Page 70 of Shifter's Homecoming

Trent stopped. He lifted his head to the sky, then looked around them slowly and carefully.

“It’s the poison,” she said.

“Khain’s poison,” he said quietly, and he stared at the barricaded pool of water in the dark, his mood somber.

The name struck a chord inside her. “Wait,” she said. “Do you mean the same Khain that Reed was just telling me about—the demon that thewolvenfight?”

“You got it in one,” he said.

She shook her head, and then she took a step backwards, but did not let go of his hand. She stared at the pool, then looked back at the tree house, then ahead at her laboratory.

“That’s what you’re doing out here,” she said. “You’re not here for me, you’re here for the poison.”

Trent shook his head darkly. “I’m here for you. The fact that you are here with the poison is…”

He didn’t finish, and so she did it for him. “…Destiny,” she said, everything falling into place in her head. Her whole life had been leading her to him, she saw it clearly, and the fact that she was who she was working on what she was working on, well, all of that was part of it. So was her skill as a chemist and research veterinarian part of it? Rowan thought it probably was. She looked at Trent with fresh eyes, and in that moment, her heart opened to him fully. She’d been on the fence about the biting, she’d been not quite certain she believed what Reed had said about the wings, but no longer. In that moment, she was all-in for this crazy, unbelievable situation.

She stood on tiptoes for a kiss from—from her mate. He smiled at her in the dark, looking pleased and then he obliged her, slowly, sensually, with enough care and gentleness to make her pant with a need for a rougher touch.

When he finally pulled back, Rowan needed a moment to catch her breath. She took it while Trent stared darkly into the forest, his head lifted slightly, and then he started walking again, up the porch steps, to the door into her darkened laboratory. He waited for her to unlock it, and then he pulled her inside. He locked the door, then pulled her to the stairs. At the bottom, he stopped and motioned for her to go up first.

“Ladies first,” he growled.

She went without argument. As soon as she was in front of him and up two stairs, he wolf-whistled. He grabbed her around the hips and bit her on her right ass cheek through her pants.

She squealed, and grabbed for him. He turned her around and pressed her against the wall of the stairwell, pulling her legs up and around him so that her center rested against his rock-hard erection. She exhaled hard through her mouth and ground herself on him just a bit, just enough to realize whatshewanted to do first.

“I should fuck you right here,” he said in her ear, his voice a deep and delicious growl that made her moan just a little. She could not get enough of him talking to her.

“We’ll fall down the steps,” she told him, head back, eyes closed, her attention on all the places where his body touched her body.

“Never,” he growled.

She could believe it. He was solid, all the way around.

He leaned in close and captured her mouth again, kissing her with more passion and attention than she’d ever experienced before. Kissing him was all-consuming, enough to drive any thought or worry or care from her mind. She kissed back eagerly, her focus on the delicious, masculine way he smelled and the way his broad body dominated hers and the way her own body cried out for him.

Up the steps he went, carrying her, kissing her, never wavering or faltering, stepping through the tiny alcove into her apartment, but stopping just inside the room. It was dark and quiet inside, and the curtains were closed.

“Straight to the bed,” she told him. “Please,” she added, panting a little.

“Whatever you say, she-wolf,” he told her, and before she knew it, he was bending, and then her back was on the bed. She let go of him so she could take her shirt off. She wore no bra. The moment her breasts were bared to him he started to growl like he had when he’d seen the mountain lions. Momentarily scared, she crossed her arms over her chest, and pulled her legs together.

Trent stopped the growling, or rather, he put it on a lower, softer idle deep in his throat, and somehow he spoke to her while he was still making that chainsaw-noise deep inside him.

Gently, he separated her knees with his hands and said, “No, she-wolf, never be scared of me. I would die before I hurt you. I would die before I even said a cross word to you. You will never, ever have a reason to be scared of me.”

Oh, the man had a way with words. She let her legs fall open, and her hands fall to the bed. He came down on top of her, still dressed, pressing his covered erection against her.

He kissed her again, until she was panting with desire for him, until her whole body felt like one sensitive spot, until everywhere he touched made her cry out softly. He covered her neck, her face, her ears, even her collarbone with kisses before he made his way to her breasts. She arched into him, wanting him inside her,needinghim inside her, but he seemed content to just play for a while longer. He sucked one nipple into his mouth, then he did something that completely knocked her on her ass. He rubbed the flat of his hand roughly across the other nipple while he continued to roughly take the first one into his mouth. It felt impossibly good, impossibly tempting, impossibly teasing.

His hands were everywhere. On her nipples, then on her shoulders, then her hips, then her ass, then up to her neck, then into her hair. It was like he could not get enough of her, like he wanted to touch and test everything about her.

Rowan cried out and arched up harder. She could not take much more. “Trent, please,” she told him, her own voice sounding distant and strange to her. She wasn’t used to begging for anything, especially not sex.

“Yes, she-wolf, you want something?” he growled, his self-control astounding her.

“I want you,” she said, the words coming out in little breathy pants.

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