Chapter 8 #2
But he didn’t rush. His mouth found hers again, kissing her slow and deep while his hands explored. Learning the shape of her through fabric, thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked hard against the lace.
“So responsive,” he murmured against her lips. “I’ve been waiting for days. Wondering what sounds you’d make when I touched you like this.”
“Gray—”
“Wondering if you’d be this reactive.” He pinched lightly through the fabric, and pleasure shot straight between her thighs. “If you’d moan for me.”
She did moan, the sound swallowed by his next kiss. He was kissing her like he was starving for it, as if he’d never get enough. Deep, consuming kisses that made her forget where she ended and he began.
His hands tightened on her breasts, kneading, and she arched into his hands with a gasp. Her head fell back, and immediately his mouth was on her throat again. Kissing, biting, marking a path down the curve of her neck while his hands continued their slow torture.
“Days of standing by your side,” his voice was a low, guttural sound against her skin. “Smelling how aroused you get when I’m close. Wondering what you’d feel like in my hands. How damned soft…”
Heat flooded her face. “You could smell me?”
“Every fucking time.” He pulled her bra down, his hand closing over her bare breast under her shirt. His palm was hot, rough, perfect. “This morning when we were pressed together. Yesterday when I told you about the mate bond. Right now, when I’m telling you exactly what I want to do to you.”
His thumb and finger rolled her nipple, and she nearly came off the counter. The sensation was electric, too much and not enough all at once.
He kissed her again. Slower this time, but no less intense. His tongue swept against hers while his hands worked magic on her breasts, alternating between gentle touches and rougher pressure that had her gasping into his mouth.
“So sensitive,” he observed with dark satisfaction when she whimpered. He switched to the other breast, giving it the same attention. “I’m going to spend hours on these. Make you fall apart just from this.”
The promise in his voice made her clench. She was soaked, could feel her panties sticking to her, and from the way his nostrils flared when he pulled back to look at her, he knew it too.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” he said, voice rough. “Flushed and wanting. Magic everywhere.”
She looked around and realized he was right. The entire brewhouse was blooming. White flowers pushed up through the floor, vines climbed the stills, and delicate blooms opened toward them like they were drawn to the heat between their bodies.
“I can’t control it,” she gasped. “Not when you do this to me.”
“Good.” His mouth crashed back to hers, kissing her with renewed hunger. “Don’t try to control it. Let me see what you do when you lose yourself.”
He pushed her shirt up, bunching it above her breasts. The cool air hit her heated skin, but then his hands were on her again, one cupping her breast while the other tangled in her hair.
He kissed her breathless, then trailed his mouth down her throat, across her collarbone, down to the swell of her breast. His mouth closed over her nipple.
She cried out, hands flying to his hair. The sensation was overwhelming, his tongue flicking over the sensitive peak, his teeth grazing, the suction of his mouth. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could only feel.
“Gray, please—”
He switched sides, giving her other breast the same attention. His free hand slid down her back, pulling her tighter against him so she could feel every hard inch of his cock pressing against her core. The pressure was maddening, and she ground against him instinctively.
He groaned, the vibration making her shudder. Then his mouth traveled back up, from the valley between her breasts to her neck. He bit down on her pulse point again, and she moaned his name.
“Say it again,” he demanded against her skin.
“Graaayy,” she moaned.
His mouth found hers, kissing her deep and possessive. He kissed her like he had all the time in the world while his hands roamed her back, her sides, learning every curve. One hand slid into her hair again, holding her exactly where he wanted her.
The mate bond flared bright between them again, golden threads visible for several heartbeats this time, pulsing with each kiss. The pull was magnetic, irresistible, and demanding they never stop.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back with everything she had. This was what she’d been missing. A real connection. And the feeling of being wanted so desperately that nothing else mattered.
His hands moved to her waist, gripping tight as he ground against her. The friction was perfect through their clothes, building tension that threatened to consume them both. She could feel how hard he was, how much he wanted her, and it made her feel powerful and desired and terrified all at once.
“I want—” she gasped between kisses. “I need—”
“I know.” His mouth moved to her ear, teeth grazing her earlobe. “I know what you need. But if I give it to you now, I won’t stop.”
His hand slid down her stomach anyway, his fingers playing with the waistband of her jeans. She held her breath. But he didn’t go further. Just pressed his palm flat against her stomach under her shirt, skin to skin, holding her while he kissed her senseless.
Her protection wards suddenly flared hot against her skin, a sharp burn of warning that made her yelp. Magic recoiled instinctively from the danger.
“Wait.” She grabbed his wrist, pushing back. “Gray, wait.”
He froze immediately, pulling back to search her face. “Too fast?”
“Too dangerous.” She was panting, body screaming for his touch, but her mind knew better. “The wards—they’re warning me. If we go further, if I let my guard down completely—”
“It makes you vulnerable.” Understanding dawned in his eyes, followed by frustration so intense she could taste it. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry, but you were right.” She fixed her bra with shaking hands, pulled her shirt down. “I want this. Want you. But if the coven senses the magical surge—”
“They’ll know exactly where you are.” His jaw clenched so hard she heard his teeth grind. “And they’ll come for you.”
She nodded miserably. Her body was still humming with need, but going too far before she’d warded the distillery could bring thirteen witches down on all of them.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, voice shaking. “Not of you. Of what this thing between us could mean. What it could cost.”
What it could cost him. If the coven was right about her magic being too wild, too dangerous. If she lost all control—
She couldn’t do that to Gray. Couldn’t risk binding herself to him only to destroy him with the very power that made her who she was.
“Then we wait.” The words seemed torn from him, rough and reluctant. “We wait until you’re safe. Until this place is warded strong enough to protect you.”
His control was remarkable. She could see his wolf in his eyes, gold bleeding through amber, demanding he finish the claim. Could feel the mate bond pulling at both of them, insisting they complete what they’d started.
But he held himself in check. Gave her the choice.
“I need a few days,” she said.
“Three.” He stepped back, putting real distance between them. His cock still obviously hard and straining against his jeans. “I can give you three days. But you need to understand something.”
“What?”
“My control isn’t infinite.” His eyes blazed gold. “Every day I watch you work, every night I listen to you through the walls, every time I catch your scent—it gets harder. The mate bond is forming whether we complete it or not. And my wolf is getting impatient.”
She understood. She felt it too. That pull between them was getting stronger, more insistent. Soon it might not matter what her rational mind said. The bond would demand completion and fighting it would become impossible.
“Then I’ll work fast,” she promised.
He caught her chin, tilting her face up for one more kiss. This one was slower but no less intense, full of promises and need and things neither of them could say out loud yet.
When he pulled back, they were both shaking.
“Go upstairs,” he ordered. “Start your wards now. Because I need you to make this place safe as fast as you can.”
“Gray—”
“Because if you don’t—” He stopped, jaw working. “Next time, I won’t be able to stop. My wolf won’t give me a choice.”
The raw honesty in his voice sent heat straight through her despite everything. She slid off the counter on unsteady legs.
“Three days. Then we finish this. One way or another.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.
She ran for the stairs, his scent clinging to her skin. At the door of the stairwell, she looked back.
He stood where she'd left him, hands braced on the counter, looking like control personified except for the white knuckles and the golden eyes tracking her every move.
"Tonight I'll start the strongest wards I know," she said. "Thank you for giving me time."
“Good. Because I'm not patient, Lily." His smile was dark and hungry. "Set your wards fast. Because this thing between us, it's not going away. And my wolf is done pretending he doesn't want to find out what you'd feel like under me."
The raw ache in his voice followed her up the stairs. In her room, she collapsed against the door, body aching with frustrated need. She could still feel it, that pull between them like a live wire.
Her panties were soaked, nipples hard and tender against her bra. Every nerve ending screamed for his touch. But she'd bought herself time. Time to protect them all before her past came calling.
Through the floor, she heard him moving through his closing routine, and the normalcy of it made her chest ache. Soon she could stop running. But first, she had to be sure that giving in wouldn't destroy him along with her.
The crescent scar on her wrist throbbed, a reminder of what trust had already cost her. But beneath the ache, the echo of Gray’s touch lingered, steady and grounding, carrying a sense of recognition she couldn’t explain, and a warmth that felt dangerously close to—home.
And that terrified her more than any coven ever could.