Page 31 of Ignited

“You’re fine,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “You’re okay. Just ride it out.”

She raised her face, and their lips met.

It was even more powerful than it was the first time, at the fight club. Heat and lightning and something more.

It was a wild, dangerous feeling, like the moment before he touched the detonator on a chain of explosives, knowing it could turn into something powerful and beautiful—or blow everything all to hell.

Including himself.

For himself, he was willing to take the risk. But not for her. She was counting on him to have her back.

Barely taking his lips from hers, he said, “We shouldn’t do this. Not now.”

“Now is when I need you,” she whispered. “Please, Boomer. I need you to help me get through this.”

And unsaid between them were the words she’d said in the living room. I have nothing else.

He knew what it was like to have nothing between you and the dark but a wild explosion, so hot and bright and overwhelming that nothing could stand against it.

He bent his head and kissed her again.

This time, though, it wasn’t hot and wild and crazy. It was like sliding into a pool of warm honey. Everything slowed down, and the edges got blurry, and there was no time and nothing outside themselves.

Their kisses smoothed out into a simmering heat, long and lingering. He soothed her by running his hands over her skin again and again, slow and easy, the way he would pet her animal.

The way his wolf had always wanted to be petted, in that secret place he never talked about.

He kissed her until the shaking died down, until it started to be about the desire and the wanting instead of fending off the dark.

They explored each other, kisses and touches, clothes sliding away like magic. Boomer loved sex—he’d had plenty of it in his life—and he’d always liked it hot and fun and a little bit crazy. He’d never known it could be warm and… he didn’t know the words to describe it, just that he’d never felt like any other woman had really seen him, all the parts of him, had wanted to know what made him smile and what made him squirm and what made him pant for more.

Her hands on his ass, her kisses on the side of his neck, his gasp and her smile when she found a love bite on that one spot would shoot all the way to his groin and make his dick stand up hard.

Her stroking his erection, feeling how he liked her to touch him, then slowing down so he was practically begging her for more, and she just smiled that wicked smile and kissed him again, stroking his thighs, running her hands up the muscles of his back, finding that place at the end of his spine that made him moan when she slid her fingers over it.

And maybe he’d never really seen anyone but her, never looked to see what they wanted or needed. He just knew how he loved learning about the way she stretched like a cat when he ran his hand down her belly, that kissing the inside of her thigh made her start to purr.

He got to kiss her breasts, suck on her nipples like he’d wanted to in the living room, trace her hipbones and stroke her inner thighs, just barely not touching her core because the wanting made her writhe against him and make tiny little cat sounds.

He learned that he didn’t even care when her hands turned to paws—he just kissed her paw pads and let her wrap her arms around him, the tiny pricks of her claws reminding him of her strength, her ferocity, her wildness.

He loved bringing her to a fever pitch of wanting, until she forgot the darkness coming for her, until she couldn’t think of anything but his hands and his lips and the way his tongue felt on her clit, until she was clinging to him and shaking in a different way, coming with his mouth on her.

And he saw more than that. Not just her body, but what she kept inside, out of sight. Longing and loneliness, an empty hollow place that matched the one in him.

Those places they kept covered with obnoxious humor and badass.

The parts they would never let anyone see.

He suddenly saw that she was at the end of her strength. She was wild and badass and had been strong forever, all the time, and now, right now she just couldn’t.

When she started to shake with the bad stuff again, he put his hands around her face and made her look at him. “Look at me. Just me. This is all you see. My eyes. My face.”

She growled—and his wolf rose up and growled back. Not in anger, but in recognition.

They’d never been any more than half-human, either of them. Never understood how to be human in a human world.

He’d had the Ridge, and his brother. What had she had?