Page 69 of Ravaged Wolf
“No more sorries.” She pops a blackberry in my mouth. I’m so surprised I almost don’t open up in time. It’s the sweetest berry I’ve ever had. I chew as slowly as I can, stepping away to hunt deeper in the thicket so she can’t see me blush and get hard.
Of course, I can’t stray far. As soon as I have a handful, I wade back to her side. I select the biggest, ripest berry I’ve picked and offer it to her. She has to swallow the one in her mouth first before she takes it.
“Thanks,” she says. I track her fingers as she slips the berry past her lips. She watches me do it, her tongue darting out to capture a bead of juice. My cock pulses in my jeans. Please don’t let her look down because I can’t turn away from her now.
She plucks a berry out of my cupped hand and sets it against my lips. “Open up.”
I do exactly what she wants, the instant she asks, andevery inch of my skin prickles with awareness. The pad of her index finger brushes my lower lip as she pops the berry in. My blood pounds in my veins with want, and also fear.
My wolf stands on alert at the border between us. He knows I won’t hurt her.Iknow I won’t hurt her. But still, he stands close and watches.
I’m breathing like I’ve run a race. The burbling water covers the sound, but nothing hides the rapid rise and fall of my bare chest. Izzy isn’t looking down, though, she’s smiling up at me, waiting. Waiting for what? She glances meaningfully at the berries in my palm.
Oh, yeah. It’s my turn. I don’t have the brain function left to pick a good one. I just grab and offer.
She wraps her slender fingers around my wrist, holding my hand in place as she takes the berry, her teeth gently scraping my skin. A thousand bolts of lightning zap from nerve to nerve, jolting my muscles, skittering my pulse.
Somehow, the distance between us has shrunk from inches to centimeters. When she inhales, her breasts almost brush my chest. When I exhale, the strands that’ve come loose from her ponytail flutter.
I want to kiss her,needto kiss her, and gather her in my arms, lay her on the far bank, and kiss every inch of her until she hooks her bare legs around my waist, plunging those fingers into my hair and holding me so close that I know she’s not afraid, and that she understands in her bones that I will never hurt her again.
Izzy clears her throat. I blink, coming back to the moment, and she’s holding a berry for me right in the narrow gap between our faces. I slowly lower my head. She draws the berry back a hairsbreadth closer to her lips.
What is she doing?
I know what she’s doing.
She wants me to kiss her.
It should be easy. She’s so close. All I have to do is tilt my head forward. That’s it. I want this. She wants this.
The berries I collected plunk into the stream as my hands clench in fists, my nails digging into my palms. A thousand memories rise up from the recesses of my mind to beat at my brain with dark wings.
My feet curling over the edge of the High Rise roof, the plaza below gray and cold in the moonlight.
Lying on the Cameron’s back porch, wrapped in a moth-eaten quilt, damp with frost, staring at dew dripping down a ripped screen window, every second in my life laid out in front of me like a prison sentence.
That night. Izzy’s bare heels flashing in the moonlight. Her desperate sobs as she choked on her own snot.
It all surges up inside me, every horror, every shame, all the ruin, all the pain.
In this moment, the here and now, the happy fuzziness clears from Izzy’s eyes, and it’s another stab in my chest, another failure. Her brows draw together as she fixes me with a mutinous look and pops the berry in her own mouth. Then she grabs my face in both her hands, rises on her toes, and plants her lips on mine.
I’m a fucking mess, but I’m not stupid. My arms wrap themselves around her waist, and I lift her, squeezing her tight while I lower my mouth to feast. The want is stronger than the horror. Stronger than anything.
Her lips part. My tongue and hers tangle, hungry and uncoordinated and shameless.
She whimpers, in need, not pain. I stagger backward with her, my feet slipping on wet stone, until I land on my butt on the mossy bank. She sits across my lap, almost curled, her breasts flattened against my chest, her knee digging into my rib. She holds my head in place with clutching fingers plunged into my hair. Ifold my arms around her, gathering her as close as I can.
I don’t ever want to let her go. I want to live here forever, on this muddy bank, with the sun shining and our hearts racing each other, faster and faster.
I kiss her, and she kisses me until we aren’t taking turns—we’re lost, and time isn’t passing anymore, it’s waiting patiently for us.
She smells musky and earthy and like my T-shirt. She wants to try everything—nibbling my lower lip, nestling our noses side by side, sucking my tongue into her mouth—and then she wants to try something else and then go back and do it all over again.
She’s excited. I smell that, too, along with a hint of blood, and my lower abs tense, and my balls ache.
At some point, our grip on each other loosens a little. The frenzy quiets, naturally, like a breeze that passes. The trickling stream and chirping birds become audible again over the roar of blood in my ears.
