Page 25 of Bound

“I want you. I know you want me. One night to get this out of our systems. Don’t make it any more complicated than that.”

Fuck. This couldn’t happen. Topher and I couldn’t get physical for so many reasons. And as his sire, I had to be the one to stop it.

He was close. Too close. Topher’s wolf had always been the more dominant one. It didn’t matter that my magic was stronger, that I was a Born and he was a Bitten. His wolf liked to chase. And curse every darkly delicious epic fantasy between forbidden lovers that had ruined me for all time (and yes, more than a few dragon shifters, thank you very much), I wanted to be caught.

“Toph,” I breathed.

He moved over me, muscled arms caging me up against the wall. His breath feathered over my lips and suddenly I was wild, trembling, dangerously close to losing control.

“We’ve tried avoiding this thing between us for months.” He reached for the button on my jeans and my stomach did a little flip in anticipation. “Now we try my plan.”

The first time he’d kissed me, it had been a question. This kiss was raw hunger and savage need, our mouths crashing together as he overbalanced me back into the wall. I groaned and he nipped my bottom lip, pausing just long enough to drag my shirt over my head and drop it to the floor. He’d built back strength in the last six months, his chest and shoulders hard with lean, ropy muscle. Our tongues met again, hands peeling away clothes, searching for bare skin. Topher groaned as I fisted him, his grip roughening in my hair, the kiss deepening.

“God, that’s—” As he worked me in long, sure strokes, I buried my face in his neck. “I can’t even describe. If a kinky dragon shifter scene shows up in my next chapter, you’ll know why.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Eyes never leaving mine, he lowered himself to his knees in front of me and bit the crease of my hip, the bite instantly dissolving into an exquisite shiver that fluttered across my skin like feathers falling on snow. As Topher’s mark seared itself into my skin, my heartbeat slowed, falling obediently into synch with his, our shallow breaths coming in unison as we locked eyes in the dark.

I’d been claimed.

“Relax, Caldwell.” Slowly, he ran his tongue around the swollen head of my shaft. “I only bite in a good way.”

I ground out a curse at the sudden wave of pleasure that swirled across my skin in a kiss soft as snow, every nerve ending suddenly so sensitive that when Topher’s fingers grazed the back of my thigh, it was all I could do to keep from crying out. His bite mark burned at my bare hip, a sharp, delicious ache that throbbed in time with my hammering pulse. I gritted my teeth.

As if I’d spoken aloud, Topher’s eyes lifted to mine, dark lashes framing irises that burned a wild wolf-gold. As his mouth teased and tormented, desire lashed me in waves, slipping beneath the walls I’d carefully constructed to keep him out, to keep us from ever ending up like this. A tight, humming ache built in my hips, a thick rope pulling taut until I was gasping with the need for release. Feeling my fingers tighten in his hair, Topher drew me deeper. I gasped as the wave crested, a year of suppressed need twisting out of me in a hot rush.

Topher’s eyes seared into mine, holding me captive as he took in every last shuddering pulse.

“Turn around,” he ordered when I was through.

I gritted my teeth, knowing this had gone too far, that this thing between us had to be stopped. And I was no longer sure it could be. Was it desperation or hope that made me want to say to hell with it all? I’d given up everything for my brothers, for the pack. Was it so selfish to want this one stolen moment, this one night for myself?

This was Topher. He stole my copy of All the Light We Cannot See and maddeningly marked up the margins with snark. He claimed to be afraid of Dean, but always picked up fresh radicchio when the local HEB had it in stock. We wouldn’t talk about how just last week he’d broken into Cedric while he was parked in the faculty lot on campus and hung a Pattinson keychain from the rearview mirror so I could look at my book boyfriend anytime I wanted to. Dallas and August thought it was hilarious. Cedric was still sensitive after the whole Fangorn Forest incident.

Whatever we were to one another, Topher Greer wasn’t some random one-night stand. He was… something indefinable. And I couldn’t wreck us the same way I had all my past romantic entanglements. I wasn’t sure I could survive that.

“Don’t,” Topher whispered from behind me, pressing a slow, hot kiss to the back of my neck that sent shivers up my spine.

“Sorry?”

“You’re in your head.” His arms encircled me, drawing our bodies flush. “Don’t overthink this.”

I closed my eyes, for the space of a heartbeat allowing myself to drown in the scent of his skin, leather and Irish Spring, sweat and male, in the taste of myself on his kiss, and the warm, firm pressure of his hands mapping my body. I didn’t fight it, wanting to know what it felt like to be needed so badly by another person they couldn’t keep their hands off you. To crave them so desperately in return you would gladly sacrifice oxygen if only for one more kiss. One more touch. One more longing look. Even knowing there would never be enough, that with them, you could never be sated.

Topher began to trail soft bites up the column of my throat. With a sigh, he kissed the tender spot just below my jaw. Through the raw, freshly opened bond, I felt satisfaction roll off him in waves. He’d marked me. And I couldn’t be the one to tell him those marks would have to be allowed to fade, that this, whatever this was, could only be for one night.

What I knew was that something had changed between us irrevocably after that kiss back in the alley. Something we could never go back from. Topher tore open a condom, sheathed himself. I shivered as he entered me. My blood caught fire, the sharp ache of so many months of needing and wanting realized in a single searing moment of relief. He ground out a dark curse, body hot and hard over mine. My magic swirled around us in pale gossamer tendrils, wild and hungry.

“Let go,” Topher growled in my ear.

“I’ll hurt you.”

“I’m not that easy to break.”

His hand slid down my torso, working me roughly as I braced us against the wall.