He shows off his shifter strength by plucking me out of the pool by my armpits like I’m a small child. Water drips from my naked body, but the cold doesn’t touch me. Steam curls off the surface of my skin.
“I’m trying very hard not to look, sweetheart.” His voice is pure gravel.
He sets me on my feet and then stoops to pick up the towel I left by the water’s edge. He does look, though. His heated, hungry gaze rakes down my body as he wraps the terry cloth around me, a low growl sounding in his throat, his cock tenting the pants of his uniform.
I should be afraid. He may have trouble controlling his wolf, which means he may mark me against my consent. But I’m only hot and tingly for him. Restless and wanton.
He tucks in the edges of the towel above my breasts. His eyes glow completely silver—his wolf wants me.
I tremble, but still not with fear.
He hasn’t let go of the towel, his fingers still tucked between my breasts, and he uses it to draw me closer. “I’m going to teach you to trust me,” he murmurs, like he’s swearing an oath. “I’m going to take care of your needs, babygirl. All your needs.”
My breath puffs out of my lips on a soft note of shock, and I attempt to take a step backward, but he hangs onto the towel, keeping me close.
“Let me show you.”
I shake my head jerkily. “I-I can’t.”
“I won’t take from you. I just want to give, babygirl.” His nostrils flare as he breathes in my scent. “I can smell your need. Are you achy between those beautiful legs of yours, little wolf?” He slowly walks me backward.
I don’t mean to answer him, but it’s like I’m under a spell. Not the kind that makes a wolf’s body physically respond to alpha dominance. Something deeper and more mysterious. My head wobbles in a yes.
My calves hit a chaise lounge and buckle. He holds me up with the towel.
“Let me kiss it better, Colleen. I need to taste you. Please, just a taste to get me through the night with you unclaimed.”
I draw in a sharp breath. This wolf isn’t backing off. But my body understands completely. My she-wolf is desperate for him. So I sit back, letting the towel fall open.
Mark doesn’t wait two seconds before he’s on his knees in front of the lounge, pushing my legs wide.
“This pussy,” I hear him rumble although I have no idea what he means by it. It doesn’t matter. He’s licking into me, sending me into orbit with each expert swipe of his tongue. I’ve never experienced this before, and my eyes roll back in my head as every nerve ending comes alive.
He traces around my inner lips, penetrates me with the tip of his tongue. He pushes my knees up toward my shoulders and licks me from anus to clit.
It’s intimate and embarrassing and incredibly pleasurable. I’m drunk on sensations, on his pheromones, on moonlight.
It’s a first for me. Dirk never cared about my needs, and he is the only male I’ve known.
“This pussy,” Mark repeats when he comes up for air.
“What about it?” I manage to choke out.
“So beautiful.” He lowers his head again and flicks his tongue over my clit.
I run my fingers through his closely-shorn hair, arch my breasts toward the night sky. “Mark.” My strangled cry sounds like it belongs to a different female. Certainly not to me.
“That’s right, babygirl. Are you going to come all over Daddy’s tongue?”
Did he call himself Daddy? My pussy gushes in response. It’s so hot and wrong and embarrassing and fates, yes, I’m here for it.
“Come for Daddy.”
My body responds immediately to the command because my orgasm starts, curling my toes inward.
“Yes,” I choke hoarsely as it deepens, my muscles squeezing and pulsing.
He slides two fingers inside me, and my walls seize around them as I let out a keening cry.
He sucks my clit while pumping his fingers and gets another orgasm out of me, this one so strong that my inner thighs squeeze around his shoulders, and my hips pop off the lounge.
I stare up at the stars as they spin and shift and rearrange. When the sky stops moving, my body falls limp, my breath slips in and out.
Mark rises above me, and I flinch because his eyes are still pure silver, and the bald hunger in his expression can only be for me. “Don’t be afraid of me, babygirl. I told you I wouldn’t take. I won’t claim you until you’re ready. Not until you ask me to. That’s a promise.”
“Mark,” I murmur. It’s a lament because I know how much pain he must be in to hold back.
My mate’s hands shake as he reaches for the edges of my towel and carefully wraps it back around me. “Come here, beautiful.” He uses the towel to smoothly lift me back to my feet. “Can you walk?”