Page 80 of The Girl in the Forest

Even if I begged, he would not ask for that commitment.

But a ruthlessness emerged between us now. A volcanic fervor. He carried me to his bed, held me down with a feverish rage because he needed me. Craved me. As I needed and craved him.

This fated damn mate bond—knowing I would willingly destroy myself just to be in his arms. Was it any wonder the women refused to believe? To risk everything of who they were, for something messy and heartbreaking and totally soul shattering? Knowing this could end with a prophecy and a grave?

But he was worth dying for. Killing for, if he asked. And it was terrifying to realize how thoroughly I believed in that conviction.

I turned ravenous. I was mad. I wanted to touch him. Dominate him. Arouse him in this war we fought. My fingers raked across the ridged muscles of his abdomen while my tongue and lips teased across his skin. His scent carried hints of the soap he’d used in an early shower and mixed with the scents I loved—pine and rain, something indescribable but filled with wildness.

I was being rewilded, losing the shell of civilization. I pushed him to his back, rose above him with my knees straddling his hips. When I fisted his cock, heated silk and iron pressed against my palm. His hips shifted as I slid my grip along his length, once, twice. I didn’t think about anything safe with us. No condoms. I wanted him pouring his seed inside of me. I wanted him trembling beneath the force of his body, thrusting into mine. The little death—la petite mort.

I rose to my knees, meant to position him—but he flipped us both in a show of dominance that was devastating. His mouth was on my throat, my breasts, laving the peaked nipples until I moaned.

“Can you feel me? The way I hold you?”

His voice was warm cognac at night. The decadence of wolves. His fury was more focused now, heated with a passionate intensity. We were made for this coming together. A joining in this a turbulent storm. When his mouth found my clit, when his finger pushed inside of me, once… twice… when he used two fingers, curled them upward… Fate could not have created a greater maelstrom. I arched. Cried out.

“I love how you squirm, greedy,” he said against my skin. “You’re so tight. I want that perfection around me. Clenching me when you go over the edge.”

My fingers dug into his shoulders, but he wouldn’t stop the relentless, tireless, erotic movements of his hand and mouth.

“You taste like heaven. You taste like mine.”

He changed my position, lifting my leg over his shoulder so I could not try to shut him out. “I want you aching for me the way I ache for you. Punish you for unraveling me. Gods, Noa…”

The carnal threat in his voice vibrated against my inflamed skin. The softest parts of me. He was savagely masculine, possessive and tender as he controlled his fury over being controlled. Not by me in that moment. But by what he would burn down the world to have and to hold.

As I would burn down the world for him. Easier for me than for him. We would flame together and race toward whatever end while Fate could stand by and do nothing but watch.

Because I did not believe in fate. I believed in changing fate.

My fingers clenched around his forearms. In the shadowed light, I lay fascinated and seduced by the intensity of his emotions. I’d always known he was a powerful man, but this… this was utterly destroying in its beauty.

The very air vibrated with intensity. He positioned himself, the broad tip of his cock pressing in anticipation.

“Watch me, Noa,” he ordered. “Watch me as I take you. Claim you until you forget your doubt. Watch me fuck you. Slide in and out while your body quivers and you can’t help yourself. While the beautiful carnal begging heats your lips. Until all you know is me. All you want is me.”

Then he lunged, withdrew until only the tip of him remained. Lunged again. Each time he slid into me, I watched, fascinated by the sight of him, veined, slick… steel. Not only him. I watched each time my hips rose to meet his in my own claiming—my own furious, defiant fucking. He would have no doubt when this was done. All the promises, how we used to view life changed in this darkened room. Where the sounds of our passion, the slapping of his sac against my upward thrusts, the inevitable creaking of the bedframe from the punishment behind this battle bore witness. His hips flexed with a power that slid my body farther up the bed. My hair fanned out around me and my skin slicked with sweat.

“Gods, Noa, the way you take me…”

I was breathless. My fingers were clawing at the violence in his muscles as I choked out his name. My hands wrapped around the iron-hard solidity in his buttocks. The sheets tangled while I was drowning, tumbling in this frenzied mating, this… bliss.

His body was a furnace. His lungs heaved, and his eyes… gods, his eyes. The intensity in his gaze devoured me. Remade me. And when I felt him plunge all the way to the root, I understood. It didn’t matter if we believed in fate or not. Fate believed in us, and we would never be the same.

Grayson fucked like his life—my life depended upon it. There was no end, no final satiation. Words were a seduction in my mind because he was so deep in the passion he couldn’t speak.

But I heard them.

Burned beneath them.

“Do you feel me swelling inside you? Can I reach your soul? Are you the illusion, sent to torture me?”

“Can I hold you longer than this instant?”

Then, “I will never leave you…”

While a tiny corner of my heart began to break. Because I knew he would not leave me of his own free will. But it was a dread I had… that I would choose to leave him.

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