Page 22 of Scarlett's Wicked Wolf
It’s about two lonely souls finding a home in each other.
Maybe it’s too soon, maybe we’re insane, maybe the whole world is one giant fever dream that cracked open the forest and poured the myths into our bones… but I don’t care.
Because here, in this bed, with his arms around me and our scars bleeding truth into each other…
It feels likedestiny.
Chapter 9
Reid
I surface to heat and the soft drag of a tongue.
For a second, I don’t understand the ache, the pleasure blooming low and hot, the wet warmth encasing the head of my cock. Then my eyes snap open to the dim glow of the banked fire and Scarlett between my thighs, hair a spill of red gold over my skin, fingers braced at my hips.
“Scarlett…” My voice is gravelly. The bond hums, answering her touch. I reach for her hair and then stop, palm hovering above her crown as she teases me with her tongue. “Fuck… are you sure?”
She looks up, pupils blown wide, lips slick. She’s blushing, but her emerald gaze holds no uncertainty, only a steadiness that goes straight through me. “I’m very sure,” she whispers, breath warm on me. “I want you, Reid. Let me.”
I nod, helpless and wrecked and honored all at once. She’s choosing me, not because of fate or the fever, but because she wantsme.
I tuck a curl behind her ear. “Then take what you want.”
She does. Tentative at first, a slow stroke of her tongue that makes my spine bow, then bolder as she learns me, lips parting, mouth sealing around me in a tight, careful glide. I groan, head thudding back into the pillow. Her hand wraps around the base of my cock, synchronizing with the shallow pull of her mouth. Every time she looks at me, every little satisfied hum she makes when she figures out what I like, I fall another mile.
“Gods, that feels good,” I manage, finally sinking my fingers into her hair—not to guide, just to touch. “That’s perfect. You’re fucking perfect.”
She hums again, and the vibration rolls through me, fraying my control. I force myself to breathe, to be present, to memorize the soft give of her tongue, the way her cheeks hollow, the little furrow of concentration between her brows that makes my chest ache with something fiercer than lust.
“Slow,” I say, and she slows, following my instructions without hesitation. “There you go. Breathe through your nose. That’s it.”
Her confidence blooms under my praise; I can feel it in the way she relaxes her throat for another inch, in the way her free hand slides up my abdomen like she’s mapping me. I’m dangerously close, and as much as I want to let her take me apart, I want more.
I touch her jaw gently. “Scarlett. If you keep going, I’m going to come.”
She releases me with a wet sound that nearly undoes my resolve. Her lips are kiss-bruised and proud. “I want all of you,” she says huskily, like she’s been screaming my name. “I want you inside me.”
Everything in me goes very still.
“You’re sure?” I ask again, because this matters more than the air in my lungs. “You’re sure, and you’re not dizzy, and you’re not saying yes because of the bond.”
“I’m sure,” she says, and Ifeelit—the love and sunlight in the center of her. “I’m saying yes because it’s you.”
My restraint snaps, not into roughness, but into motion. I draw her up my body, kiss her slow and deep until she sighs into my mouth. I taste the faint sweetness of me on her tongue and groan, rolling us until she’s on her back and I’m braced over her. The blanket slides away; her skin is warm and soft under my palms, gooseflesh chasing my touch.
“Tell me what you like. What you don’t like,” I say, kissing the hollow of her throat, the rise of her breast, the tight pebble of her nipple that draws another choked sound from my brave, beautiful she-wolf. “You say stop, I stop.”
“I know,” she breathes, arching. “I trust you.”
Her confession lodges in my throat like a benediction.
I take my time. Iwantto take my time. My mouth maps the soft, secret places I didn’t honor with my tongue earlier, learning what makes her knees fall open, what makes her gasp, what makes her voice break on my name. When I slide my hand between her thighs, she’s already wet and hot, her body eager and pulsing.
“Look at you,” I murmur, circling my thumb lightly over her clit. She shivers, opens more. “So ready for me.”
Her breath stutters. “Please.”
I ease a finger into her slowly, carefully, watching her face. She’s tight, her body clenching around me like a fist. I wait, pressingkisses to her jaw, her cheek, her mouth, until the tension melts and she lets out a shaky, relieved breath.
