He ran his nose up my bared throat as he inhaled deeply.
My head was pressed as far back against the bark as it could go, my eyes closed, my lips parted. This instinct in me said to arch my neck, give Luca complete access.
“I can’t help myself where you’re concerned. I’m sorry,” he said again and again as he smelled me. I knew he took my scent into his lungs, the wolf part of him needing that.
It felt so good, so right to have his big, muscular body nearly pressing against mine. There was hardly any space between us at all, maybe a hand width apart. But I wanted that small space gone. I wanted his chest to mine. His arousal coexisted with mine.
I could feel his body heat. I could hear his heart beating. It was steady and strong. Mine was fast and erratic.
Seeing him so close let me know how far gone he was. How nearly turned he’d become. Although I heard he had lost his mind, he seemed very sane in this instance, controlled and ready to give me anything I wanted.
Would he always be like this, bigger, stronger, because he’d been stuck in this form for far too many years? That should frighten me instead of turn me on more.
I felt so fragile, as if I stood against a mountain. He could easily crush me, but Luca was stable and unmoving—a home if I let him be.
And I knew that’s what Luca was to me. A home. My home.
I scented his blood as soon as I made it over the wall. It was a rich, metallic aroma that had instantly driven my hunger higher… had my arousal sucking the very air from my lungs. I’d never smelled anything as intoxicating as Luca, the tinge of copper in the air, that layer of sweetness.
I’d never been so hungry for something in my life.
And now being pressed up against the tree, staring up at him, his canines pricking his bottom lip, little wounds welling up with beads of crimson, had me so lost in my starvation for him. It was this pang that was slowly eating me away from the inside.
Every time he breathed, I smelled his warm, metallic-tinged breath, and it had my mouth watering, my fangs lengthening, and this foreign wetness spilling between my thighs.
I’d never felt aroused until I looked in his eyes for the first time in Romania. And now having him so close, feeling his body heat, his nose running up the length of my neck… it made me shiver down to my very marrow.
It made me yearn for things that only one male could give me.
My mate.
Luca.
“Ah, my sweet little Ainslee. I can sense your hunger,” he rumbled against my ear.
His voice was deep, the vibrations spearing right to the very core of me, the very sensitive, feminine part of my body that ached for Luca.
I was breathing so hard my shoulders were moving up and down against the tree, the bark scraping against the thin material of my T-shirt. But that discomfort ignited my pleasure even more.
My nipples felt so hard I had no doubt that if he pulled back and looked down he’d be able to see them straining against the cotton. And he did pull back then, but he kept his focus on my eyes. He was just so big, so broad. He was so much more animalistic than I’d ever seen a male, feral in the most literal sense.
Despite his Lycan strongly coming through, he was very human-like. But his wolf features were stark, prominent. His eyes glowed from his inner animal, and at nearly seven feet tall, he towered over me, my body seeming waif-like and breakable against his.
His shoulders were more than double the width of my body, everything getting blocked out behind him from his immense size. My head barely reached the center of his chest, yet no matter how massive his form was, no matter how strong he was... I’d never felt safer in my life.
I found my focus locked on his mouth, transfixed at the way the blood kept welling up, some of that crimson smeared along his bottom lip when he’d spoken.
The wounds were closing quickly, but his canines kept breaking them back open. My mouth was salivating at this point, but it wasn’t hunger in the literal sense that drove me to lift my hands and place them on his chest.
It was something far more carnal.
His shirt was tattered, bits of his warm, hard flesh coming through very evident claw marks in the material. His skin felt scorching, and I couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like pressed to mine... without anything obstructing that heat.
I could picture him having torn the fabric in his madness, his bouts of lunacy peeking through but never fully taking dominance.