Page 6 of Beast’s Temptation

Sorek stood with his back to her, his shoulders rigid beneath his robes. He didn't turn when she entered, but she saw his claws extend slightly before he forced them to retract.

"You shouldn't have followed me."

"And you shouldn't have run." Tamsin moved closer, drawn by something she couldn't name. "What's going on, Sorek? And don't give me more evasions. I deserve to know why you can't even look at me."

He turned then, and she saw what the courtyard hadn't revealed. He looked terrible. Gaunt around the eyes, his usual serenity replaced by something raw and strained. His markings were fluctuating, gold and copper shifting restlessly across his skin, and his pupils were already slitting even though she was still several feet away.

"Because looking at you is the only thing I can do," he said roughly, "and still honor my vows."

The words hung between them, heavy with implications she was only beginning to understand.

"I don't..." She trailed off, her anthropologist's mind finally catching up with what her instincts had known for days. The extreme reaction to her touch. The avoidance. The way he looked at her like she was simultaneously salvation and destruction. "Something happened. When my hair touched you. Something you weren't expecting."

"Something that has never happened to a Priest." His voice cracked on the words, and she watched him struggle to compose himself, to find the calm that had always come so easily before. "In three thousand years of recorded history. We thought ourselves immune."

"Immune to what?"

He met her eyes, and the hunger there stole her breath.

"The scent-match." Each word seemed to cost him. "My body has chosen you as my mate. The drive is... overwhelming. Every moment I am near you and cannot touch you, it feels like burning from the inside."

Tamsin's heart slammed against her ribs. She thought of the way he'd looked at her that first day, the sudden intensity that had replaced his serenity. She thought of the Khorani mating rituals she'd studied in preparation for this trip, the biological imperatives that drove their bonding, the way their bodies could recognize a compatible mate through scent alone.

She thought of rain, and realized with a jolt that she had no idea what she smelled like to him.

"This is why you've been avoiding me." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Because your body wants me, and you've taken vows that say you can't have me."

"Because touching you would destroy everything I am." He took a step back, as if he didn't trust himself to stay close. "I have served the twin suns for thirty years. I have honored my vows in every possible way. And now my body has betrayed me, and if I break, if I give in to what I'm feeling, I will be cast out. Stripped of my markings. Exiled from this temple forever."

The anguish in his voice cut through her like a blade. She thought of what it would mean, to lose everything you'd built your identity around. To have your body make a choice that your spirit couldn't endorse.

"I'll leave." The decision crystallized as she spoke it. "I won't let you lose everything because of something neither of us chose. There are other temples I can study, other priests who can⁠—"

"Don't." The word erupted from him, raw and desperate, and before she could react, he'd closed the distance between them. He stopped just short of touching her, his hands clenched at his sides, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding back. "Please. Don't leave."

"Sorek, I have to. If staying here is torturing you⁠—"

"Leaving would be worse." His eyes were glowing now, molten gold in the shadow of the garden walls. "I've tried to stay away from you. I've meditated, prayed, done everything I was taught to suppress these urges. And all I can think about is your scent, your voice, the way you looked at me like I was worth understanding."

Tamsin's breath caught. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body, could see the individual marks shifting across his skin, could hear the low rumble building in his chest that sounded almost like a purr.

"What do you want?" she whispered.

"Everything." The confession seemed to tear out of him. "I want to touch you. I want to learn the shape of you. I want to bury my face in your hair and breathe until I can't smell anything else." His hands lifted, trembling, hovering inches from her face. "I want to worship you the way I used to worship the suns, and I don't care if it damns me."

She should step back. She should think about consequences, about his vows, about the cultural implications of what was happening between them. She was a professional. She was supposed to observe, not participate.

She reached up and pressed her palm against his cheek.

The sound he made was inhuman. His eyes rolled back, his whole body shuddered, and the purr in his chest exploded into a resonant vibration that she felt in her bones. His hands finally made contact, sliding into her hair with desperate reverence, pulling her closer until their bodies pressed together from chest to thigh.

He kissed her like a man who had never kissed anyone before. Clumsy and overwhelming, too much pressure and not quite the right angle, but so earnest it made her chest ache. She guided him with small movements, tilting her head, softening her lips, and he learned fast. Within moments he was kissing her like he was trying to memorize her taste, his tongue sliding against hers with growing confidence, his hands cradling her head like she was something infinitely precious.

She could feel him hard against her stomach, his cock straining against his robes, and the evidence of his arousal sent heat flooding through her own body. She hadn't expected to want this. She'd told herself her interest was professional, cultural, purely academic. But there was nothing academic about the way her hips rocked against him, seeking friction, or the way her fingers dug into his shoulders through the thin linen of his robes.

"I don't know how to..." He pulled back just far enough to speak, his voice wrecked. "I've never... I don't know what to do with my hands."

"Whatever you want." She was breathless, flushed, aching in ways she hadn't felt in years. "Explore. I'll tell you if something doesn't feel good."