Chapter 5 #2
“Absolutely,” he agreed. He wasn’t convinced at all, but what else was he supposed to do?
They worked for a couple more hours until the piles were neater, and some of the floor reappeared.
Sweat dampened the back of his shirt, and not because of the effort.
It was because her hair had escaped whatever system had been holding it back and was curling at her temple like dark golden twists.
If he followed that line, he would find her neck, where she was warmer, where her scent was even more potent.
Keep your eyes on the work, your hands on the boxes, and your brain out of your pants. But chanting it was easier than actually doing it.
“What?” she asked.
“What what?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Because my wolf is pacing under my skin, and you’re the reason. Because every instinct I have says you’re mine to have and to protect. “You’ve got—” He gestured vaguely at his own face.
Her eyes narrowed. “Where?”
He stepped closer before he could think better of it. His thumb brushed her cheek, wiped the dust away with a barely-there touch, and the air seemed to tighten around them all over again. “There,” he said quietly.
Her pulse fluttered at her throat. He could see it, smell it, feel it answering something deep inside him.
She cleared her throat. “So. Basement.”
“Basement,” he echoed.
They both looked around at the now respectable space. Not perfect, but better.
She blew out a breath. “Okay. I think that’s enough for today.”
He nodded, grateful and disappointed in equal measure. “We earned food.”
Her mouth twitched. “You did bring meat.”
“I did.”
She headed toward the stairs, and he followed, acutely aware of the faint sway of her hips and the way his body reacted with no concept of dignity. And it was definitely not dignity—or his brain, for that matter—that ruled him when he watched, helpless, as he took her hand.
She turned around with a question in her eyes, and her scent hit him. Again.
Lavender and something warmer, earthier—sun-heated skin and the faintest trace of sweat and dust from the afternoon's work.
The last of the daylight bled through the basement window in deep amber and thickened shadows, and all he could focus on was the way that scent wrapped around his senses and squeezed.
He had no answers to give her. He had none for himself. He hadn't come here today to start anything.
Liar.
He wasn’t. Or not completely. On the menu had been apologies and help.
But now he was here, with her, having been on his feet since before dawn, exhaustion pulling at his bones and gnawing the edges of his reason.
The full moon was still a few days off, but it was already beginning to call to the wolf—a wolf that paced and asked for her, to taste and drown in her scent.
He could have fought all of it. He’d fought worse.
But the reasons he kept giving himself weren't strong enough to make him want to fight anymore, to want to keep his hands to himself any longer.
She only had to say a word. Not even that. She only had to hint at not wanting whatever was about to happen, and he would accept it like religion. He would step back, walk out that door, and never touch her again if that’s what she needed, what she asked of him. But it would have to come from her.
"I..." he started. He pulled, gently, and she glided back closer, as if she’d been expecting it.
Hoping for it. The floorboards creaked under their combined weight.
“Something,” he said, his voice dropping to almost a growl, his wolf right there, pushing against his skin. “There's something here. Between us.”
She took another step in, and he stopped breathing when she lowered her eyes and licked her lips. “I don't understand it.”
He did. Possibly. His wolf had bristled from the first moment he’d caught her scent, growling things that were insistent and stubborn.
But this wasn’t the time to talk about guesses or his wolf’s obsession.
So he took a step himself, bringing them close enough for him to feel the warmth radiating off her skin, close enough to feel the drumming of her heart.
The rhythm of it called to something primal in him, made his own pulse sync and surge.
He drew her in, surrounding her with his arms while his wolf all but howled at the righteousness of it. Yes. This. Her. She tilted her head back to keep her gaze locked into his—slightly unfocused eyes, pupils wide in the dimming light. Her lips parted.
“May I try something?” he asked, his voice rougher than he intended.
“You just have to step back or say the word, and I'll stop. No hard feelings.” If she did, he was going to find Lachlan and ask him to use magic to hurt him, possibly kill him, but she didn’t need to know that. She had to answer freely.
She swallowed, and he tracked the movement with predatory focus. “I don’t think I want to do either.”
“I need a little more than that. I need you to be sure.” Because if he started this, if he let himself have even one taste, it could change very many things. The wolf was already clawing at his restraint, demanding more, demanding everything.
The wolf would have to give her a damn minute.
“I am.” She pressed even closer, her hands flattening against his chest, right where his heart seemed to be stretching toward her. “It's beating very fast,” she whispered.
“I know.” Thundering, actually. Hammering against his ribs like it wanted to break free and lay itself at her feet.
She sighed softly. “My head is spinning a bit.”
“I know that too.”
“How?”
“You're leaning on me.”
“Oh.” Someone end him now, because she bit her lower lip, and he was dying. Actually dying. The wolf whined, desperate. “Is that bad?” she whispered.
“No. It’s very, very good.” Better than good. Perfect. Like every cell in his body had been waiting for exactly this, for her weight against him, her warmth seeping into his skin, her scent filling his lungs with every breath.
He leaned down to brush her cheek, then her temple, with his lips, and her eyelashes fluttered closed.
He kept the touch soft, even as the wolf snarled for more.
Screw the wolf. He forced himself to go slow, to savor, to give her every chance to change her mind.
The last rays of sunlight caught in her hair, and the room around them faded into nothing, just background noise to the only thing that mattered.
Her.
With him.
His lips hovered just above hers, close enough to catch the faint sweetness of the lemonade they had earlier, still lingering there. His heart hammered so hard he wasn’t sure he’d survive it. One last chance. One last moment for her to pull away, to change her mind, to—
She closed the distance between them.
Her lips on his. Soft. Questioning. Almost shy.
It destroyed him.
Heat exploded through his veins, spreading through him in a deluge of want.
He growled in his throat, half groan and half surrender, and kissed her back.
Savoring the taste of her, the impossible softness of her lips, the way she made a small sound of surprise that turned into something deeper and more dangerous.
It made the wolf rumble with satisfaction and punished a man already on the edge of reason.
Her scent intensified and made his head spin worse than any wine ever could. He cupped her face with one hand, his thumb brushing her cheekbone, and deepened the kiss. Still careful, still controlled, even as everything in him screamed to take all.
When her fingers grabbed his hair, the world narrowed to nothing but this: her mouth moving against his, the taste of her on his tongue, the small sounds she made, the way she swayed into him, trusting him to hold her steady.
Time suspended. Stretched. The basement, the fading sunlight, the boxes, and the mess. All of it dissolved. There was only her. Only this.
And then something shifted.
No lightning strike, no world-tilting moment of absolute certainty. But something changed—a subtle, undeniable settling, like a puzzle piece sliding home so he could finally see the whole picture of himself, complete.
Recognition kicked his heart so hard he would have stumbled if he weren’t holding her.
The wolf went still. Watchful. And then, quiet and certain as a heartbeat: This one. Her. Ours.
Oh.
Oh.
Like the eye of a hurricane, the realization—or the acceptance of a possibility he’d only guessed—settled over him with surprising gentleness while his system raged. This wasn't just attraction or fascination, wasn’t simply the wolf being drawn to her scent. This was—
He couldn’t finish the thought. Didn’t dare. Because if he was right and this was what he’d thought it was, then everything changed. Everything. And he wasn’t ready to hand that to her yet, wasn’t ready to explain what his wolf had been telling him since day one.
But the certainty built with every breath that carried her scent, with every point of contact between them, with every stroke of their tongues, with the way his wolf had gone from pacing and demanding to something almost sated.
His hands tightened slightly on her waist. His breath came faster, and he could feel the tremor in his muscles, the effort of holding himself in check when everything in him wanted to pull her closer, to mark her, to make it so they’d belong to each other, and to each othe only, forever.
Everywhere they touched hummed with awareness, with possibility, with something inevitable and terrifying all at once.
Mate. The word moved through his mind like a current. Mate. Mate. Mate.
He forced himself to breathe, to think past it.
This wasn’t the time. She didn’t know what this was, didn’t understand what it meant.
The implications, the consequences—and he couldn't, wouldn't, push this on her before she was ready.
Before he was ready to explain what his instincts were screaming at him.
He broke the kiss.