2. Lycan #3
For twenty years, I’d imagined those final moments for Mom and Dad.
Did they breathe their last air together?
Or was he pinned down while those vampire bastards ripped her throat out?
Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe they forced my mother to watch as they snatched my father’s heart out of his chest, psychologically torturing her before sending her off with him.
Either way was a curse, and I wanted nothing to do with it.
That was the version I gave people when they asked. It was even mostly true.
“That’s sad, Lycan,” Ava murmured.
I didn’t like the gloomy direction our conversation had taken, so I tried to make light of it. “That’s why there are rumors about my…uh…extracurricular activities. I don’t settle down, and everyone I play with understands what they’re getting into.”
Her cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink that cascaded into her ears and down her neck.
Oh, such innocence. I’d fucking eat her alive. I’d chew her up and spit her out. And fuck…it would be so much fun.
“Another round?” I picked up our cards and shuffled as she curled her perfect mouth and agreed.
We shifted the conversation to her time in law school and what she’d been doing for Vanderbilt Holdings.
When I won the next round, I got her to admit that she’d once kissed a girl, and she liked it.
When I won again after that, I asked her about her biggest regret, and she said she’d wished she’d acted more like her sister.
“Maeve may have been right about a few things,” she confessed. “I wish I’d focused less on school and more on living. Trying new things. Making the impulsive decision. Doing it for the plot and all that.”
“You’re still young,” I said. “Plenty of time.”
“The same could be said of you, Mister I’m-only-thirty-six-and-I-already-think-I’ll-never-love-anyone.”
A deep belly laugh poured out of me at her tease. Fuck, the scotch had hit me harder than I’d anticipated.
“You’re too pretty to be so stoic,” she said with a wink.
“You think I’m pretty?” Since we’d been here, she’d given me passing glances, perhaps a lingering stare. But she admitted she didn’t have time for love or relationships or sleeping around.
“Doesn’t everybody?”
I leaned closer, drawing in that dark, feminine scent as her cheeks flushed again. Perhaps the scotch had hit her hard, too; there was no denying the delectable aroma in the air. She was wet, and her pheromones called to my wolf like a siren.
“I don’t care what everybody else thinks,” I said. “I care what you think.”
“Of course you’re pretty, Lycan,” she said.
Her pulse thundered in the silence that followed, fluttering like a hummingbird, and it took all of my restraint not to push this shit off the table between us, grab the back of her neck, and pin her down so I could take her.
I’ll show her how a real male is supposed to treat a female.
I’ll have her panting and screaming my name until she’s hoarse.
“Such flattery from a mouth so good at dripping venom,” I joked. “Where’s the cold Vanderbilt bitch now, huh?”
“My mouth is good at a lot of things,” she replied, and the words went straight to my cock. I dropped my gaze to her decadent lips as she swiped her tongue across the lower one, and I imagined what it’d be like to stick my fingers in there and make her suck.
No. Shut up.
She’s too good for you, Mitchell. You’d ruin her.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in through my mouth, hoping it would calm the craving from her scent. That only made it worse. I tasted her. Mango and coconut and soaking cunt just begging to be licked clean.
I downed the rest of my scotch and smiled, setting the deck in a pile on the table between us.
“I think that’s enough secrets for one night.
” I stood as Ava circled the table toward me, bringing her exhilarating aroma closer.
Now, her luscious femininity mingled with the salty sting of rejection.
She must have thought I didn’t want her.
She must have thought I was slamming my foot on the brakes to save her pride.
Wrong.
If I gave my inner beast one centimeter, he’d take a hundred fucking miles, and I was too weak to stop him. The moon had barely turned. I’d had too much to drink. And the way her body called to me made my cock hard.
“Thanks for the nightcap, Lycan,” she said as she walked me to the door. “And the conversation.”
“Get some sleep.” I opened it and turned to face her. She stood inches away, her eyes glassy with intoxication and her pouty lips looking entirely too kissable.
“You, too,” she said. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Last day in Paris. Then on to Copenhagen.”
I nodded and tried to force my feet to move, but they wouldn’t listen. I just…I couldn’t leave her like this. I brushed her hair back behind her ear and leaned in to drop a chaste kiss on her cheek, pausing by her ear.
“Despite what they say, you’re not frigid or cold, Ava,” I said, my voice dropping several octaves as my wolf took over. He wanted, and he yearned, and he clawed at my insides to get to her.
“No?” She raised her eyebrows as I straightened and backed out into the hallway.
“No. You’re trouble.” I closed the door behind me and sulked to my room.