Chapter Eight
Henrietta
His body shifts over mine, all heat and muscle and barely controlled restraint. His hand slides down my side, then stills like he’s forcing himself to behave.
I pull him closer by the shoulders.
To hell with behaving.
He breaks the kiss long enough to press his forehead against mine.
“If we do this...” His voice sounds rough. “We’re agreeing to just one night? Or…more?”
More would be addictive.
I force a laugh. “Trust me, Alpha-boy, I’m not exactly planning our mating ceremony.” Ha. As if. Me, actually mated to the Alpha of the Moonstone Pack.
His mouth twitches and something dangerous flashes in his eyes. Anger? Relief? “Good,’ he growls.
“Good.”
He kisses me again, hard and hungrly.
Hands tangle. Kisses deepen.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, I know this is a spectacularly bad idea.
But the moon is high.
The man I’ve hated for years is looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.
He doesn't wait. But instead of driving into me, he does something that steals the air from my lungs. He slides down my body, a slow, deliberate descent. His hands part my thighs, a gesture that is both forceful and reverent, and the cool night air kisses my most sensitive flesh.
"Andrew," I breathe.
He looks up at me from between my legs, his amber eyes glowing with an inner fire in the dappled moonlight. "I have to taste you," he says, the words a raw, ragged confession. And then he does.
His tongue is a shock of wet heat against my clit. A cry tears from my throat, sharp and wild. He doesn't start slow. He laps me with a desperate hunger, his hands gripping my hips, holding me in place as I buck against his mouth.
Just as my arousal reaches the precipice, he pulls away. I bite back a scream of frustration. He slides up, pinning me underneath him with his hard, muscular weight.
“Open your legs for me.” His commanding growl undoes me, and my thighs part for him. I close my eyes as the thick head of his cock presses against my slick entrance, and then with one hard thrust, he’s inside of me.
He fills me completely, a perfect, aching fit that steals my breath and sets every nerve ending alight. For a long moment, we are still, the only sounds the ragged gasps of our breathing and the distant hoot of an owl. He is in my blood, in my bones, a possession so complete it is terrifying.
Then he begins to move.
There is no gentle rhythm, no slow build.
There is only a primal, driving force. Andrew plunges deep, a powerful thrust that seats him to the hilt, tearing a cry from my throat that is part pleasure, part pain, all surrender.
He sets a punishing pace, each withdrawal leaving me achingly empty before he slams home again, harder, deeper, claiming me with a ferocity that borders on violence.
My world narrows to the slick slide of our bodies, the slap of skin against skin, the guttural sounds he makes with each powerful thrust. I meet him, arching my hips, my nails digging into the sweat-slicked muscles of his back, urging him on, harder, faster, more.
This isn't making love; it's a war, a desperate, beautiful battle for dominance, for release, for a single, stolen moment of peace.
The tension within me coils, a tight, hot spring winding tighter and tighter with each deep, penetrating stroke. His name becomes a ragged chant on my lips.
He shifts, changing the angle, and the head of his cock scrapes against a place deep inside me that sends a blinding flash of white-hot pleasure through my entire system.
My control shatters. The spring inside me snaps, and wave after wave of exquisite, convulsing pleasure washes over me, pulling me under in a tidal wave of sensation.
My body clenches around him, milking him, and with a hoarse shout that is half my name, half a wolf's howl, he finds his own release.
He drives into me one last, shuddering time, his body going rigid as he pours himself into me, a hot, intimate flood that is the final, irrevocable seal on our pact.
We collapse onto the moss, a tangled, sweat-soaked heap of limbs and ragged breaths. The forest is silent around us, the moonlight now a gentle caress.
Minutes drift lazily by. Our breathing slows.
“Well,” I murmur. “Uh, that was…”
“So terrible that we never need to do it again?” he murmurs into my shoulder.
“I was going to be nice, and say it was so awesome we never need to do it again, but since you went there…” I shift my weight and bite his shoulder.
“Harder,” he grins.
“Oh, screw you. Now I probably need a rabies shot.”
He starts laughing. His shoulders shake.
I poke him in the chest. “Shut up. We’re not here to have fun. So, what’s next on the hate-your-mate agenda?”
“How about a really, really bad dinner date tomorrow night?”
I turn the idea over in my head. “That’s not the stupidest idea you’ve ever had. Let’s do it. Let’s have a really terrible evening together and then we can just call it quits.”
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I hear the strangest sound. It’s almost like what my wolf would sound like if she were laughing her furry ass off.