He growled and pressed us together, deepening the kiss.
Our heads tilted farther and my hands shot to his chest, landing on the ridiculously tight T-shirt he’d borrowed from Tyler, now dirty and torn from the explosion. “We need to get this off of you,” I murmured as I started to pull, immediately hearing a satisfying rip.
At the sound, he broke our embrace, appearing as dazed as I felt. “Jessica.” His irises radiated a beautiful deep green. “Not yet. We can’t do this yet.” He took a small step back and ran the back of his hand over his mouth. “Your taste is like an addiction. It’s so damn hard to quit once I start, but we have to go up to the cabin. Staying here is a mistake.”
He was right.
I pounded my fist against his chest in frustration and then rested my forehead against it. I was one millimeter away from kicking someone’s puppy. I leaned back so I could glance up at him, knowing my irises flashed the same emotion as his. “I hear you. My brain just doesn’t work properly when you’re around, as we learned from our happy fun time in the car. All my wolf wants to do is rip your clothes off in a mindless frenzy. It’s hard not to be resentful of our obligations when all I want is to be with you.”
A snarl ripped from his diaphragm and he tugged me against him, flattening his strong hands against my back, his arms locking around me tightly. He lowered his mouth against my ear and rasped, “I haven’t denied myself anything in a thousand years. Resisting you is taking every ounce of everything I’ve got. My beast is clawing me from the inside out, fighting me to make this official. All I can think about is throwing you down on the grass and taking you from every angle I possibly can. Repeatedly.” A small moan escaped my lips. “But if we do that, we will be lost to it for hours and we can’t afford it right now. Your safety is more important to me.” A low sound from the center of his chest spread outward and made my toes curl. “And you better believe that when I take you, I take you on my terms”—he ended on a whisper—“repeatedly.”
Goose bumps covered my flesh.
I pressed my face into his chest and tried to recover. My brain was mush. I had to take a step back to regroup. Rourke had been around a lot longer and his control was impeccable. I was a newborn and mine was not. “Rourke, how old are you?” I tilted my head up at him.
His expression held a glint of surprise. “I haven’t answered a question like that in a very long time.”
I shrugged. “We’re a couple now, and it’s time for us to be on the level about everything or this won’t work. I don’t know what you are—only that you’re a cat of some kind. I think the basics are in order here. Don’t you agree?”
“Instead of answering, I’d rather show you. Reaching the top of the mountain will be quicker and easier in our animal forms. Once we change back, we can talk.” His voice held an intensity I couldn’t place. Was he really worried what I’d think?
“Listen,” I said, placing my palms on his pecs. “I don’t care what you are, or even how old you are. We’re way past that. None of it matters. You could be a two-thousand-year-old Griffin and it wouldn’t matter to me.”
He laughed. It was a rough, rich sound. “I’m no Griffin, but it’s better if I show you.”
I hesitated, reading his gaze.
He was anxious.
“Okay.” I turned toward the river. “Where do you want to shift? And I hope you have spare clothes at the cabin, because mine aren’t going to magically morph there.”
He took my hand and led me toward the water. “I have extra clothes, but you’ll have to make do with mine until everything is settled up top. I’ll come back down and get yours when we’re done dealing with Ray. Let’s cross the river before we shift. We’re fairly close to the sulfur stream, and it’s straight up from there. Since we’re shifting, it doesn’t make sense to douse ourselves—sulfur won’t mask our animal scents. They are way too strong.”
I followed him into the river. The water wasn’t that deep and we managed to cross to the other side without getting totally soaked. It was dark as night in the forest. He guided me to a small grassy patch. “You change here and I’ll shift over there.” He pointed to bushes twenty paces away. “I haven’t been in front of anyone in my true form in longer than I can remember. I don’t want to scare you, so let’s take it slow.”