Page 38 of Never Submit

“I’m not sure where it came from.”

“It’s unique, just like you,” he purrs.

“What if I want to be normal?” I say. “What if I want to be like everyone else?”

“I’d say you are out of luck. You are so far away from normal, you are practically in another universe. Which is a good thing.”

He kisses me, just a brief press of his lips to mine, and heat pools in my stomach.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“For what?” he answers against my lips.

I smile at him. “For being you. For coming to find me.”

His expression darkens. “Except I wasn’t the one who found you. Someone else got there first.”

Before I have a chance to respond, he guides me toward the shower. The scraps left of my clothes are easily tossed aside. Soon I’m naked in front of Noble, but I’m not shivering, and I’m not weak. The way I was last time.

The last time we’d had any sort of intimacy, I’d been less than half alive.

He’d taken control then, though. He’d nestled his head between my legs and twisted his tongue against my clit until I wanted to scream but could not.

Immediately, my body warms at the memory.

“In you go.” Noble’s voice is husky as he guides me beneath the pulsating spray, following behind me fully clothed.

The hot water turns his hair to rippling fire. My mouth is dry when he reaches for me, his touch light but strong.

And I feel him everywhere. Not just on my skin but inside of me, in my head and in my heart, like a second energy has somehow settled beside mine, twining together.

Not just a second energy. There aremoreenergy threads, aren’t there?

But before I have a chance to examine too deeply, Noble clears his throat, drawing my attention back to the shower, the run through the woods, the fur.

“What happened?” I ask Noble as he rubs a bar of white soap along my arms, my back, my spine.

He doesn’t pause as he asks, “What do you mean?”

But I feel his nerves like my own.

“Up on the mountain. Things between us changed. It’s like we’re connected.” I swoon at the sensation of soap and strong, competent hands.

Damn, there is nothing better than a hot shower with a sexy man who has a firm grip on the soap.

Noble chuckles. “You weren’t a wolf then, not like you are now. And yet somehow, in what Torin thinks is a cosmic joke, you and I…are mates.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” I admit.

I don’t want to say the wrong thing and have him laugh at me. Not that I think he will.

He’s not a prankster or someone who makes light of serious situations. He has depth.

“It’s not such a common occurrence, but among wolves, your mate is the soul that will walk down the path of lifewith you until the end of your days. Your partner. Best friend,” he explains.

His gaze flicks up to mine, molten, before dipping again to follow the trail of his hands.

“Like a canine version of soul mate?” I ask.

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