Page 14

Mate.

“She’s alive.”

Her lashes flutter. I hold very still. She stirs, her head turning on the pillow, her arm drifting down to rest across her stomach. Her brow furrows, some dream, some remnant, and then her eyes open. She looks like she’s talking to her wolf. Her face is alert. She sniffs the air. And then her eyes find mine.

Her lips part. Her hand moves, reaches, and then stops, suspended in the air between us like she’s afraid I’ll dissolve if she touches me. I cross the tent in two steps. I don’t say anything. “Darian.” My name in her mouth. Wrecked. Beautiful.

“Arlene.” I say it against her skin, her temple, the corner of her mouth. “Arlene. Arlene.”

Her hands come up and grip my shirt, she’s pulling me down, her aroma of apple and cinnamon pulling me closer, my eyes darken, her body curving perfectly into me, like she was made for me.

“You’re here,” she whispers. “You’re...”

“I’m here.” I pull back just enough to look at her face, to trace the line of her jaw with my thumb, to confirm that the bruise isn’t there, that the blood isn’t there, that the silver manacles left no mark. “I’m here. You’re here. We’re...”

She kisses me. It’s not gentle. Her mouth opens against mine and I taste salt, tears, hers or mine, I can’t tell, and her hands are in my hair, pulling, and I’m pressing her into the mattress like I can fuse us together through sheer force.

Mate. Mine.

My wolf howls. My hands find her waist, her hips, the curve of her ribs. I push her shirt up, she sleeps in one of mine, oversized, soft from years of washing, and my palms meet bare skin. She's warm. She's so fucking warm. Her stomach contracts under my touch and she makes a sound against my mouth, a whimper that goes straight to my cock.

"Tell me this is real," she breathes.

"This is real." I drag my mouth down her throat. My teeth graze her pulse point and she arches. "You're real. I'm real. This... us..."

She pulls the shirt over her head. No bra. Her breasts are full and heavy, nipples already peaked, and I don't think. I just lower my head and take one into my mouth.

Her back bows off the bedroll. Her fingers scrabble at my shoulders, nails biting through my shirt. I suck harder, pulling the nipple deep, swirling my tongue around it, then switching to the other breast. The same treatment. The same desperate attention. I lick the valley between them, tasting like apple and cinnamon and something underneath that's purely her.

"Darian..." My name breaks in her throat.

I kiss my way down her stomach. Slow. Deliberate. My tongue traces the line of her hip bone, dips into the hollow above her thigh. She's trembling. Her hands are in my hair again, not pushing me away but holding me there.

I pull her sleep shorts down her legs. She's not wearing anything underneath. Her thighs fall open and I can see her, glistening, pink, swollen. Ready. I can smell her arousal, thick and sweet, and my wolf surges again.

I bury my face between her thighs.

She cries out. Her hips buck up and I pin them down with one hand across her stomach. My tongue finds her clit, hard, swollen, begging, and I lick her in long, flat strokes. She's soaked. Her juices coat my chin, my lips, and I lap at her like she's the only water in a desert. Because she is. She has been.

"Made for me," I growl against her. The vibration makes her shake. "This pussy was made for me. You were made for me."

"Yes... yes..."

I suck her clit into my mouth. She screams. Her thighs clamp around my head and I keep going, sucking and licking, sliding two fingers inside her. She's tight. Tight and wet and clenching around my fingers like she's trying to pull them deeper. I curl them, finding that spot inside her, and I stroke it while I suck.

She comes apart. Her whole body seizes, her back arching, her hands fisting the bedroll. She gushes against my mouth and I drink it down, every drop, my tongue still working her through the aftershocks.

When I finally lift my head, she's wrecked. Flushed. Her chest is heaving and her eyes are gold... wolf gold... and she's looking at me like I'm everything.

"Inside me," she says. "Now. Please."

I shed my clothes. My cock is hard, aching, the tip already slick. I settle between her thighs and she wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me forward. The head of my cock presses against her entrance and we both stop. Just for a moment. Just to feel it... the rightness of this, the inevitability.

I push inside her.

She takes me to the root. Balls deep. Her wet core clenches around me and we both groan. I don't move. I just stay there, buried inside her, feeling her pulse around me.

"Move," she whispers. "Please... move... "