“Oh. Fuck. Yeah,” I growl, beast rising. “Fucking take it like a good. Fucking. Girl.”
Scarlet whimpers and her pussy clamps rhythmically.
And theninstinct hits.
Fangs.
They drop without warning. My mouth finds the nape of her neck, her soft, exposed skin, the sacred place where the claim is made. I pant into it, trembling. She doesn’t flinch away but moans and leans into me like she wants it. More than that. Like she craves to be marked with every atom of her being.
My wolf is frenzied.
I could do it. Right now. Bite. Knot. Fill her with pups and fate andforever.She’d be mine. Ours. No doubt. No distance.
Across the room, Reed sits forward. His face open and awestruck, it tightens into something sharper.
Heknows.
I meet his eyes, teeth grazing her skin, and heshakes his head.
Not like this.
I breathe harder, my jaw aching. My whole body’s trembling with the strain of holding back what my wolf has wanted from the moment I scented her and our eyes met.
But Reed’s right.
We said there could be another way.
Isaid there could be another way.
My fangs retract slowly, aching with the loss, and instead of biting, I press a kiss to the spot I almost scarred. A kissfull of promise, loaded with everything I will give her when she begs me for it.
And then I come.
Pleasure swells through me, and I jerk inside her with a cry I can’t swallow. My forehead drops to her shoulder again as my body convulses. My cock pulses as I jerk back, releasing over the rug and the panties still loose around her knees, clutching my knot in case she turns her head.
Curved over her sweet, spent body, I’m huge and dangerous, but I have reins on my feral side that most other wolves would never think to cultivate.
“I’ll wait,” I mouth against her skin. “Until youwantit.”
Because I could claim her now.
I could make her ours forever.
But what I really want is for her to beg for us.
18
SCARLET
I’m floating, completely undone, almost naked on the rug where my world dissolved into theirs, and nothing’s quite real anymore.
Nixon’s lips trace lazy kisses along the curve of my spine, lingering at my waist before drifting lower. He presses his mouth to the place where we were joined, lapping at the slickness, marking me as his animalistically. His scent of winter breeze, earth, and forest surrounds me like a protective shield. It fills my lungs.
Finn’s fingers drift across my shoulder, sliding slowly and teasing until they find my nipples, one then the other, coaxing them into tight peaks that bloom under his touch. His fingertips are soft but confident, like he’s inside my mind and knows exactly what will make me stir.
Reed, ever the smiler, is enthralled by my hair, threading his fingers through the red strands over and over, like he’s memorizing its texture.
It’s quiet, except for the hum of our breathing and thefaint creak of shifting weight. The silence is a weighted blanket pressing gently against my skin.