Page 61 of Can't Help Growling in Love
“Asher?” I pat his hand, then his knee. “What’s up?”
He shudders behind me and loosens his fingers. “Nothing. Sorry, what were you saying?”
I drop the book on the bed beside us and turn fully, straddling his hips. “I asked if newly mated couples have sex before their first full moon together.” Then I palm his cheeks with both hands and peer into his golden eyes. “But I can sense there’s something you’re not telling me. Will you let me in?”
His hands find my ass, as if he can’t keep them away from me. I wiggle closer, until my pussy rests right above his cock. IfI lowered myself, I’d make perfect contact. He’s been hard since he joined me in bed, and I don’t want to tease him if he’s not in the mood for sex, but he might be, if he opens up to me.
Asher scrunches his eyes shut and drops his head back against the headboard. “I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to push you into a decision you’re not ready to take.”
I bite my lip, wondering if I should pushhim. But whatever has him this tense must be important, so I nudge him in the chest. “How about you give me all the facts so I can make an informed decision?”
His golden gaze rests on me for a long moment before he says, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep myself from biting you on the night of the full moon, so if you’re not ready to take that bite, you’ll have to stay with a friend or at a hotel or something.” He grips my waist harder, as if the thought of me being away is sending him into a tailspin already. “And I’ll do what I usually do and?—”
“No.” I blurt out the word before I can stop myself.
He frowns at me. “What do you mean, no?”
I press my palm to my forehead, trying to sort through my jumbled thoughts. “Okay, that was a completely instinctual response. I think—I think I need to stay with you.”
Asher’s eyes widen. “Is the bond making you say this?” He drops my waist as if burned. “Fuck, June, is it?—”
“Stop.” I take his shoulders and give him a gentle shake. “Stop this right now. No one is making me do anything. Doyoufeel coerced into wanting me?”
At a slow shake of his head, I drop my hips lower, letting him feel how wet I am—how wet I’ve been since he first touched me under the covers.
“Look. We’re both new to this,” I tell him. “Maybe this instinct is simply helping me cut through the bullshit. I want to be with you, so what’s the use of waiting? If I make this decisionnow instead of next month, I can spare you the need to spend the full moon locked in your basement. The hesitation comes out of my human upbringing, right? Because it’stoo soonto be so serious about someone I’ve known for a matter of weeks. But if we were both wolves, this wouldn’t even be an issue. We’d be planning our snacks for the night, not whether or not one of us needs to be chained downstairs.”
He lets out a surprised laugh at this. “I don’t put on chains. Is that what you thought? I have a comfortable room with lots of mattresses and blankets and a reinforced door that locks automatically when the moon rises above the horizon.”
“Oh.” I sit back on his legs, feeling slightly silly. “Right, of course you do.”
He takes my chin and tips it up so I’m forced to look at him. “June, we can’t ignore the fact that you’renota wolf. You’re human, and it’s as normal for you to follow your human instincts as it is for me to follow my wolf ones. If this is too soon for you, we’ll work around this. You can decide next month, or the one after that.”
I close my eyes and mentally list all the cons of spending the night with him. There’s the issue of the biting itself, the pain, the blood, the possible infection. Will the wound scar, and is that the point? A visible mark of being mated? I’m sure one of the books scattered around the bed holds that answer.
But all those questions fade in comparison to the most important one.
Am I ready to commit to Asher forever?
A pulse of want deep in my chest is the answer to that.
“Yeah.” I grin as the happiness bubbles over, spreading through my veins. “I’ll stay with you. I want this, Asher.”
He stares at me for a long moment, his eyes wide with shock, surprise, and a dose of awe. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Asher kisses me, crushing me to his chest with his strong arms. I return every kiss and caress. My body molds to his, and I gasp at the pulse of pleasure in my belly.
He pulls away for a second. “We’ll have to make sure you’re ready.”
I blink at him, dazed from the kiss. “What?”
“You need to be able to take my knot.” He reaches down and slips his fingers between my legs. “It’s bigger than three of my fingers. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He brushes my clit, and I jerk in his lap.
“Oh, wow.” I drag in a shuddering breath. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I mean, good thinking. Great, even…oh.”
