Page 44 of Settle Down, Princess

“I truly am very tired, Master Creed,” she said, her voice coming closer. When she turned the doorknob, she only opened the door a small way. I hissed a breath in at the glimpse I had of her, with her cheeks flushed and her lids heavy. “I’m just going to go to bed and…”

She went to close it, to keep the wolf from her door, but we couldn’t allow that. I wrapped one hand around the frame and one around the edge of the door. Her eyes widened at the sight.

“And what?”

Her chest started to heave as her breath came in harder and faster. She acted like prey and smelled like prey, and I wanted her to run just so I could hunt her down. But she wasn’t a wolf. She was human and that’s not what they did before mating. I pushed myself away from the door jamb and strode into her room.

“And what?” I asked, glancing at the neatly made bed then her. “What’re you going to do in your little bed, all alone?”

Her hands rose in front of her, and my clawed hands wrapped around them, needing the feel of her skin against mine, to fucking hold her in all the ways I’d longed to. I could do it now because the heat had burned away my hesitation. That reticence had made me stay sitting tall on the coach box, keeping my hands on the reins, not on her, and trying hard not to be the next one that pushed his way into her carriage. I drew one of her wrists closer, hearing her hiss. Whether it was from fear or anticipation, I couldn’t tell, even as I pressed my lips to her skin to sear it with a kiss.

“Will you strip yourself bare?” Lifting my other hand, I ran the back of a claw along the creamy skin of her breasts that were threatening to spill from her neckline, and she took in a shaky breath that put pressure on the fabric until the seams strained. “Run your little hands all over your body, just as I did the other night.”

Her gasp dragged my eyes away to lock with hers but what I saw there confused me. Humans always seemed to experience contradictory emotions, all at the same time. There was anger, I could feel that in the tension in her wrist, as if she longed to twist free, but her scent showed me more than that. There was fear that stank like burning hair, but also… Something sweet and heavy and floral, like the white flowers that covered the night garden walls in the capital. I flipped my grip on her wrist so the back of her hand was presented to me, like she was a lady and I was a lord.

My thoughts were far from gentlemanly.

“Will you slide them up the insides of your bare thighs?” I dropped my hands from her, but my gaze held hers so I caught the moment when her pupils blew wide. “The skin there is as soft and fine as angora. No, softer. I could’ve spent the entire night just touching it, stroking it back and forth and marvelling that another being could be that soft, but of course, I didn’t. Because as I slid my hand closer to your core, it only got softer.” I grinned then, something I rarely did because it made my fangs pop into view. “Wetter too. So fucking wet—”

“I’m aware.” Her voice had the same effect on me of having a bucket of ice water splashed in my face by a belligerent sergeant and brought to the fore a part of myself that had been pushed down. I blinked, then blinked again, as I became aware of the red haze. “I know I behaved disgracefully.” Her voice was jagged.

“Not disgracefully.” I shook my head, unable to let that lie go unchallenged. “Beautifully.” I moved closer but didn’t touch her, making clear she could skitter away if that’s what she wanted, and all the while my heart was aching as I hoped she wouldn’t. “Your body undulates like the waves of the Iridescent Seas. Have you ever seen it?”

“I’ve never left Stormare,” she said in a small voice.

“You need to. The waves, they glitter so brightly they make your eyes ache.” I inched closer. “Just like you do, lass. The water looks like a rainbow, a million colours and none at all playing over the surface as they rise and fall. You did that, on my lap, with my cock wedged tight against your arse as you rode my fingers, crashing into the sands just like a wave, over and over. Your sighs were just like the hush of the ocean in my ears, and I never wanted to listen to another sound.”

Just a tiny little sound—that’s what gave me the go ahead to surge forward—a moan half stifled by the throat I pressed a kiss to. My lips burned, like she was made from phosphorus, not human flesh, and was searing me to the bone. Branding me. And that made sense, because when she accepted me, her little blunt teeth would sink into my flesh, the minute I sank into her—

“Master Creed—”

“Just Creed.” My tone verged on begging. I was struggling to navigate human mating rituals as it was, but that formality was too much. “Please, just Creed.”

“Well, Creed…”

When her hands smoothed over my chest, the wolf inside me bayed in victory; but when her hand slid across bare flesh, my claws slapped down, needing that. Skin to skin, just as we should be right now, I felt that deep inside me. Jessalyn undid the rest of the toggles of my jacket, then smoothed it back and off my arms, leaving me standing there, bare chested for her.

I loved the way she stared at our pack members, like she’d eat us up with her eyes. There was something so greedy about her, as if she wanted to taste all the world’s pleasures in a moment. We’d make sure she had them, over and over. I was beginning to think of Jessalyn as a tiny bird, trapped in the shell her family had made for her, but she kept tap, tap, tapping to get out.

Like she did now.

Her hands went around my neck, playing with the hairs at the nape of my neck.

“Perhaps it’s my turn to please you.”

Part of me wanted just that as I watched her sink slowly to her knees, her eyes burning into mine as she slid her hands down to undo the laces of my breeches. But the first rub of her hand against my aching cock had me jerking her to her feet and carrying her across the room to deposit her on the armchair there. I arranged her to my satisfaction, her legs hooked over the arms, before flipping her skirts up.

“You first,” I growled. “Always you first, lass, because you’re…”

I couldn't say the words, not yet. What we were building was still shaky and uncertain. In everything except this. I lunged forward, brushing my lips against those satin-smooth thighs, kissing up higher, higher, until I was barely grazing my mouth against her skin and reached her sopping core.

I’d thought about how she’d drenched her knickers for us over and over as we drove away from Stormare, half thinking I’d dreamed it. Sure enough, the satin was slick under my fingers as I pulled it to one side. Pink, glistening, and perfect, the sight of her made my mouth water.

“Need to taste you, lass,” I growled, giving her one last chance to deny me. “Need you on my tongue. Need—”

“Yes…!”

Her hands slapped down on my skull, and she used them to drag me right where I needed to be.

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