12. Lycan #2
He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and run his hands over his face. “I don’t know. My wolf keeps nudging it to the front of my mind, telling me to pay attention to it. But the full moon is tomorrow. He could just be antsy and looking for something to sink his teeth into.”
I grinned at the double entendre, unable to resist playing with it. We’d had a hell of a night, and we could both afford to blow off some steam. “If you need something to sink your teeth into, all you have to do is ask.”
He shot his head up, his features going slack, his eyes shimmering in the moonlight. “Don’t do that.”
Taking a step closer, I came to stand in front of him, the inches between us electric with the months of unyielding strain. I wanted him. He knew I wanted him. All these weeks apart had only made my addiction to him stronger, more overwhelming.
“Do what?” I darted my tongue out over my lips, pretending to be ignorant of the effect it had on him.
“You know what,” he said, his voice low and husky. “You’re married.” He stood up, bringing our faces inches apart. “You married her.”
“And you?” I held firm, refusing to give any ground. “You reek like bonding scent anytime she’s around.” There. It was out in the open now. “Got something you want to admit?”
He looked away, but my wolf snarled at the disrespect.
I grabbed his jaw and forced his gaze back to me, savoring the delicious salt of his possession that wafted between us.
It proved what I’d already suspected. The bonding scent wasn’t just for her.
It bloomed for me, too, and that sent a thrill of wanton passion straight down to my cock.
“Oh.” I laughed and stepped into him, connecting my pelvis to his so he could feel how this was affecting me. “Still such a brooding little liar, huh?”
He groaned and pushed his hips against me, dropping his head to my shoulder as his rock-hard cock brushed up against mine. The contact made my stomach clench, made me want to wrap my fingers in his hair and yank.
“No,” he muttered through a rough breath.
“You’re lying to yourself,” I continued, leaning in to run my nose along his cheek to his ear.
He shivered, and my wolf howled at the thought of fighting his control away from him again.
He wouldn’t hand it over freely, oh no. But I knew the truth.
Poe wanted to lose. He wanted to fight and scrap and be forced to submit.
He liked it the best when I took it from him, and Gods be good, I lived to do it.
“And you’re lying to me. I can smell it. ”
It was the dank, tangy mix of his regret and yearning and grasping adoration. For me. For Ava. For all he wanted and forbade himself from taking.
“Is that why the witch offered me to you if you left?” I asked. “Is that what you want? Me and you riding off into eternity, leaving all this behind?”
I dragged my lips over his throat and teased myself with a quick lick on his pulse. His skin still tasted the same. Clean sweat. Male. Him.
“Fuck off,” he growled, but there was no threat in it. All bark.
“If you want me… If you want her… All you have to do is say it.” I ghosted my fingers up his arm to his shoulder.
“You don’t want me,” he murmured, glancing down at the ground between us. “She doesn’t want me.”
I hummed and leaned back to rut my pelvis against his, another reminder of how wrong he was.
My cock kicked between us, desperate to get inside him again.
I wandered up the back of his neck and tunneled my fingers into his hair, gripping a fistful before tugging his head back.
He hissed in a breath and sagged in my hold.
“Is that what you tell yourself?” I murmured. “Is that why you stayed away from me for all these weeks?”
“You left me,” he whispered. “You left me and married her and…” His voice cracked, and his lips trembled as a slap of heartbreak roared through the pack bond.
That wasn’t how I saw it. He’d broken it off with me, but I didn’t argue. I nearly wilted from its intensity. Had he been living with this since we broke up, since coming back to me?
“You’re torturing yourself,” I said. “That’s my job.”
We were both so entranced with each other that neither of us heard the footsteps on the porch or the steady heartbeat of the woman who’d become the center of our world. The door opened, and Poe shoved my shoulders away from him, forcing me to drop my hold and take a step back.
Ava froze in the doorway as her gaze danced back and forth between us. She inhaled and licked her lips, her pulse kicking up a notch as she stepped inside. Shut the door behind her. Curled her luscious mouth into a devious grin.
“I don’t know whether I should be angry about the pheromones bouncing around or pull up a chair and watch.” She bit her bottom lip, eyes shimmering with delight. “Maybe both.”
Poe audibly gulped and shoved past me, shouldering me in the arm before stomping toward the door at the back of the cabin.
“Poe,” I shouted, but he ignored me, rushed out into the night, and slammed the door.
Ava jumped, and her features fell. “Should one of us go after him?”
“No, he won’t leave the pack lands,” I said. He’d be safe, even if he was stubborn and hardheaded. He wouldn’t listen, no matter what we told him. He’d come around when he was ready.
“What did Kodiak have to say?”
I sat on the couch and leaned back as she came closer. “They think Evelyn might be rounding up the European Scorpions. No one’s confirmed it. We’re bunking here for the time being.”
Ava exhaled and curled up next to me. “Poe should do what she said. You two should go back to Montana and save yourselves.”
“Stop that,” I said. “I swore to love, honor, and protect you for the rest of my life. We’re not leaving you.” She opened her mouth, about to call our vow fake again, but I cut her off before she turned into the second liar I’d have to reprimand tonight. “How was your time with Madeline?”
“Good,” she said. “She gave me a tour and told me about the pack.”
“What did you learn?”
Ava shrugged and smiled, almost like she was hiding something or being bashful.
I put a finger under her chin and tilted her face back toward me, but it wasn’t hard to read her thoughts.
Since the transition and the marriage and whatever this blooming thing was between us, I’d been able to hear her inner monologue loud and clear.
I tried not to read too much into that. My magic still hummed in her veins like a plucked cello string, low and deep and steady.
Her thoughts tripped over each other as they raced, images of Poe and me skipping through her mind’s eye like a projector on speed.
Her focus caught on the way I looked at him, the hunger laced with venom behind my gaze.
She’d also seen how Poe stared at me when I wasn’t looking.
His hollow eyes. His furrowed brows. The steady ache in his lips.
“She thinks you and Poe were throwing off bonding scent when we first got here, and when I told her you were doing it for each other, she laughed and shook her head and called me naive. I’m ridiculous, and I don’t have time for whatever this is. I can’t give you what you want.”
I shook my head at the self-doubt. She seemed to realize what she’d done as soon as it happened, looking at me with wide eyes and pursed lips.
“Uh-oh.”
Uh-oh, indeed. I wouldn’t stand for her beating herself up, even mentally. I’d made my rules very clear. Now I planned to follow through. Even if I was an evil, selfish bastard, I was a man of my word, especially when it came to her.
“I told you what would happen the next time I heard you talk about yourself like that,” I said.
“I didn’t… It wasn’t…” She stumbled over her words as she tried to backpedal, but it was already too late.
I raised an eyebrow. “You can take your punishment now, pet, or we can do it after you’ve had some rest. Tell me what you’d prefer.”
She looked down to her lap. “Now, sir.”
I shifted my weight, righting my hips to take her across my lap. “Stand up. Take off your pants.”
Ava twisted her fingers and hesitated, her thoughts turning toward further self-loathing.
“Ugh, I’m an idiot. I knew better. Why can’t I listen to anyone? Why do I do this to myself?”
“Hey.” I ran a finger down her cheek and leaned in to kiss her temple. “I’m the one that punishes you. You give me that power so you don’t have to. That’s the whole point of this. Let me make your mind go quiet, yeah?”
She swallowed and slowly pushed to her feet.
When she stood in front of me, she kicked off her boots and unzipped her trousers, shoving them down to her ankles before stepping out of them.
Clad only in her black lace panties, she took a step toward me, but I dropped my gaze to the scrap of fabric between her legs. “Those, too, pet.”
Ava paused, hooked her thumbs under the waistband, and pushed them down her long, beautiful legs.
Her scent enveloped me, coconut and female, and I guzzled the hint of her taste on my tongue.
Gods, she was delicious, and if I didn’t have to take my time reminding her of who she was, I’d have her sitting on my face until the fucking full moon rose tomorrow.
But priorities. I wouldn’t tolerate any submissive of mine talking to themselves like that.
They were meant to be cherished, and if they couldn’t do it themselves, I’d remind them of what would happen when they didn’t.