Link smiled sadly as he cupped her marked cheek. “You already have.”
Those three words gutted her. She hadn’t done anything to lengthen his life. She was only giving him happiness at the end. Squeezing her eyes tightly closed against the pain in her middle, she swallowed down a heartbroken sound as he pressed his lips to hers. She slid her hands over the warm, smooth skin of his shoulders and hugged him tightly. The desperate passion to bed each other and be done with it had gone, as if they were two comets whose tails had crossed and burned too brightly for a moment. Now, Link was loving her. Adoring her. Drawing every emotion from her as he cupped the back of her head and kissed her gently.
Her fingers weren’t shaking anymore as she unfastened his jeans and pushed them down his hips. And as she knelt down and removed his clothes completely, he smiled down at her. It was just the barest curve of his lips, but she was entranced by it. She draped them into a pile on top of her own sweater on the wooden floorboards and smiled up at him as she unfastened the thin gold necklace she wore around her throat.
“You’re cold,” Link said with a slight frown at the goosebumps on her arms. He pulled down the thick blankets of his bed and held out his hand to help her up. But before he tucked her under there with him, he murmured, “Want to feel your skin against mine.”
And she understood because she craved the same. The warmth of a blanket would be artificial and unsatisfying, but the warmth from the man she adored would break her heart open. For a moment, she hesitated, scared, because this was it. If she and Link did this, it would change things between them. There would be no more pretending they could go on without each other. He felt too big, too essential now after everything he’d shared.
But if all she had was a short time with him…if all she had was right now while he was still in control of his mind, then it would have to be enough because her instincts said this would be one of the biggest moments of her life if only she was brave enough.
Link’s hands on her waist settled her completely, and his lips on hers banished any lingering fears. Nothing had ever felt this right before. She wasn’t displaced in Link’s den. Here, she felt more at home in her own skin than she ever had before. Alaska had started that change in her, and Link was completing it with every touch, every kiss, every adoring look at her face as if he didn’t see her mark at all, but instead, saw her soul.
Link pushed the waist of her pants down with steady hands, then unsnapped her bra in the back and pulled it from her arms. Cupping her full breast, he let off a shuddering sigh and eased back enough to drag his hungry gaze down her body. His lips curved up at the corners into a sexy smile. He’d shaved this morning, so she could see every angle of his sharp jaw, every curve of his feral, masculine, striking face. It was his eyes that held her, though. The color there had scared her at first, but now they drew her gaze. They didn’t trap her anymore, but caressed her instead. They dared her to engage instead of looking down at her feet like she’d done most of her life. She could see him as he searched her face. Beautiful Wolf to match his beautiful soul. His last name didn’t matter now. Maybe it would someday, when the word McCall would steal him from her, but here in the waning evening light that filtered through the window, he was just her Link. The link that had been missing from her disjointed life. Missing Link, not Weak Link as that awful man in town had called him.
Lifting up on tiptoes, she slid her arms around his neck and pressed her skin against his. And as he let off a long, relieved sigh, she rested her chin on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her inches off the ground. The growl in his chest wasn’t wild or accidental now. It was low and satisfied. More purr than threat. Link rested his cheek against hers and laid a peck on her neck, just below her ear. Crossing her ankles, she melted against him and allowed him to just hold her, to just be. Her chest felt funny. All fluttery and warmer than the rest of her body where it touched him.