I gasped, reaching down to grab his hands and stop him from starting again. “I’m sorry, Abram. I swear. I MEAN IT, OKAY?”
He brushed me away, smirking, ready to start again, but I snatched his hand once more. I had become desperate. I couldn’t take any more. I needed release.
“I swear on every Gucci dress I own, I will never smack your butt again. Please, Abram.”
He sat back and pressed his lips together triumphantly. “Well, that wouldn’t be much fun …”
His coy grin nearly sent me over the edge, and I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled his body on top of mine until his lips crushed against my own. He could have resisted—he was only infinitely stronger than me—but he fell between my legs with ease. I bucked my hips against him, and he ground his pelvis in return, his jeans rough against my skin. But I didn’t care.
He pulled back, just enough that I could make out the strong lines of his face. “Well, I suppose if you’re truly sorry …”
“I am,” I said breathless and desperate. “Now, will you please fuck me proper?”
“Of course, Miss Bellamy. I love it when you’re proper.”
And not to my surprise, Abram delivered the orgasm of my life, just as he promised.
It was only moments after every muscle in my body contracted and relaxed in the most exquisite of respites, however, that the door burst open.
I threw myself back, covering myself with my hands. My clothes were in a pile on the other side of the room, and standing here, in the middle of Abram’s living room, was the one person we weren’t prepared to face.
Dalton.
Dalton, and several other police officers along with him. All wearing bulletproof vests, their guns drawn.
“Charisse, are you …” His voice trailed off as he looked up. “Jesus Christ.”
Following his eyes, I found the source of his astonishment wasn’t finding me here naked. It was who—or rather what—I was with.
Where Abram had only moments ago been lying beside me now resided a hulking, fanged, and feral beast.
Chapter 24
My heart ground to a halt. I had seen the beast before. I had trembled as it stood over me and marveled at his familiar eyes as they bore down on me. But I didn’t know it was Abram then. I couldn’t look and see all the cues I had missed before.
Now, with it literally lying inches from my naked body, I could see how much of the beast was Abram. It wasn’t something that took him over and made him an imprisoned bystander in his own body. It was him.
The creature’s long arms were covered in thick black fur, but they were also corded in the same muscle Abram’s had been. The creature’s face, while pulled into an elongated snout, still retained some of Abram’s more striking features.
Even his chest, that chest I longed to lay my head against while drifting to sleep against the drumming of his beating heart, was recognizable behind the alterations.
It was like looking at a model after her first trip to Europe. He was the same, but somehow very different.
“Charisse, get away from it!” Dalton’s gun was pointed straight at Abram, as were the guns of the officers who flanked him.
His sudden voice pulled me from my reverie, and I grabbed a nearby throw blanket to cover myself. Sure, I’d done some nude art modeling in college, but that didn’t mean the entire N.H.P.D. needed to see my charms.
“I have a shot!” said the officer to Dalton’s left.
“No!” Dalton yelled. “Stand down. Nobody discharges anything until that woman gets to safety.”
That woman.
Was he angry with me? Was that why he called me that instead of my name? He certainly had the right to be. Though I hadn’t meant to, I had strung him along. I kept him in the—what do they call that baseball thing?—the bullpen. And all the while I pretended to be confused about my feelings. But that was never the case. Since the first moment I laid eyes on Abram, since he literally swept me off my feet, I knew, deep down, there was no one else for me.
I had lied to Dalton as much as I’d been lying to myself.
So maybe this was Dalton finally realizing that I wronged him. Or maybe it was just him reacting to seeing my boss transform into a giant wolf-monster.
Either way.
“Char, move away,” he said, his teeth clenched. His gun was still fixed on Abram’s head, and I wondered how in control my lover was at this very moment. The last thing anybody needed was for him to go all ‘disgruntled werewolf’ on the New Haven Police Department. None of us could explain that.
“You don’t understand,” I said as quietly as I could manage. “He’s not going to hurt me.”
But could I be sure of that? The beast huffed beside me, hot breath and moisture pushing against my neck. Its muscles tensed beneath me, and fighting the urge to dart to the other side of the room for my clothes, I tried to remind myself that this was Abram.