His lips quirked as if he was trying to suppress amusement. “My kind, the Lycans, are part of the Otherworld, which is made up of many different creatures.”
“Are you immortal?”
He shook his head. “We can live up tae a millennia, though.”
I grew dizzy at what he said and let myself fall back on the couch as I stared at the ceiling, but then I thought of something that had my brows pulling low. “You know a human’s life expectancy is nowhere near yours, right? How does that exactly work? I’d die well before you do—” My words were cut off by the room-shaking growl that came from him.
He leaned closer so we were almost nose to nose, the scent of him so concentrated this close that my mind was short-circuiting. I couldn’t think, let alone breathe.
“When I claim ye—” When, not if, I noticed right away. “I’ll mark yer neck,” he said and let his gaze move down my face to my throat. I felt the spot he focused on tingle wildly. “It’ll ensure our lives are forever connected. Ye’ll age as I do.”
I involuntarily lifted my hand to place it on the side of my neck, my skin feeling ultra-warm. I had to break eye contact because he was too intense, too consuming. I couldn’t think straight. But there was this gravitational pull to him that I just couldn’t deny. My body once again heated as my thoughts went to that kiss we’d shared, my lips tingling all over again.
“What I…” I cleared my throat, as even thinking about it, let alone saying it, made my body light on fire. “What I’ve been feeling toward you, this… attraction”—to put it really mildly—“is it because of this Linked Mate connection?” I felt my face heat at the fact that I was basically admitting I wanted him. Hell, I knew he’d smelled my arousal back at the motel.
His close proximity, his smell, the pure masculinity that spilled from him—it all had my breath coming fast, this ache settling between my thighs, and this need rushing through me.
He purred—freaking purred—as he braced an arm on the back of the piece of furniture, right behind me, and moved forward even more. In turn, I leaned back, but the arm of the couch stopped my retreat. Not that I was trying to escape, if I were being totally honest. This arousal in me had steadily grown since I’d seen Cian, getting even worse—or better, depending on how I looked at it—once I saw him in person.
For a long moment we breathed the same air, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his. I wanted to be so lost in the desire and pleasure that this man brought out in me for the first time in my life that I was oblivious to all the dangers that had been thrust into my life recently. I wanted to fully feel what it was like to be so possessed by the need to be with somebody that all rational thought left and I threw caution to the wind.
And that’s what I wanted to feel with Cian. That’s what I thought as I focused on that and nothing else and closed the gap that separated us.
I kissed him softly, just a brush of my lips against his. His body tensed instantly, but it was only for a millisecond before he groaned, his control slipping. The kiss turned intense, our heads cocked to the sides, lips moving together, tongues pressing to one another. I’d never been kissed before him, but it was as if my body knew what to do, as if surrendering to Cian was the most natural thing on the planet.
He hadn’t even touched me aside from our lips pressed together, him tonguing me, fucking my mouth, but it felt like his hands were all over me, his mouth on every erogenous zone I had. I was panting against him, feeling drugged, drunker than I’d ever felt in my life.
In the next second he hauled me onto his lap, my legs spread on either side of his thighs, the massive length of his hard cock pressed right against my pussy. The sweats I wore were thin, and with the lack of panties—because I wasn’t about to put on the same ones I’d worn the night before—I felt every single inch of that length nestled right against my slit.
He groaned and rested his head back slightly, his eyes half-closed, his irises glowing blue. His lips were parted, red, and slightly swollen from our kissing. Oh God, he had fangs, twin canines that were long and sharp, which I knew were for biting—knew were for marking me.
My neck tingled at the images I conjured of him above me, holding me down with his huge body, my head turned to the side as he bit me and forced me to take whatever he had to give. My pussy was so wet the crotch of the sweatpants stuck to my slit, the seam rubbing erotically against my clit.