I want to sayyesa million times. I want to consume her. I’m so hard from looking at her, I don’t understand what’s going on with my own body.

Her eyes swirl with gold around her pupils.

She leans down, then jerks back the minute I strain toward her, my mouth so eager for hers that it’s all-consuming.

I have no choice but to allow it to happen, and she has no choice but to do it. This is the part of the story where the hero normally explains to the villain that everyone always has a choice, but I don’t really see a way out of this. And because of my weakened state, all I can do is watch as she leans over my body with red eyes.

“Remember,” I point out, straining toward her scent. God, it smells good. Like fresh rain and apples—like the earth. Like the Garden itself. “Orgasm or no deal.”

She leans down and licks my neck, her tongue searing hot before she whispers in my ear.

“I was prideful to think I could ever resist you.”

“I was prideful to assume I would want you to,” I say honestly, body shuddering under her touch. She jumps onme and then straddles me. In one instant, she jerks my jeans completely down my body, moving so she can pull them off, all before straddling me again. I wince at the glorious pain of need, the wanting.

“Do it now. Do it,” I whisper. I can’t see straight, but I can feel. Hell, I can feel everything down to my core. My fangs elongate, my body telling me I want to mark her with my blood and scent, too. Maybe she’d enjoy the werewolf bite. But we typically don’t just go around biting people who aren’t our mates, just in case we accidentally make a mistake and claim out of lust.

I will claim her before I die.

Then again, it’s like she’s claiming me—sheisclaiming me.

She bites down on my neck. I let out a roar, my body bucking under hers. “Lilith!”

“Yours.” She pulls back. My blood drips down her chin before she kisses me. I taste myself on her, I also tasteherand lose control as my hips jerk. She’s not giving me what I want. And it might kill me.

Lilith shakes her head and pulls back as if she’s trying to regain some semblance of control. “If you keep moving, this will be over.”

“If I don’t, I might die,” I say through clenched teeth. “Grab me.”

Her eyes glaze over and turn so dark red they’re nearly black. “Tarek—”

“Take what you need.” I‘m sweating now. “And give me what I’m owed for being tied to a fucking bed, getting fucked to death. At least give me—”

She reaches for my cock and squeezes. “This? Is this what you need?”

“More.” I bite down on my lip, tasting my own blood. “More!”

She leans back and releases me with a scream before jumping off me and jerking off every inch of clothing she still has on, tossing them to the floor. She gets back on top of me and, without any warning whatsoever…

We’re joined.

Mating.

One.

She moves against me so painfully slow that when I meet her thrust for thrust, it’s all I can do to continue slowly. I didn’t know you could be tortured this way.

“I need to be deeper.” My voice is already going hoarse.

A low chuckle slips past her lips as she moves over me. “Silly werewolf, did you think it would only be one time?”

She slams her mouth back down on mine, and our tongues tangle, fighting for dominance. I’m so used to having that, but she owns me. She uses me in a way I welcome being used.

Fangs clash, and blood mixes on skin as she grips my biceps for leverage and pushes her body so hard onto mine that I get exactly what I ask for.

A scream bursts past her lips as she takes more blood, and then I see it. I see it all: the beginning of the Earth, her running through the Garden with a man by her side. I see her need to be free of the restraints of being the first, and her thirst as she walks up to the forbidden and stares.

“Why not us?”