Page 62 of Feral

So I stayed still, careful not to let my body betray me.

And then she stirred.

Just a little roll of her round butt against me and I had to grit my teeth to keep my damn cock in check. It was no mean feat since I was already half-mast just from waking up next to her.

I was about to withdraw my arm when Daphne’s arm came around and she wove her small fingers through mine. The breath caught in my chest and I stared down at her, a tiny smile now on her lips.

“Fraser,” she whispered, her voice sleepy.

My mouth was dry and I wouldn’t be surprised if she could hear my heart beating against my ribs. Then she wiggled back further against me and it was impossible to keep my body from responding.

“Lass,” my whisper was harsh, “ya…ya might want to stop that.”

The cheeky lass giggled, as if this were the funniest thing in the damn world, and turned around. My hand went to her hip, out of instinct, and Daphne put her hand over mine to hold it there. Sleepy green eyes looked up at me, her cheek red from its time against the pillow. I’d never seen anything more beautiful in all my life.

“Now I know why I was so warm all night,” she said with a grin.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take liberties.”

She laughed again and shook her head.

“You know, if I wasn’t alright with you possibly touching me in the middle of the night, I wouldn’t have let you sleep next to me.”

I swallowed at the confession, not sure what to do with it. She couldn’t be saying what I hoped she was. And even if she was, it was a risk to let myself go with her. The usual mating rut was one thing, but I had no idea what atruemating rut might be like. Would I lock her in this room and fuck her until she was with child? Would I tear the heads off any other male who looked at her? Either possibility was something I could not risk.

“Are you alright?” she asked, putting her hand to my cheek.

Bloody high hell, her touch was intoxicating and I leaned into it when I should be letting her go. Instead, my hand tightened on her hip, bringing her closer to me. She gasped and I smelled her arousal, faint and just beginning.

She wanted me, and I wanted her so bad it was bordering on pain now.

My tongue flicked out and brushed against the inside of her wrist, once, twice. She shuddered and closed her eyes. The night shirt she’d worn to bed was bunched up around her waist, exposing a pair of pale pink panties, so delicate that all I’d have to do is drag one claw down the middle and they’d split, exposing her sex to me.

“I’m never like this,” she breathed. “I don’t…I don’t just rub up against men like this.”

A sudden picture of another man’s hands on her, kissing her, fucking her, invaded my mind and before I could stop it, my lips curled back on a growl. She jerked back a little, shock and wariness in her eyes where there had been desire before. It was enough to jolt me back to reality.

Daphne may be my true mate, but she was also a Mundane. And if there was one thing I knew about Mundanes, it was that once they saw a glimpse of the monster that lived in Werewolves like me, they never looked at us the same way again. That was one thing I didn’t think I could bear from her.

Even if she’d said that I was her fantasy, I doubted it included the truly primal side of me, the one that had scared every Mundane that had ever seen it.

Including Silvia.

I pulled back from her and got out of the bed.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked, just before I made it to the bathroom.

“No, lass, it wasn’t you.”

“But you growled at me.”

“Not at ya, no. It was…the bite makes my instincts a tad primal, that’s all.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice small. “So…the mention of other men then?”

This time I managed to bite back the growl, though my head whipped around to look at her over my shoulder. I’m not sure what my expression was, but she swallowed and nodded.

“I’ll be more careful.”

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