Chapter Six
LANE
Oh, he did not just say that.
My pulse flutters like a bird trapped in a cage. But my mouth, traitorous as always, decides to double down.
"Challenge accepted. Then I'm walking away. And you can keep your smug, muscled, gorgeous, stuck-up, rude, sexy self far, far from me." Oh my God. Oh no. I just said those words. Where is a giant sinkhole when you need one?
And now his smile is stretching so wide.
"Forget everything I just said!" I splutter furiously. "Did you put something in my tea?"
"Sure, sweetheart," he chortles. "The tea. It's the tea making you say those things. Let's go with that."
Sweetheart. The nerve.
I take a step closer, tilting my chin up so I can glare properly. He's standing so close that I can feel the heat radiating off him, smell the mix of pine, smoke, and something darker—something him.
"Just one kiss," I repeat, mostly to remind myself who's in charge here. Spoiler: it's not me.
"If you say so," he agrees with amusement, voice low and rough enough to make my knees consider mutiny.
I rise up on my toes before I can talk myself out of it, grab his stupidly broad shoulders, and press my lips to his.
It's supposed to be quick. Chaste. A tactical strike to prove a point. But the second our mouths touch, every nerve ending in my body lights up like a Christmas tree.
He makes a low sound, deep in his chest—a rumble that I feel more than hear—and his hands slide to my waist. The world tilts. My breath catches. And suddenly, it's not a kiss anymore. It's a claim. It's heat and hunger and home all tangled up in one impossible moment.
I'm supposed to pull away. That was the deal.
Instead, my fingers curl into his hair, and he groans against my mouth, and oh sweet heavenly werewolves, I'm doomed. He tastes sweet and warm, and his lips claim me, his tongue probing and swirling around mine in a silken dance.
When I finally manage to tear myself free, I stumble back, heart hammering, lips tingling, brain approximately three seconds away from blue screen of death.
He's watching me like I just rewired his entire universe. And I probably have.
"Maybe one more," I gasp. "Just to…make sure." Yes, one more kiss, my shameless libido eagerly agrees. One more, that will show him.
I glance at the kitchen table, heat curling through me. "Have you ever been with a woman on this table?"
His eyes darken, and there's a look of feral hunger on his face. "No," he husks. "But I'm about to."
The air between us hums, thick with want and something far deeper. My breath catches as he steps closer, close enough that I can feel his heartbeat against mine.
For a moment, everything else fades away—my fears, the people who hate shifters being with humans, the impossible truth of who we are. It's just him and me, standing in the golden spill of light from the windows.
I should run.
Instead, I reach for him.
His hand cups my face with a reverence that steals my breath, and when his lips find mine, the world tilts. The kiss is slow this time, deep and unhurried, as if he's memorizing every heartbeat, every sigh.
He groans my name against my lips, and for a moment the wolf inside him feels close—so close I can almost feel the low-thrumming thread of its hunger, ancient and overwhelming.
But he doesn't let it take over. Instead, he cups my chin in his hands, and when he pulls away, his gaze is so intense it knocks the air right out of my lungs.
"Lane," he says, voice rough as gravel, "Tell me you want me."
His words burn away any last vestige of self-preservation in my nervous system.
"I want you." My voice trembles.
He presses me back against the edge of the table and lifts me onto it in one smooth, impossible motion. A surprised giggle escapes my lips, but it's lost in the press of his mouth on mine.
My body is a live wire, nerves zinging in every direction.
Jesse is right there, in front of me. For a long second, he hovers with barely any space between us, just his broad, unyielding frame and the heat of his hands bracing the edge of the table.
He studies me like a predator, like a lover—hungry but patient, as if memorizing my face, every tremor in my fingers, every shiver that ripples up my arms. I've never had anyone look at me quite like that before, like I was both prey and prize.
When he reaches up, I flinch in anticipation, but all he does is tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
The rough pad of his thumb traces the fragile shell of my ear, then follows the line of my jaw to the point of my chin.
He could break me in half with that hand, but instead he cradles me like I was something so precious that even a bruise would be sacrilege.
I feel my breath lock somewhere in my chest. All my old defenses, all the sharp edges I'd built up over the years, melt under that touch.
And then he's kissing me again, and this time there is nothing polite or measured about it.
My mind goes whiteout-blank; my only anchor his body caging mine, the heat of him pouring into me.
His beard stubble scrapes the tender spot above my lip, rough and tasting of salt, and his hands framed my face, thumbs stroking at my cheekbones with an unspoken apology for every hard thing the world had ever thrown at me.
I wrap my arms around his neck. The kitchen—this ancient, echoing room built to hold generations—fills up with the sound of our breathing and the wild, animal thud of my heart.
His hands slide down, close over the neckline of my shirt, and tear it. He rips shreds of cloth away and drops them.
His eyes meet mine, dark with promise. "I'll buy you fifty more," he growls, before the delicate lace of my bra gives way beneath his fingers.
The cool air kisses my skin for only a heartbeat before his mouth claims me, teeth grazing with exquisite care where I was most sensitive.
He fumbles with my jeans, his hands big and clumsy, and my body lights up at how undone he is by me. With a laugh that catches in my throat, I kick them off, taking my underwear with them.
He comes down with a press of body, pinning me underneath his solid, muscular weight.
I don't want to escape. I want more. His mouth is on my neck, then my collarbone, then the soft slope of my shoulder, and each place he touches seems to wake up a hundred more nerve endings I didn't even know existed.
He moves down, kissing my stomach, then parts my thighs with his hands. I melt back onto the table, and let out a low moan of need.
His tongue teases me, caresses me, laps up my juices. "Yes," I gasp. His hands are so strong, spreading my legs so wide.
Then he straightens up, shoves his sweatpants off, and in a daze, I watch as he moves his thick, hard cock between my legs.
When he finally slides into me, emotion and sensation flood through me. Every bit of me that had ever been left out, passed over, or made to feel too much suddenly feels right, and beautiful, and desirable.
He moves with a slowness that drives me mad. Each thrust of his body is deliberate, coaxing the pleasure out of me until the kitchen, the house, the whole world vanish and it's just the two of us, our flesh as one. When my orgasm crashes into me and explodes in a wave of sensation, I cry his name.
"Lane," he groans aloud, and I feel his hot seed rushing into me.
We sprawl across the wooden table, breathing hard and shivering in the afterglow. Moonlight pools on the battered surface, painting our skin.