Chapter 96

Kayla

Nicholas’s mouth crashed against mine, and all logical thought left me.

I didn’t care who kissed who first. I didn’t care about the consequences of our kiss. All I cared about was the feeling of his hands on my waist, his warm fingers pressing through the fabric of my gown as he tugged me flush against the hard planes of his body.

My lips parted, allowing his warm tongue access to all the delicious nooks and crannies of my mouth. Our tongues swirled and tasted each other, and every nerve ending lit on fire just from the heat of that contact.

When we finally pulled back for air, I was breathless and reeling, my knees so weak I might have collapsed to the hardwood floor of the shed had it not been for Nicholas’s arms wrapped so tightly around me.

He pressed his forehead to mine, his breathing deep and ragged. “Kayla,” he murmured, his amber eyes searching mine as if looking for something that I couldn’t quite name. He opened his mouth again as if to say something else, but no words came out.

I tilted my head back to look at him, the movement sending a cascade of fiery red hair across my shoulders and over his hands like a curtain. My heart was pounding a mile a minute in my chest, like the wings of a hummingbird were beating against the inside of my ribcage.

“What do you want?” I murmured.

Nicholas pulled back slightly to shoot me a confused look. “What do you—”

“What do you want?” I repeated breathlessly. “Tell me what you want.”

He hesitated for a moment, his eyes searching mine once more. A thousand words seemed to pass between us in that brief glance, a thousand feelings and a thousand heartbeats.

Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe it would make things that much more confusing and complicated, and yet…

“Let him into your heart,” Ava had whispered in my ear.

When she had said those words, I knew that I had already let him into my heart, even if I didn’t mean to. And there was no coming back from that. There was only leaping into the unknown, hand in hand, like jumping from a sinking ship into a turbulent ocean.

Finally, Nicholas murmured, “I want you, Kayla.”

“Then have me.”

I didn’t have to tell him twice. In one fell motion, Nicholas swept me up into his arms, the world tilting around me as he whirled me toward the wall and sandwiched me between the hard panels and his body. Our lips met once again, this time even more frantic and feverish than before.

My fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt, and without thinking, I wrenched it open. Buttons popped and skittered across the floor, but he didn’t seem to care, and neither did I. I pressed my palms into his warm chest, tracing my fingers across his skin, the dips and peaks of his muscles.

“Kayla,” he growled in my ear, a sound that made my breath lodge in my throat. As he spoke, his mouth closed around my neck, right where he had bitten me last night.

And all at once, our mate bond lit up like embers from a fire floating into the night sky.

I couldn’t even begin to properly describe the all-consuming, dizzying, feverish intensity of that bond flaring to life. Perhaps it was like a thousand fireflies buzzing beneath my skin, or perhaps warm water washing over me, starting from the tip of my head and flowing down, down to my neck, my shoulders, my breasts, belly, thighs, all the way down to the tips of my toes. But even that wouldn’t be right.

All I knew was that it felt like… home.

And as Nicholas gently laid me back on the plush sofa against the wall, I felt like I had returned to a place long forgotten. It had nothing to do with being surrounded by all of my favorite things from Bluemoon, and everything to do with the warmth of his arms.

I propped myself up on my elbows and watched, rapt, as he loosened his belt. The pale moonlight shone across one side of his body, casting deep shadows wherever his muscles came to stark ridges, and for a moment, I just allowed myself to sweep my gaze over every inch of him.

But a soft, low growl rumbled in my chest then, a primal urge to pull him closer. Before he could disrobe entirely, I reached out and grabbed his wrist, yanking him toward me. Our mouths crashed together again, and his hand slammed into the arm of the sofa next to my head, his body hunching over me and blotting out all the light streaming in through the window overhead.

His hand came up to push the deep blue fabric of my gown up around my hips, and without even thinking, my knees fell to the sides. Warm fingers trailed up my inner thigh as his tongue whirled around inside my mouth. I shivered against the sensation, but it was not unwelcome.

However, he paused, pulling back slightly with a furrowed brow. “What…” He traced his finger across the scar on my thigh, the wound that had still been healing just a day ago.

“Your wound…”

I shook my head, too flustered to explain. How could I tell him that his kiss last night had healed me? So instead, I took my hand and gently moved his, placing his palm over the jagged scar. His skin was warm and tender against my thigh, and I bit my lip as I glanced up at him, hoping to convey it through look alone.

He seemed to understand, and moved down… Down, until his lips were grazing the scar. My breath hitched, and I sat up on my elbows again, watching as he gently kissed across the warm flesh.

Slowly, all too slowly, his fingers met the apex of my thighs. He traced a calm, almost lazy circle there with his thumb, then another, and another until I was bucking my hips for more.

Smiling against my thigh, he gently pushed the lace of my panties aside and slipped one finger in. Then two.

The moan that I let loose was nothing short of feral. The feeling of his thick fingers working inside me, his tongue lapping against all my most sensitive spots, was like nothing I had ever felt before, and it set my back arching away from the sofa, my nails digging into his back.

He worked me until my legs were trembling, until I was practically begging him to give me more.

And then, smooth and gentle at first, he moved up between my legs and pressed the head of his warm member against me.

Just the tip at first, although that was enough to wrench another gasp free from my lips. My eyes, which had been scrunched shut, shot open to see him gazing down at me with that infuriating little smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

My eyes wandered down and widened slightly upon taking in the sheer size of his cock.

He was… a lot bigger than I expected. And I expected a lot, so that was saying something.

A low, almost gravelly chuckle scraped at the back of his throat as he pushed himself in deeper, deeper until I felt like I was going to burst with the size of it. “I hope it’s not a problem,” he murmured, dipping his head to pepper warm, comforting kisses across my jaw, my neck, my collarbone.

I shook my head and swallowed hard. “No, it’s…” Again, I found myself at a loss for words.

But I didn’t need to speak. Because when Nicholas began to thrust himself into me in gentle, wide strokes, all pretense of speech left both of our minds. All that was left were the animals within, scraping claws and gnashing teeth and warm lips.

And as we moved together in that small shed, fogging the windows with our breaths until even the skylight above was clouded over, only one word lingered in my mind.

Mate.

…

I woke the next morning, shivering slightly despite the warm blanket draped over me and the even warmer skin pressed against my own. My eyes fluttered open to find Nicholas already awake, staring up at the morning sun through the skylight, one arm protectively wrapped around me while the other was propped behind his head.

All at once, memories of last night flooded in like a torrent. His mouth cupped against the crook of my neck as he whispered my name, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my thighs, the way I had cried out louder than I intended when we reached our peak together.

Last night was… unexpected. But surprisingly, even now, I didn’t regret it. And there was no hiding the tiny smile that touched my lips when our eyes met.

Grinning in that roguish way of his, Nicholas flipped us so his warm body was caging me against the sofa once again. His dark hair, mussed from sleep, flopped into his eyes as he looked down at me. I could feel his warmth pressing against my inner thigh, already hard, practically aching to have me again.

“Already?” I asked, my voice thick with sleep. There were people outside already, the gardeners starting their work for the day. I could hear them out there, which meant that they could likely hear us.

He shrugged one shoulder, smirking impishly. And despite my better logic, I let him have me. Fast and hard, and muffled by my hand covering my mouth. When we were finished, I was grinning, too.

“I could stay in here all day,” I murmured, stretching languidly as he rose and tugged on his trousers.

Nicholas shot me an amused glance over his shoulder. “You’re more than welcome to. I did design this space as a way to keep you out of my hair every now and then.”

I gasped, picking up a nearby sock and chucking it at him. Nicholas simply grinned and caught the projectile, murmuring something about coffee before he bent and pressed a warm, lingering kiss to my lips. I watched him slip out of the shed, still shirtless, and as I glanced out the window, I could see the gardeners watching him unabashedly strut toward the house with raised eyebrows.

“He’s such a prick,” I murmured, flopping back down onto the sofa.

But even then, I couldn’t help but smile.