Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
The taste of Delainey flooded Reece’s mouth as his tongue swept in and danced against hers. His wolf was demanding he take her now, lay her down on the log, rip her clothes off, bury himself inside her, and never be parted from her.
Every instinct was roaring.
His blood was on fire. His wolf had never wanted anything so badly, and neither had Reece the man.
He didn’t open up about his past. He didn’t tell people the sob story that was his life, even leaving out certain parts.
But he had seen the way Delainey trembled and tried to hide it.
He had figured out what must have been bothering her, and the words had been torn out of him as if by a third party, and he was helpless to keep from confessing all.
Heat pulled low in his gut and his cock throbbed. His wolf was present, pushing against him, pressing hard, a physical weight behind his ribs demanding he close the distance between them even more than he already had.
Delainey dug her hands in his hair, something inside her riding her just as high. She straddled his legs, and he nearly pitched back off the log before slightly adjusting to give himself some semblance of balance.
Her knees pressed tight against the outside of his thighs, the denim of her jeans rough against his, and the log creaked under their combined shifting weight.
It was an intense kiss. Emotional, far more than he would have ever expected from Delainey, from the one taste of her he had stolen. He could get lost in this forever, surrender himself to it, and be happy.
Yes. Yes, his wolf urged. Mine.
But she wasn’t his.
She was a witch. The last thing he could do was…
well, anything with her. Every rational thought told him to stop.
But rationality was quickly fleeing. They could die in these woods.
There were rogues after them. They were bound together.
He had no idea where they were or how close they were to a road.
If he was going to die, he needed this taste of her. Needed the memory of her on his lips, if that was all they would ever have.
The fire beside them had burned down to a low bed of orange coals that threw just enough light to catch the edges of Delainey’s face, the line of her jaw, the curve of her lower lip where his teeth had been a moment ago.
There was something soft about it, even as it was intense.
Delainey explored him just as much as he explored her. His hand trailed up her jaw and the back of her neck, teasing the curls of her hair. She kept making tiny noises that were driving him wild as she trembled in his arms.
If he didn’t take her, he might die.
But he couldn’t, he knew. Not right now, not with danger so close, they couldn’t afford to get lost in this.
“Please,” Delainey begged against him.
He didn’t know if she knew what she was asking for. He wasn’t sure he knew either, but he had to give her something. He wanted to taste more than just her mouth, but it was too much of a risk for either of them to get undressed when they might need to run at a moment’s notice.
His hand trailed down and teased the button of her pants. Delainey gasped against him but didn’t tell him to stop. He was pretty sure he heard a gasped-out yes.
She jerked her head up and down as he carefully pulled down the zipper, fumbling a bit because his wolf was riding him high and fine motor skills were not easy when he was forcing most of his concentration into not growing claws.
He wouldn’t risk them for this. His fingertips were blunt and human when he checked, with no hint of the curved points that had been threatening to emerge all day.
The brass cuff caught on the waistband of her jeans as he worked his hand past it.
His hand delved into her pants, and he found her hot and wet. Reece groaned.
Oh, this was worse, so much worse.
He could smell her arousal. Delainey didn’t just let him touch her.
She rode his hand, grasping his shoulders tightly as she told him exactly how she liked it.
When to give her more, when to back away.
Her nails bit into the muscle of his shoulders through the torn fabric of his shirt, ten points of sharp pressure that he felt all the way down to his spine.
Their eyes met.
He knew his were still glowing yellow, but that didn’t seem to scare her away.
The bond from the manacles was nothing compared to the intensity between them as they looked at one another.
This close, he could see the ring of darker color around her pupils and the individual lashes framing them.
She didn’t break his gaze until she finally tipped her head back and let out a soft gasp, her body quivering around his fingers.
She came making a sound that wrecked him.
It wasn’t his name.
He desperately wanted to hear his name on her lips. But there were no words. She gasped, her breath hitched, and with every small noise his wolf nearly purred in satisfaction as if he were a damned cat.
Her body went limp against his chest. He carefully pulled his hand free, met her eyes, and licked his fingers clean, groaning at the taste of her, wishing he could bury his face between her thighs.
But not here. Not with danger at their backs.
If he ever got the chance to do this properly, and having had a taste of her, it was now his life’s only goal to ensure he did, he wanted time. He wanted all of her.
Forever, his wolf added, and Reece was too wrecked with want to squash the thought.
Delainey’s chest was heaving, her eyes wide as she looked at him. She traced her fingers down his shirt, more than ready to return the favor.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes soft and half-lidded. The softness in her gaze was something he had never seen before.
He wanted it again. He hadn’t known she could be this open with him, and it hit him hard. Her lips were swollen and darker than their usual color, and her headband was long gone, lost somewhere in the leaves, leaving her curls loose and wild around her face.
Then she yawned and her eyes blinked shut. “Give me a minute,” she murmured, the words all mumbled together.
His cock was an insistent press between them, but he said, “It’s all right,” and clutched her close. He shifted her weight against him so her head settled into the hollow between his shoulder and his collarbone, her temple resting against the bare skin where his shirt had torn open.
As she surrendered to sleep, she was warm against him. She trusted him enough to fall asleep in his arms, and his wolf settled, something achingly soft and satisfied deep within him.
He scooted them off the log until they could lie on the hard ground.
The packed earth was cold through his jeans and the thin fabric of his shirt, and a root dug into the space between his shoulder blades, but Delainey was draped half across his chest, one of her legs slotted between his, and the discomfort didn’t register as anything worth caring about.
It was a long time before he fell asleep.