Page 31

I turned over my shoulder. He was still asleep, his face softer than I’d ever seen it, his dark hair falling across his forehead. He appeared so peaceful now. No trace of the weary alpha who had a pack hunted for far too long and was tired of death. In fact, he looked ten years younger in sleep. Was this what he’d looked like before he had the pressures of alpha placed on his shoulders?

I thought back to that first afternoon when I’d stood outside this cottage and hesitated. When he’d opened the door, I hadn’t struck him with the blade. I’d told myself it was protocol. I hadn’t run the verification yet. But perhaps it was something else, and some part of me knew he wouldn’t hurt me.

Had something in me recognized him before I did? Something like how his wolf knew before he did?

I didn’t know. And that was the most unsettling part. For eighteen years, I’d always known. What to do, where to stand, who to kill. Every answer had come sealed in wax.

But it wasn’t just the bond. It wasn’t just his hands, or his mouth, or the way my body answered his. It wasn’t how he played along when I’d gone through the verification steps before we came together last night, observing his eyes, his ears, his hands, and his teeth, in a far different way than ever before.

Oh gods, those teeth. Just picturing the brush of them against my neck sent a shiver of heat through me again.

He’d said it would be more than physical for him. And his teeth, wanting to mark me…

Perhaps that’s what I was contemplating now. He’d stood before me last night, aching for more, and still asked me what I wanted.

Conan listened to me as if what I thought mattered.

Behind me, his breathing changed. “You’re thinking very loudly this morning,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

“You can’t hear thoughts.” Wait, did I know that for sure? “Can you?”

“No.” He chuckled, then tightened his arm around my waist, drawing me back against him. His lips brushed the nape of my neck. “But I can hear your heart. It’s been racing for the last five minutes.”

Heat crept up my cheeks. “Maybe I was having a bad dream.”

“Were you?”

I rolled over to face him. His eyes were half-open, amber in the dim light, with gold flickering at the edges.

“No,” I admitted. “If anything, it would be a good dream. But I was awake—and thinking of every delicious moment from last night.”

He smiled, slow and lazy, and brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “You are delicious indeed.” He slid his legs over mine and the hardness pressed against me. “Look at what just thinking about you does to me.”

I moved against him and kissed his full lips. It started soft; I hadn’t meant for it to go anywhere, but then my body reacted before I did with heat stirring in my core. I ran my hand over the hard muscles of his shoulder and chest, down lower through the divots in his abs, lower still to the smooth hard length there.

He ran his hands down my spine and pressed me against him. I felt with every solid inch how much he wanted me, and the gentle kiss turned into something much more demanding.

I pushed him onto his back, and he moved willingly, watching me with dark, hungry eyes as I straddled his hips. The blanket slid off my shoulders and cold air met my skin. I didn’t care, because the heat of his large hands replaced it, spanning my waist, sliding up my ribs to cup my breasts. His thumbs circled my nipples, and I arched into his touch with a gasp.

“Look at you,” he said in a throaty rumble. “So beautiful. You disarm me in every way.”

He said it without a hint of humor. Earnest and reverent.

I reached between us and guided him between my legs where I needed him despite the slight soreness from last night.

“Already so wet for me,” he murmured. “So good.”

“I want you,” I said in a breathy whisper. I sank down onto him slowly, taking my time and savoring the pleasurable stretch. His head pressed back into the pillow. His fingers dug into my hips.

“Ruby,” he groaned. “You feel so good.”

The delicious way my name rolled from his mouth like that, the praise…

I moved slowly at first as I adjusted to his girth. Then I moved faster as I found a rhythm and what felt good. His breath caught and jaw clenched. Especially when I moved faster and heat built low in my belly, spreading through me. He planted his hands on my hips, sinking his fingers in. Then he slipped a hand between us, stroking me with his thumb, and I cried out. He circled it more with every roll of my hips.

A vibration hummed between us, low and warm, like a string deep within my chest. I couldn’t name it and wouldn’t even try. When I looked down into his eyes, now fully gold in the early light of day, it felt as if he could see all the way through me. And oddly, I didn’t want to hide from him.

Faster. Harder. The pressure rose.