. But he was right. Not the time, definitely not the place.
The idea of what he could do, would do to her when not bound by propriety, tantalized and overwhelmed her.
Though her body screamed its frustration at her, Selene unhooked her ankles from his waist and pulled away. Her skin was still so hot, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam coming off it. What Fen did to her . . . She’d never experienced anything so intense.
“I need to get you alone,” Fen murmured, stroking her hair. “I’m dying to taste you.”
His gaze was hooded, his irises fogged with lust. It made her less self-conscious about her wanton response to their very first kiss to see that he was similarly affected.
Smiling, she touched her swollen lips. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”
Selene thought she was teasing him, but Fen’s returning smile stole her breath.
His palm curved around her thigh, gliding slowly up, pausing just before he reached the juncture between her legs. A place she still ached.
“I had something else in mind.”
Her eyelids drifted shut as his thumb traced the crease of her hip and thigh. “Fenris.”
The image he’d just planted in her mind had her on the edge all over again. She dragged in a trembling breath, holding on by a rapidly fraying thread. If he moved his hand to her core, she knew the slightest touch would make her come apart.
She felt his breath on her neck.
“Tell me when, Selene. Tell me when I can give you what we both need.”
His teeth grazed her earlobe.
Whether it was the low rumble of his words, the promise they held, or that last, teasing nip of her sensitive skin, Selene didn’t know, only that she had to turn her face into Fen’s neck to muffle her cry as unspeakable pleasure stormed through her, lightning strikes of ecstasy streaking from her core, racing to the crown of her head and the tips of her toes.
Sensing what had happened, Fen pulled her tight against his body, holding her as the echoes of her orgasm shuddered through her limbs. He kissed her temple, the shell of her ear. His fingers traced the length of her spine in soothing strokes until, at last, her body stilled.
When she drew back to look at him, still reeling from the most intense physical experience of her life, he couldn’t quite mask the mischief tugging his features into a self-satisfied smirk.
“I didn’t intend for that to happen,” Fen said.
Selene could tell he was sincere, and yet . . .
“You didn’t? Because you look a little smug.”
“Can you blame me?”
She laughed and shook her head. With her blood finally cooling, the reality of what just happened sank in.
“Fen.” She looked at him. God, he was beautiful. And what he could make her body do with the slightest provocation was . . . well, there certainly was no precedent. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” He helped her down from the counter, then took her hand, bringing the tips of her fingers to his lips. “But I want to know when I can see you again. For a proper date . . . among other things.”
And he can still make me blush.
“I might need you to stop talking.” Selene snatched her hand away even as she smiled shyly.
When he grinned at her, he’d never looked more wolfish.
And she liked it.
The doorbell rang.
“Are you expecting someone?” Fen asked. His nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed.
“No, I’m not,” she replied, frowning. “Please excuse me.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Aunt Selene! Someone’s at the door.” Allie shouted from the living room.
“I’ve got it, Allie,” Selene called back.