Red and Her Wolf (Kingdom, #3)

He didn’t come closer, which only annoyed her. What was wrong with her? She wanted him to go away, but yet she hated when he was gone.

“I dream about violence. Killing things.” She was a dam, and the confession was the crack in that dam. She couldn’t stop it now. Wasn’t sure she wanted to anymore anyway. “I like cutting myself. The pain is pleasure for me. It feels good.” Violet glanced at her open palms, smooth as a baby’s butt. “I should be covered in scars. Do you know how many times I’ve done it?”

“Lass, don’t--”

“No, you don’t! I’m sick of never being able to tell people about me. Of always pretending like I’m okay, I’m not okay. I feel that darkness in me, it spreads through my body. It’s already poisoned my heart. I want to hate you. It hurts that I can’t. It hurts that I want to know you, touch you, feel you.”

Ewan started swimming closer and she held up her palm.

“Don’t touch me.”

He swam closer.

“I mean it, Ewan, just go away. I’m a freak, I’m bad. You don’t want me as a mate.”

His hand grabbed hers, then his fingers softly slid between her own. He placed their closed palms against his chest. The firm beat of his heart a steady thump-thump against her hand.

She shuddered, heat built behind her eyes.

“Do ye ken what I see when I look at ye?”

She turned her face, and he turned it back with a finger under her jaw.

“I see eyes bluer than the sky after a good hard rain.”

Her lashes fluttered.

Threading a lock of her hair around his finger, he gave it a gentle yank. “And hair more golden than Rumplestiltskin’s straw.”

He lifted their twined hands to his lips and pressed a firm kiss against the tip of her finger. It was like someone had connected a live wire to her brain, every nerve in her body flared to life. Humming and zinging against one another in a chaotic motion of desperate need.

Ewan kissed her next finger, and the next, until he got to the webbing between her thumb and gently sucked on it. Each pull tightened things down low, made her ache and want to cry.

“I’m sorry, Red. If I’d been there, I would have kissed it all away. Yer beautiful, lass. My heart aches to look on ye, to see that pain and ken I can do nothing for ye. Doona cut yerself again.”

“But the urges…”

He shook his head, his eyes like a beacon in the dark, dark night. “Use me. I’m a wolf, I like being bitten.”

She licked her lips as her teeth began to ache. What would it feel like to bite him? Could it possibly satisfy the urges she felt?

Ewan cocked his head to the side, exposed his neck. A large vein throbbed just beneath his skin. He touched the spot. “Do it.”

Violet gave a self-effacing chuckle, humiliated at her desperate desire to do just that, work the flesh beneath her teeth, her tongue. “I… no. No, I can’t do it, Ewan.”

“Do it,” he growled, his voice nowhere near as gentle as before. The wolf demanded and goddess she was so tempted. The vein pulsed, throbbed.

“I… I…”

His large hand gripped the back of her head, lowering her. There was a deep, rumbling moan and Violet had no idea if she’d made the sound or him.

She licked his collarbone, the slightly salty taste filled her head, her nose. He shuddered and then she bit him. Sank her teeth in, but unlike when she cut herself, she didn’t break skin. She rolled him around in her mouth, her tongue tracing the contours of his taut vein.

“Lass,” his deep voice caressed the side of her neck, stoking the flame.

His hands were on her waist, pulling her close. Her body melded with his, his heat hers and hers his. The thick length of him seemed to grow harder the more she bit and she moaned when his hands began to trace the curve of her back, up and down. Resting casually on her rear, before fingers tiptoed down its slope. Heat splashed between her thighs, she was wet and so ready. But for what? She didn’t know what else to do, her body needed more, but she didn’t know how to get it.

There was fire in her blood, her head, her veins. Panic clawed, screamed. She wanted this. Now. Now.

But… but…

She shoved him back, wiping the back of her mouth with her wrist. Thigh muscles twitched, her stomach ached. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving for air. His irises had slitted again.

“You liked that?” Her question came out an accusation.

He closed his eyes, trying, it seemed, to regain his composure. “Yer nay ready, Red. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what--” Her voice cracked and the tears that’d threatened earlier began to spill down the corners of her eyes, blinding his face. “I’m sorry, Ewan, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Quickly, she exited the water, scooping up her clothes and running back to the cottage with them pressed to her heart. It was gone. Her hatred. It was gone. She couldn’t hate something she wanted so desperately, but the wanting scared the hell out of her.