It’s as if the last several hours never took place.
Or maybe it’s like this because of the last several hours. Because we both know what we almost lost.
Suddenly, we’re kissing like we did earlier in the kitchen, with barely controlled abandon.
Ridge grips my hips and pulls me against him, reminding me that he’s fully naked. As our kiss deepens, he hardens against my belly, and the sensation sends a thrill of reckless desire through me. I undulate against him and catch his surprised gasp with my lips. He moves a hand lower, grabbing my ass and tugging me against him, while his other hand slips beneath my shirt to palm my breast. His thumb lingers over my nipple, and I feel a tug between my legs as if both parts of me are somehow connected.
The flames burning through my blood rise higher and higher. I lose all sense of myself and all sense of our surroundings as Ridge thoroughly explores my mouth with his tongue. I can’t even think through the heat, through the need. My body is burning for his touch to be everywhere all at once.
I break away, gasping. I’m lightheaded, so hot there’s nothing in the world that could cool me down.
Something I’ve never felt before is rising up inside me.
Something is happening to me.
30
Dare
Jealousy burns like fire inside me as I watch Sable kiss Ridge. It’s not a sweet, chaste kiss—it’s the kind of carnal embrace that comes before a man buries himself to the hilt inside a woman and relishes the moan he elicits when he bottoms out inside her. The exact thing I’ve been imagining since the night I found Sable on the edge of the creek looking like moonlight come to life.
I clench my fists at my side and glare, my wolf growling and protesting without making a sound.
That should be me.
I wish like fuck it was me pressed against her, tasting her lips, my hands on her body. I’m half-tempted to rip Ridge away from her and take his place.
She’s mine, my beast snarls, fighting to get loose. Mine.
But I remain standing just inside the front door to the cabin, my muscles locked and rigid. I’m not here for a pissing contest. I’m here to take care of my mate—to take care of Sable—and if this is what she needs, then I won’t let anything in the world keep her from having this. Not even my own emotions or the chemical desire inside me demanding I take what’s mine and fuck everybody else.
Suddenly, she pulls away, gasping for air. Her hands clutch at Ridge’s bare chest, and she gulps in breath after breath, her eyes wild, her gaze darting around the room as if she’s disoriented. Her lips are red and swollen from Ridge’s kisses.
“I feel—” She cuts off, shoving her mass of satin blonde hair away from her shoulders. Her skin is pink and a sheen of perspiration lines her temple. She lets out a low, helpless noise, still gulping air.
I can almost feel the heat rolling off her body from across the foyer.
“I feel… strange,” she says, the words coming out breathless and raw. “I need… something.”
“What do you need?” Ridge asks in a low voice, cupping her shoulders. I’m surprised at how calm he sounds. If I were in his place, I’d be nothing but wolf, shaking with the need to complete the mating. Shit, I’m not even the one who just had my tongue down her throat, and I am shaking with that need.
“I-I don’t know.” Sable closes her eyes and leans into him, breathing deeply. Then her eyes flutter open and they’ve darkened, her pupils dilated as she focuses on Ridge’s face.
The scent of her wraps around me. It’s something so familiar that I’ve come to love and crave, even as I’ve kept my distance and respected her boundaries over our time together at the cabin.
In the blink of an eye, that familiar scent changes.
It becomes darker, deeper, headier, swirling through the room like a tornado. My body reacts instantly—warmth flashes over my skin and my cock stiffens as if she’s touched it.
Fuck. She’s going into heat.
I know it as sure as I know I’d give anything to be in Ridge’s place right now.
Sable leans back into Ridge, kissing him with more wildness and abandon than before. Their desire becomes a living thing, and I grab the wall as it makes me lightheaded with need. I can’t stop watching her in his arms, the way she moves against him, the little sounds that come from within her as she grinds against his body.
She’s strung out with arousal, delirious in her quest to mate with Ridge.
To mate with him.