Page 51 of Wolf's Prize

“Please look at me.”

He shook his large, furry head in negation. To turn around would be a mistake.

“Please.”

The pleading in her voice cut through his determination, and Aimon had turned around before he could stop himself. Her thin chemise clasped to her body, her breathing uneven and her cheeks flushed, she stood her ground. His gaze slid to the rise and fall of her chest. He would not shift back. He did not dare. Being in wolf form was the only thing stopping him from wrapping Kathryn in his embrace, laying her down on the forest floor, and covering her with his body.

“I am sorry. What I did was stupid and irresponsible. I thought…I did not expect…” She lowered her eyes, her hands twisting in the material of her chemise. She lifted her head, meeting his gaze. “I wanted you to see me as more than your student. To see me as a woman.”

He sat on his haunches, not moving a muscle, wanting her with every fiber of his being. How could she think he did not see her as a woman? When she stood before him like this? He was doing his best to do right by her, and she poked at his resolve with every word, every glance and every determined thrust of her chin.

She let go of her chemise, and it fell to the ground. “Make love to me, Aimon.”

The air rushed from his lungs.

Merde. The right thing be damned.

His body shifted before he could stop it, and he stalked to her, pulled her into his arms and crushed her to him. Slanting his mouth across hers, he gave in to the call of his body, and the demands of his wolf.

Kathryn’s body molded to his, skin against skin, her erotic wolf scent enveloping him. His wolf’s howl of triumph echoed in his mind, blasting away any residual restraint. She had taunted him, offered herself to him. That he would take her if she let him was no longer in question.

He parted her lips, and thrust his tongue into her mouth, and she clung to him like she needed this as much as he. He could no longer deny her. Perhaps, from the moment he had first brushed against her at Langeais Keep, they were destined to arrive at this point. That she should end up in his arms, inevitable.

She arched her back, pressing against him, and he groaned.

“Kathryn,” he murmured, making one last effort to reinstate reason. “We should stop. While we still can.” His ragged breathing belied the words spilling from his mouth.

Her hands tightened in his hair. “Do you want to stop?”

“No, but…” Of course he did not want to stop. Knowing Kathryn in the most intimate way a man could know a woman was all he had thought of for the past ten days.

“I want this. I want you.”

Aimon closed his eyes, blocking out the vision of her, her face tilted up at him and her lips moist from his kiss. So trusting. Would she still want him when she realized she had others to choose from? When he introduced her to the rest of the pack?

He clasped her face in his hands and stared into her eyes. “Do not do something you may come to regret, Kathryn.”

He would let her go, take her back to the keep if that was what she asked of him. Though his body, his mind and his wolf would scream at the loss, at being denied what he wanted from the tips of his toes to the depths of his soul, he would do it. For her.

Kathryn’s hands slipped from his hair, down his chest, fingering his amulet. “I have dreamed of this, of us, since before you came to the d’Louncrais Keep.”

His breath hitched.She has?“I am your teacher.”

“But I want more.”

Kathryn took his hand and placed it over the swell of her breast, and Aimon lost the battle to his all-consuming need to make her his.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kathryn met Aimon’s gaze. His warm palm cupped her breast and her lower body pressed flush against the evidence of his arousal. Uncertainty simmered in his eyes. For a moment, she thought he would deny her, would hold firm to some misguided sense of duty he seemed to have placed on their relationship. Another person, another man, making decisions he believed best for her. But then his blue eyes blazed bright, and he scooped her up in his arms.

Kathryn sighed, and she gave herself over to the anticipation of what she hoped was to come. Laying her down on a soft, grassy patch of ground, he covered her body with his, his knee parting her thighs, pressing against her. Her womb clenched and her mouth dropped open in a breathless sigh. Would it be all she dreamed of? An explosion of passion, heat and need that consumed them both and filled the ache inside her? Or would it leave her disappointed, confused and wanting as many women at court had experienced before her?

Aimon dipped his head, and dropped soft kisses along her collarbone, the night breeze licking across her skin, a cooling breath following the trail of fire he ignited. His hand brushed across her body, raising goose bumps in its wake. Her nipples hardened, seeking his touch, and, as if he had read her body and her mind, he covered her breast with his warm palm again and gave a gentle squeeze.

He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and she gasped at this new, intense and unexpected sensation. It was almost too much—the feel of his body against hers, his hand at her breast, his thigh against her core. His arousal, hot, hard and thick, pressed into her hip.

Panic flared, and she squirmed beneath him. He was so big. Would it hurt?

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