Page 26 of Guarded By The Alpha

The room emptied for rest. Jace took the first watch. Gideon went back to his screens to dig into the ward gaps Nova had found. Maddox started prepping for two days of watching the place.

Only Nova and I were left over the spread of evidence.

The professional distance that had held us across six hours dissolved into something quieter. Something more dangerous.

She stood at the table, one hand resting on the stills of her mother's prison, her shoulders set with the tension of a woman who'd spent six hours being very steady about something that was costing her everything.

I'd spent those same six hours close enough to feel the heat of her. Close enough to watch her eyes sharpen when she found something, close enough to see the exact way her hands moved over the evidence—reading, weighing, building a whole picture out of scraps.

The wolf had been pushing against the inside of me since the second hour. The animal wanted to touch her, claim her, make it plain to everyone in the building that she was mine to protect in ways that had nothing to do with the job.

She looked up at me. Held my eyes a moment that stretched too long.

Then she put her hand over mine on the table and waited.

The world went very quiet.

I looked at her hand on mine—the deliberate placement, the choice in it. The wolf came up with a force that nearly cracked my hold on it.

"Nova."

"I know what I'm doing." Her voice was steady. "I've known for days. I'm done pretending the pull is just something in my blood and not a choice."

The restraint I'd spent six days building—the distance, the discipline, the careful line—went like smoke.

I turned to face her. Lifted her onto the edge of the table with hands that had stopped asking. Paper hit the floor and neither of us looked at it.

Her legs wrapped around me. The heat of her pressed against me, and the wolf made a sound in my chest that had nothing human in it.

"We should—" she started.

"Don't." I cupped her jaw, tilted her face up to mine. "Don't tell me to stop."

"I wasn't going to."

Her flannel came off her shoulders. My jacket hit the floor. My shirt followed, and her hands were on my chest—mapping, learning, the same focused attention she brought to a scene.

Except I wasn't a scene. I was something she was choosing.

My hands found her jaw, her throat, traced down her sides with the thoroughness of a man who'd been not-touching her for six days and meant to make up all of it. She made a soft sound when my mouth found the curve of her neck—the place the wolf wanted to mark, the spot that had been calling to me since the warehouse.

I pressed my lips there and felt her shiver.

"Roan—"

"I know." I didn't know what I was answering. I didn't care. My mouth moved along her throat, her collarbone, the soft skin at the hollow of her shoulder. She arched into me, her hands fisting in my hair.

Her bra was in the way. I dealt with it. The sound she made when I took her nipple into my mouth went straight through me—a sharp breath that broke into something lower, something that sounded like my name.

"Look at me," I said against her skin.

She looked. Gray-blue eyes dark with want, pupils blown wide, her breath coming in uneven pulls. The sight of her like this—undone, choosing me, wanting me—cracked something open in my chest.

I kissed her then. Really kissed her, the way I'd been imagining for days—deep and demanding and thorough. She opened for me at once, her tongue meeting mine, her body pressing closer like she couldn't get enough.

Her jeans were in the way. So were mine.

"Off," she said against my mouth. "Now."