Chapter 59

Raven

Neil practically kicked down the door, his lips still locked onto mine, his arms wrapped firmly around me. The darkened hotel room fell into pitch darkness when he shut the door behind us, but he didn’t bother with the lights. He didn’t need to; the sparks flying between us were enough to light the whole world up.

What we were about to do was bound to end in disaster, just as it had that night outside the tavern. I knew it as surely as I knew the rapid pounding of my heart in my chest.

But right now, with his lips pressed firmly against mine and his warm arms wrapped steadily around me, I didn’t care. All I cared about was the taste of his tongue, the head of his skin, the heady scent of his breath mingling with mine.

He gently set me down, his hands lingering on my waist as if unwilling to let me go. For a moment, we just stood there, both a little breathless and reeling before he pulled back. As he shrugged off his too-tight suit jacket, I padded over to the bedside table to flick on the lamp.

With the room now illuminated, it was even more magnificent. It was an impressive suite to say the least, with an enormous California king bed in the center and not one, but two plush sofas facing one another by the fireplace.

“Is this how you normally live here?” he asked, glancing at the lavish furniture, the minibar fully stocked with wine and liquor, and the open door leading to the marble-and-gold bathroom.

I huffed out a wry little laugh as I strode across the room, kicking off my shoes as I went, and began pouring two glasses of red wine.

“Typically, yes,” I admitted, handing a glass to him. “I take it you didn’t believe me when I said I was wealthy among Werewolves.”

He sighed and shook his head, then sniffed the wine. His nose wrinkled a little at the dry scent, making me laugh despite myself, but he took a sip anyway.

“Lycan wine is better,” he complained flatly.

I couldn’t help but laugh again. “A lot of Lycan things are better. I never thought I’d say that.”

Neil didn’t respond, just drank his wine—too fast, as if he were just trying to get it down and not savor the taste—and stared at me over the rim of his glass. The undeniable heat in his blue eyes set my heart racing all over again, but I held his gaze and drank my own just as deeply.

Not because I felt I needed to be intoxicated to enjoy climbing into bed with him. But because I wanted to dull out the rest of the world outside that hotel room. Because I wanted to pretend that we were back in my room at the castle, enveloped by the warmth of the fire.

When both of our glasses were empty, we set them aside and just stood there in awkward silence for a few moments. It was strange, seeing the Lycan prince at a loss for words. I realized that while he was the perfect picture of masculine bravado in the Lycan kingdom, he was utterly out of place here. This wasn’t his home—it was a foreign land—and he didn’t know what to do.

And even though I had only spent a few months there, I didn’t feel like this was my home anymore, either.

Wordlessly, I stepped closer, tilting my chin up to look at him. I traced my fingers down the buttons of his crisp white shirt, and although he didn’t move, I could sense the faint thrum of his heart in his chest.

“I think I prefer you in your cloak,” I whispered.

That was all it took. He swept me into his arms again, our lips crashing together as if we could only survive off the breath drawn from one another’s lungs. The world tilted and swayed around me as he carried me to the bed and laid me down, my legs wrapping around his sturdy torso.

My lips parted, allowing his tongue to slip between my teeth. A soft moan escaped me as he slid one hand up my thigh, pushing my skirt out of the way as if it were a burden.

“I want this off,” he huffed against the column of my throat, his voice rough and needy. “You Werewolves wear too many clothes.”

“Then tear it off,” I commanded thickly.

Neil pulled back a little, his eyes blazing with hunger but also flickering with an uncharacteristic uncertainty. “Tear it?”

I grinned and reached out with both hands, gripping either side of the front of his shirt. “Like this.” And then I pulled. Hard. Hard enough to send buttons popping and skittering across the floor, and hard enough for a low growl to rumble in his chest.

What followed was a blur. The room turned into a flurry of growls and gasps, fabric shredding under frantic hands and lips slamming into lips. My designer gown was reduced to nothing but tattered silk and lace, forgotten on the floor.

Pulling me up against him as if I weighed nothing, he flipped us effortlessly. The room spun again, and suddenly I was straddling him, my breath ragged as I leaned down to trail kisses along the sharp line of his jaw and straight down to the warm pulse hammering at his neck.

The amber light of the lamp cast deep shadows across his bare chest, highlighting every ridge and plane of sharp muscle. My fingers followed the light’s path, tracing every curve and peak until I could recall it all by heart.

Then, as I began to work at his belt, his fingers dug deep into the soft flesh of my hips. He let out a rough sigh as I unbuckled his belt and then unzipped his pants, reaching down to feel the warm hardness waiting there for me.

Neil’s grip tightened on me as I carefully wrapped my fingers around his shaft, low growls rumbling in his chest. His breaths grew uneven, rough, but in perfect tandem with mine as I gently began to stroke my hand up and down.

In those moments, nothing else in the world mattered. Just us, the heat of his hands on my skin, the faint tremor in his touch that betrayed the restraint he was fighting to maintain. His lips followed the line of my collarbone, leaving trails of fire in their wake.

“I want you,” I whispered into his ear, my voice growing more urgent as my hand moved faster. “Please.”

I didn’t need to tell him twice. He sat up in a swift movement and pulled me impossibly close, locking his lips together with mine, and just like that, we were joined.

Time seemed to slow, each moment stretching into an eternity as we explored each other’s bodies. Our limbs tangled together as he gently pushed himself into me, my fingernails raking across his back. I lost myself in him, in the movements of his body, in the words that echoed between our tongues without having to say them out loud.

I love you.

As we moved together in the dim light of that hotel room, as our hips twisted together and our hands ran across every plane, I knew it was true. Maybe it had been true since the moment I’d met him.

I loved him. I loved my mate. And I never wanted to let him go.

But I didn’t say the words—not out loud at least. I said them in my actions instead, in the way that I pressed my hands against the warm skin of his bare chest, in the way that I wrapped my legs around his torso and drew him closer, in the arch of my back.

And although he didn’t say it either, he didn’t have to. Because I could feel it through our bond with every twist of his hips, every warm brush of his lips against my throat, every time his teeth gently grazed my skin.

As we reached our peak together, the clock struck midnight. There were no grand bells or fireworks, but as we pressed our foreheads together and shared our breath, that was enough for me.

Wordlessly, Neil cupped his hands around my face and pressed the gentlest kiss against my lips. And we laid just like that, tangled together, until sleep eventually took us.