Page 21 of Mated to the Kingpin

And I am not just her hunter.

I am her reckoning.

I move through the trees, muscles straining and hard with each powerful leap. The deeper I plunge into the forest, the more my thoughts quiet. Guilt strips away. Hesitation dulls. I remember who I am beneath the regrets and the blood: a man who’s never stopped loving her. A wolf who’s waited ten long years to claim what’s his.

She’s out there in the wild now. Waiting to be earned.

The scent sharpens.

She’s close. I slow near a stream fed by one of the deeper ravines that cut through the estate. A flash of moonlight reflects off of her between the branches. She climbs up along crumbling banks and twists through brambles that grab and tear at the skirt of her dress before she disappears.

I see her in my mind like a flash—hair wild, mouth flushed, legs pumping with purpose. She’s wind-stung and laughing through her teeth, completely untamed. Utterly mine.

I burst through the underbrush with speed that makes the trees blur in my peripheral vision. My pulse tunnels into the sound of footfalls ahead—soft but purposeful, the crackle of twigs and her breath just beyond the dip in the path. She’s running, really running now.

I leap over a fallen log just as she reaches the edge of a slope above the stream.

She turns at the last second, her chest heaving, a feral smile ghosting across her lips the moment before I tackle her.

I leap, careful with my claws, my full weight braced to avoid real injury. She falls through the air with a shriek of laughter that drowns in the crash of us hitting the ground in a tangle of limbs and breath and heat.

Claire lands beneath me, her back arching from the shock, mouth parted in a gasp, skin glowing against the dark earth.

And then she isn’t laughing anymore.

Her eyes search mine, wide and unguarded. Her fingers rise slowly, curl into the thick fur at my ruff, and hold tight.

Not struggling. Not pushing away.

Choosing me.

My heart stutters. The wolf in me shivers.

I lower my muzzle slowly, touching my nose to the curve beneath her ear, scenting the salt of her sweat and the electric thrum of desire humming through her blood. She arches again, a small gasp escaping her. She smells of pure, unfiltered need.

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t need to.

Her thighs part as if pulled by invisible strings, welcoming me in as my claws dig into the dirt beside her hips. Her hands stroke across my shoulders, down the ridge of my flank.

The gown I chose for her is ruined, torn and dirt-streaked, clinging to her in pieces. I nudge a strip of fabric away with my muzzle and bare her inch by inch, worshiping every curve revealed. My tongue drags along her ribs, my breath hot over her skin, each stroke deliberate.

Her cries are music, her whimpers a symphony only I was ever meant to hear.

Her hand fists in my fur, wordless and demanding. I slip lower, inhaling the scent of her arousal, and when I find the heat waiting for me, slick and bold, a growl rumbles through my chest.

Fuck, I’ve dreamed of this.

Of her. Head tilted back, lips bitten red and eyes glazed with need. I taste her for the first time, slow and reverent, and every part of me howls.

My tongue drags through her slickness in a long, deliberate stroke from base to clit. Her entire body jolts like she’s been struck by lightning; her thighs snap tight against my shoulders, her nails carving down my back in frantic, helpless lines. I growl against her as I do it again, slower this time, savoring the heat soaking my mouth.

She’s sweet. Fuck, she tastes like honey and salt and something only a mate should ever know—something sacred. Something that belongs to me down to the last trembling drop.

She jerks violently when I lap at her again, slower now, until my tongue lingers just a hair longer over her clit. The tremor that rips through her body makes my own tremble, primal ferocity barely caged beneath thick fur and the bone-molded beast I’ve become.

I press my snout deeper into her, my tongue lashing greedily against the swollen folds, polishing her with slow agony. She whimpers, frantic with sensation, her scent blooming as her arousal soaks the air around us. Every pulse of her slick against my tongue is a surrender she can’t take back.

She sobs my name as she breaks, her orgasm crashing through her like a wave slamming into rock.

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