Except he feels so familiar.
Mate, my wolf whispers.
“I can’t be your mate,” I blurt, panic setting in. The trembling in my knees grows stronger. I can barely stand.
Noah’s eyes, which had been flickering gold, blaze into a full fiery glow. His canines lengthen.
My pussy contracts, breath heaving with the instant recognition. He’s ready to mark me. The mention of the word mate brought on his instinct to claim me. To sink his teeth into my flesh and forever leave his scent embedded in my skin to show I’m his.
If I’d had any doubt before whether he was my mate, it evaporates now.
I back away, reaching out to clutch the bathroom counter to steady myself.
“You can’t have sex.” Noah ignores the mate part, even though he must know the truth now, too. “No orgasms or no penetration?”
I blink. Swallow. Goosebumps travel down my arms although I’m not sure what the Grandmothers are trying to tell me.
“No…penetration, I guess.”
In a flash, Noah moves, lunging for me.
I try to turn and twist away, but he catches me by the waist and lifts me from the floor. I kick, but all he does is sit me on the marble counter. My towel jostles loose, and I clutch the ends together.
Noah’s eyes still blaze. His teeth are long, dripping with the serum to mark me.
“Don’t mark me,” I whisper.
“I won’t mark you. I just want to taste you.” He holds my gaze. “Spread your knees, starlight.”
I realize he’s waiting for consent. He could pry my knees open himself, same as he lifted me. His physical mastery over me is unquestionable.
He lifts his hands–slowly–as if showing me he’s not a threat, and gently tugs open my towel.
The soft whimper that comes from my lips isn’t resistance. It’s more like surrender. Noah cradles my neck between his palms, then lightly strokes down, across my shoulders, to cup my breasts. He brushes the pads of his thumbs across my nipples.
My entire body is trembling now. The sensations are so intense I can barely contain them.
Noah starts to push me gently backward. I catch my weight on my hands, and when he keeps the pressure up, lower to my elbows. He looks down pointedly, to my knees, then lifts his gaze back to my face.
Another whimper escapes.
I slide my knees apart. He wants to taste me. I’m not even sure what that means.
Noah traces down my body, licking, kissing, and sucking his way from my breasts down my fluttering belly and around the soft silk of my mound. He trails kisses up my inner thigh before his tongue reaches my sopping core.
He starts with just a flick of the tip of his tongue.
My body violently jerks in response, the sensation making me cry out.
His tongue delves between my folds, tracing a tiny circle at the apex.
I let out a sobbing breath.
This I haven’t seen before. The Alpha Rites don’t involve female pleasure. The female devotees are bound on their backs to the stone dais with vines. The chosen alpha males move among them, rutting inside each one until every female holds the seed of every male. It takes hours, and sometimes the males use the female’s mouths to ready themselves between she-wolves.
What I witnessed made me happy to forego sex.
But this? Fate, this is like picking up the chessboard of my life and dumping all the pieces. This pleasure is so intense, I’m going to combust into a burst of flames. No, rose petals. Because there’s no violence to this–only the most beautiful velvet-soft pleasure.
