Chapter Twelve
Darius…
Kissing Effie is the most illogical, risky thing I could do in the middle of a blue moon gauntlet, especially when there are literally werewolves at the door.
Part of me wants to blame my own wolf for what I just said, but the truth is that even though my wolf is always closer to the surface out in the woods, what I said was all me.
I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want the gap-toothed chaos witch with an adrenaline addiction in front of me.
I don’t give a shit if it’s fated mates or pheromones or just plain old sexual attraction, as long as I get to kiss that lush mouth of hers.
One side of her mouth goes up in a crooked smile, and she presses a hand to my chest. My whole world goes still, and my lungs are crushed under the absolute certainty that I’ve played it all wrong, and she is going to shove me away.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, she grabs the front of my hoodie and yanks me closer. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, wolfman.”
“Never do, broom babe,” I tell her, teasing her the way she loves to tease me.
Her eyes go wide with surprise, and a squawk of a laugh slips out before she mutters “broom babe” under her breath with a giggle. “You think I’m a babe.”
“Obviously.”
“Are you flirting with me, Grumps?” She inches closer. “When you should be kissing me to seal the deal?”
When the witch is right, the witch is right.
I lean down, closing the space between us, and half a second before I make contact, my wolf lets out a gruff “finally,” which I ignore because I have more important things to care about.
Things like how soft Effie’s lips are, the tease of her tongue, and the determined umph sound she makes as she pushes me onto my back and straddles me, never letting even a hint of space come between us as the kiss continues uninterrupted.
Kissing Effie is like touching fire but not getting burned. It’s like I’m becoming the flames, wild and hungry. Needy for more. Desperate for her. My cock is so hard it aches as pre-cum pools at the tip. She is mine. In that moment, I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.
Her hands are planted on the blanket on either side of my shoulders, stabilizing her—as if I’d ever let her fall—but my hands are busy.
She’s buried under the layers of the cotton and fleece of my spare clothes, which are so big on her that they bunch under my palms as I glide them down her sides to her hips and around to cup her ass.
I give in and squeeze, the soft roundness yielding in my hands.
She deepens the kiss as she rocks against me, leading me right to the edge of losing control.
I can feel the wildness of my wolf that I always keep buried starting to surface.
It’s a dark, moonlit need now that I have her in my arms. It’s more than just my wolf—him I’m used to, padding around in the background, trapped in a space I made for him.
But the wildness of my wolf? That innate spirit inside me that’s more animal than human? It’s different.
Stronger.
Hungrier.
More cunning.
It’s what differentiates a regular werewolf from an alpha because of the added strength it delivers. But that strength comes with a danger all its own. If it gets the chance, it will take over until you’re all id, seeking pleasure and power no matter what.
No want is too minor.
No desire can be denied.
No craving is to be ignored.
And you’ll never be satisfied, because there is no such thing as enough for your wolf.
I’ve spent my whole life holding on to my control and focus so I won’t turn into only the wolf no matter my form, like my father and grandmother did. Lately, however, it’s been harder to ignore the jagged sense of yearning—of needing something I can’t even define.
And now, when I’m kissing Effie as she rubs herself against my aching hard cock, I can feel my control start to snap, one thin thread at a time.
My hold on her ass tightens, and I bring her to a stop, holding her against my dick for one last frustrating second before I lift her up and set her back down on her side of the blanket.
Her full pink lips are swollen, her brown eyes are hazy, and her light auburn hair morphed from waves to uncontrollable curls in the water, and now it’s going every which way.
She looks absolutely ridiculous sitting there drowning in my clothes, and I’ve never been more turned on.
Effie Sherwood is simply the sexiest witch I’ve ever been cursed with—something my wolf and I agree on.
And if the fact that the two of us are in agreement that we want her more than any woman we’ve ever been with doesn’t set off a million warning sirens in my head, then I’m just as much of a fool as Nikos believes I am and as selfish as my father.
There’s too much at stake for the pack for me to be either of those things.
I end the kiss with brutal efficiency, cutting things off before I lose control.
“I’ll keep watch,” I say as I stand up, needing to add some distance between us. “You should get some sleep.”
All the just-been-kissed haziness in her gaze disappears as she narrows her eyes at me.
“Look, if you’re not into me, you can just tell me.
” She lifts her chin a few degrees and crosses her arms. “I’m a big girl.
I can take it.” She lets out a long sigh thick with frustration.
“And honestly, it’ll be easier than dealing with all this want-you-don’t-want-you whiplash. ”
It’s a fair request, and she’s not wrong. I’ve been fighting with my wolf about her since she popped out of thin air earlier today and landed on my lap, and she’s had to face the brunt of all those mixed messages.
“So maybe you stop being such an asshole and keep kissing the girl,” my wolf says.
That can’t happen. Kissing Effie is as close to giving in to my wolf—not transforming physically, but taking on the impulsive, wild, give-me-everything-now, me-above-everything-else personality of a wolf—that I’m willing to do.
To go further is a mistake that my father and grandmother surrendered to that nearly destroyed my pack too many times before.
There’s a difference between transforming into my wolf while holding tight on the reins and letting my wolf roam free without any check on his wildness. I have to keep my wolf leashed.
“This”—I gesture between us—“isn’t useful.”
Both of her eyebrows go up so high they disappear behind her bangs. “Interesting choice of words.”
I spend a lot of my time with Aunt Artemis; I know when a woman says something is interesting in that tone of voice, she means something completely different. I, however, have already dug this hole, and so I might as well stand in it.
“Fine,” I say, “it isn’t logical, then.”
“I see.” She cocks her head to the side and stares at me for a long drawn-out moment before standing to look me straight in the eye—or as close as she can get, considering there’s gotta be more than a foot height difference between us.
Whatever tough-chick attitude she’s going for, though, takes a hit when the knotted string that’s holding my spare jogging pants up on her unwinds and they start to slide down.
Her cheeks turn pink, and she lets out a little squeak of surprised annoyance before she fists the gray material and does her best to mean mug me while keeping the joggers from slipping any farther.
“And you only have sex when it’s logical or useful?” she asks.
“Exactly,” I say, dragging my gaze up from her hand bunched up in all that material.
Making myself do that is a feat much harder than I want to admit because every part of me is so in tune to her.
“Sex is just a physical release. Nothing more. There’s no reason why logic shouldn’t be the determining factor. ”
“And the whole sexy growl situation when you tell me we’re gonna seal the deal, but not with a hand kiss?” she asks as she reties the string.
I have never hated a bow more than at that moment. “A mistake.”
She mutters a huh as she lifts her eyebrows and a hmm as she shakes her head, and then hits me with a you-are-full-of-shit scoff.
“So you’re saying you don’t want to kiss me?” She plants her hands on her hips, straining the bow holding the string at her waist together. “You don’t want to touch me?” She struts forward until she’s almost in arm’s reach. “You don’t want to fuck me until we’re both too exhausted to move?”
My dick fucking aches, it’s so hard, and it takes nearly everything I have not to tell her yes.
Oh, I’m definitely going to store that mental image away for later—but not now.
Thinking about spinning her around and pulling her back so her ass is snug against me as I put that fucking bow out of its misery before sliding my hand in her waistband and slipping a finger or two or three between her thick thighs is not the way to go.
I should tell her this isn’t a wise discussion.
I should dunk my head into the icy water falling outside the cave entrance, werewolves hunting for us be damned.
I should keep my focus on finishing the blue moon gauntlet.
Of course, I do none of those things because I am an asshole.
“I’ve never said that,” I say. “But for some of us, doing things just because we want to has consequences. You make bad decisions seem like good ideas.”
“What kind of bad decisions?” she asks, sounding exactly like someone who is the personification of temptation.
“The kind where I turn you around, yank those jogging pants of mine down from your waist, and then fuck you so hard and so good while you’re still standing up that your thighs will be Jell-O afterward.”
She bites down on her bottom lip, her eyelids fluttering shut for a second before she lets out a soft mmmm-hmmmm and looks back up at me with a satisfied smile.
The air in the cave crackles with possibilities.
I can barely breathe with how bad I want her right now, and every time I do inhale, I’m hit with the scent of her arousal and that honeysuckle that will forever make me think of her.
My chest is tight, my dick is hard as the granite walls of this cave, and I am one hundred percent certain this is a bad decision I can’t wait to make.
One that I finally have to admit I’ve already made.
“Well, then,” Effie says as she turns her back to me and puts her hands on the cave’s cold, damp wall before looking over her shoulder at me, “what are you waiting for?”