33. Nick
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
NICK
Icould smell her arousal from the moment she stepped into the park. Could smell how she wanted me before I even turned and saw that plush bottom lip caught between her teeth.
I’m a man possessed.
I swear I tapped into my wolf when I sprinted to her side, gathered her in my arms, and told her every single thing I wanted to do to her.
“The vendors...” she swallows, delicate neck working hard. “We have to have the booths built by the end of the weekend so that…”
She trails off as I slide my thumb to her mouth. I push inside and press on her tongue, the fresh wave of her arousal smacking me in the face.
I don’t care.
I don’t care about vendors. I don’t care about the stage. I don’t care about the booths, the anniversary event, or anything outside of taking my mate home and fucking her until I’ve wrung out every single ounce of pleasure from her body.
The want I feel for her is a physical thing. A grip on my throat, a guiding weight on my hands, keeping me close to her.
I’ve never felt this way. This out of control. Not even close to a full moon when my wolf is closest to the surface.
“What day is it?” I ask through the haze of lust blurring my vision. I gently remove my thumb from her mouth so she can reply.
“Huh?” Her forest green eyes blink up at my sharp change in direction. “Thursday, I think?”
Shit.
I drop my hands so fast it’s as if she’s burned me. I take one step back, two, creating the necessary distance for me to think. “The full moon is on Saturday night.”
A friendly reminder from the universe that I’m unlike any man she’s known. That sometimes I’m more wolf than anything else. Maybe I’ve lost too many people in my life. Perhaps that’s why I’m so scared she’ll leave, and I’ll lose her, too.
Despite my complete retreat, Izzy smiles reassuringly at me and closes the distance once more. “You said your instincts are harder to ignore around the full moon, right?”
I nod. “Sometimes I think I’m more wolf than man.”
“You are yourself. Nothing less, nothing more,” she says, her scent softening to a soothing balm. “What can I do to help?”
She takes my cheek in her hand, and I nuzzle into the soft skin there, closing my eyes to enjoy the quiet acceptance she gives me.
Maybe I need to be better at trusting her.
“Sometimes I can’t believe you’re real,” I whisper into her palm. “Honestly, you help just by being here.”
She chuckles at that, and I open my eyes to catch her joy. “I think I’m actually incredibly distracting, but thank you. How about you finish up here, and I make us dinner tonight? You can come over once you’re done, and we can talk about the full moon. How I can support you.”
The Goddess picked the perfect woman for me—this person who seems to see me so fully and doesn’t shy away. My life has been difficult—full of losses I may never truly get over—until this moment.
Maybe she won’t leave me like everyone else has.
“I think that sounds perfect. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
She presses a sweet, quick kiss to my lips—drawing away before I can get lost in the taste of her. “I’ll see you soon.”
I watch as her hips sway with the breeze, as the falling leaves seem to float toward her on their way to the ground. She’s magnetic.
It takes all the power in me to rip my eyes away from her and get back to work. The urge to run after her—the need to chase my mate—is so overwhelming I have to practically choke it down.
Would she like something like that? A chase?
I was just thinking that I need to trust Izzy more. That I need to trust that her easy acceptance of me will continue, even if a chase through the woods isn’t appealing to her.
I resolve to speak with her about it tonight over dinner. With that, I hammer away even faster—anything to get back to my Izzy as quickly as possible.