“Me, too.”
I slowly slid my hands over her, tracing soft lines over her exposed skin, learning the curves and shapes and dips in her body. She returned the favor, seeming inordinately pleased by the muscles in my back and upper arms, and shuddered as I ran my hands from the nape of her neck down to cup her ass and pull her harder against me. “More.”
“What sort of more?”
“I want your lips on me.”
I threaded my hand through her hair, pulled, and sank my teeth into her exposed neck. She cried out at that, and I backed her up into the wall and pinned her there, hauling her up so that her legs were wrapped around my waist and her arms clung to my shoulders. “Like that?”
“More,” she moaned, back arching sensuously as she ground her core into my cock, and I started rocking against her, a slow preview of what was next. I caught the noises that started coming out of her mouth, our tongues tangling harder and harder. Her pleasure built on mine and mine on hers. My shirt went flying over my head. Hers followed. She yanked at my pants, and to slow her down, I grabbed her wrists and pinned them to either side of her head.
“You want more?”
“I want it all,” she whimpered. Her hips rolled and I could see by the look on her face that she was getting close. “Right now.”
“And here I thought we’d make it to a nice, strong bed for our first time,” I whispered in her ear. “Although you fantasize about me in a steam room. In the shower. You like the idea of me pinning you up like this.”
She yanked my pants down partway in response. “Condoms?”
“I…” What am I, a fucking teen? To be fair, saving her life was a bit of an overriding priority when I was getting ready to head over from Angel Falls. “We have a problem.”
“No,” she gasped out. “We’re in a luxurious getaway cabin. There have to be twenty packs scattered all over the place.”
I backed away from the wall, moving her wrists from against the wall to behind her back so I could hold her in place as I quickly strode into the bedroom. In what wasn’t my smoothest move ever, I left her bounce onto the mattress as I yanked open the drawers of the nightstand. Boom. I checked the expiration date. “We have to use all of them up in the next six months.”
She let out a breathless laugh and tried to pull me down by my forearms, but I resisted easily, nearly pulling her straight up into the air before she gave up. “Soo, Cara. Let me just… let me just look at you a moment.” She was beautiful, lying on sheets that didn’t do justice to her eyes, and for a moment I was almost brought to my fucking knees that the woman who bore my mark, the woman whose mark I bore, was with me right now.
Cara was mine, and I couldn’t imagine ever letting her go.
I tore the wrapper open and slid on the condom. When she pulled at my shoulders, I retaliated by sliding my arms under her knees and spreading her out, spreading her open so that when I dragged my tongue through her folds, she couldn’t close her legs, couldn’t do anything but cry out and grab onto the sheets. She tasted of heat and woman, spice and sex. She stiffened when I drew her clit into my mouth, begged for more as I steadily drove her closer and closer to the edge.
I stopped and she dug her nails into my shoulders. “You’re teasing m—”
I slid up and into her body as deep as I could go before she could finish the sentence, her face blurring as pure pleasure, unlike anything I’ve ever felt, tore through me. I framed her face and her hands came up to cover mine, neither of us moving as we stared into each other’s eyes. Hers were wide and shocked, her mouth open on a silent gasp. “Do you feel that?”
“I’ve never…”
“This is what it’s like to be with your mate.” I thrust into her, slowly at first, then harder and harder. She arched into each thrust as my fingers tangled hard in her hair. “I’ve been looking for you my whole life. You’re mine now, Cara.” She let out a cry that was half defiance, half pleading. Her legs started shaking around my hips, and her eyes lost focus.
I slipped one arm under her hips and tilted them up, while sinking my teeth into the soft underside of her breast. She screamed, tightening around me as her wet heat nearly drove me out of my own damn mind. I kept moving as she slowly floated back down, the dreamiest look on her face. “What about you?” she murmured.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment far too long to make it end anytime soon,” I promised her, and when I grabbed condoms and picked her up, carried everything into the steam room she’d invited me to join her in what felt like a lifetime ago, all she said was, “And after that, the shower.”
***
Cara
I was woken up by the harsh jangle of Wyatt's phone. I pushed myself up on one elbow and watched blearily as he sat up and picked up the phone call. “Hello?”
We’d dozed off for a bit. By the time he came, every single muscle thrown in stark relief as he shuddered in my arms, he’d wrung more orgasms from me than I thought possible. He’d flipped me over to face away from him once he had the strength to move, hooked an arm around my stomach, and pulled me up into him where I lay, dazed, in a cocoon of heat and sex and a sense of belonging that just felt too perfect to be true.
I could’ve stayed there forever.
Both of us had been all tangled up in rumpled, sweaty blankets, and I felt the loss of his body heat instantly. The look on his face quickly lost the lazy, satisfied look he'd been just sporting, replace with a cold and unforgiving one.
“What happened?” I whispered urgently.
“Hold on one second,” he said into the phone, then made eye contact with me. “Someone tipped off that wizard cell that there’s a chance we’re hiding out here. Get dressed, grab your bag, and head downstairs. Backup will be here in thirty minutes but it might not be enough.”
“What about you?” I asked, leaping out of bed and hurriedly pulling on whatever clothing strewn around I can reach.
He didn't answer, was barking orders into the phone. How many shifters are there in the helicopter? Are there shifters protecting Talin’s pack in case there are other attempts to retaliate against them? Were the shifters done moving Cara’s stuff out of the apartment and into my house? Any other shifters coming our way on foot?
Wait, what? “What do you mean, is my stuff out of my apartment and at your house?” I demanded.
He shot me a look clearly designed to get me to shut up and follow directions. “You can’t go back there. It isn’t safe,” he barked at me, then strode out of the bedroom to check on the security system.
I dragged myself out of bed and tugged on my discarded shorts and tee in a daze. When had he ordered his pack to empty out my apartment? It had to have been while I was still sleeping that first night. He’d gone behind my back and uprooted every last thing I’d made for myself without asking me for my input…and then never told me.
What had happened to us being a partnership?
He said you were his partner as long as your life wasn’t at risk.
Clearly, he considered this to be non-negotiable. But… there had been time to talk with me, and he didn’t do it. We were on day two of knowing each other—barely—and he was already justifying unnecessary actions while painting it as it being for my own good, moving the goalpost as it suited him without giving a shit about what it meant to me. I felt nauseated.
Damn it, this was just like my father.
Boom.
The entire house shook and I screamed. Wyatt tore into the room, cursing under his breath. With about as much effort as it would take to pick up a brick, he tossed me over his shoulder with one arm and grabbed onto the emergency bags waiting in the corner with his other hand.