Crimson Warrior (Onyx Assassins 3)

I had one second—maybe two—before I forgot every chivalrous intention and took her against the damned wall. Pleasure jolted down my spine and my fangs pulsed behind my lips.

“I can smell that you don’t really want me, Olivia,” I managed to say, reaching for her wrist.

She blinked rapidly. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” I took her hand off my cock and slid my fingers from her warm, willing body. “I’m not about to fuck you because your body has a biological response to mine, knowing you don’t really want me. Don’t you think if I’d ever once caught your scent drifting my direction, I would have acted—”

Every muscle in my body stilled as her scent flared around us, permeating every breath I took. Chocolate and hazelnut and that sweet, honeyed scent of real arousal. Real need. Not just the rich tang of her body’s response, but pure desire.

“What the hell?” I whispered as my blood rose to a boil in response.

Take. Touch. Claim. She’s yours. She wanted me, and my instincts demanded I satisfy her.

“I can mask my scent,” she admitted, licking her tongue nervously over her lower lip. “Only a few people know. It’s my only other power.”

“You can…what?” I grasped her hips, needing to touch her in any way possible as the scent of her filled my lungs, my heart, my very blood.

“You heard me.” She palmed the nape of my neck. “I’ve always wanted you. Masking my scent was the only way I could be around you for all these years and not humiliate myself.”

“Liv,” I groaned, pulling her hard against me.

“I’ve wanted you since the first moment you walked into the sparring room at school and told us you wouldn’t have any mercy on us just because we were females. That only the strongest of us was worthy of guarding Avianna. You were—are—the most perfect male I’ve ever seen. And I kept my feelings and my scent hidden to protect our friendship and our working relationship.”

“Two hundred years?” My hands slid to her ass. I was going to devour her, to worship every line of her body with my mouth and tongue so she knew exactly how perfect I thought she was.

She nodded. “So, I mean it when I say you aren’t a game to me, and I’m not risking our friendship if this is just part of playing the fake-mate game while we’re here.” Her chin rose as she stared me down.

My heart went tight, lunging against my ribs like it didn’t belong in my chest anymore.

“I don’t know what this is, either,” she admitted. Her swallow was her only nervous tell. “And we don’t have to label it…”

“But we don’t have to hide it,” I finished.

“I want you. I need you—”

My mouth swallowed whatever else she was going to say as I kissed her, all tongue and teeth and unfettered need. “I need you,” I growled, hooking my hands under her knees and lifting her so her legs wrapped around me. “Bed. Now.”

She shook her head, fisting my hands in her hair. “Here. Now. I can’t wait another second.”

The last of my self-control broke, and I carried her to the bench behind us, kissing her as we passed through the other shower jet.

I pressed her into the wall next to the bench, our hands hungry as we stroked and teased, learning the peaks and hollows of each other’s bodies with frenzied touches and kisses.

“Now,” she begged, rocking her hips against mine.

“I want our first time to—” I started, but every good intention went out the door as she lowered herself to the ground and peeled off her underwear.

Holy fucking shit, I had Olivia Sorokin naked, wet, and needy.

“Slow, gentle, thorough…all of that later. I want you inside me now.” She tugged on my hair and fused her mouth with mine.

“Now,” I agreed, spinning her around to face the wall. Her ass was round and firm as she pushed back against my dick. “One foot on the bench.”

She braced her hands on the wall and lifted her foot to the bench, opening her thighs to my probing cock. It found her entrance like we were magnets, like this was where I’d always belonged.

“You’re so fucking slick,” I purred against her ear, grabbing the removable showerhead from its holster and changing the setting to pulse as my thighs shook with the effort of holding back. If I was going to take her for the first time in a damned shower, then I’d at least make it the most memorable shower fuck she’d ever had.

I’d wipe her memory clean of every male she’d ever had before me.

“Ransom,” she whimpered, pressing her ass against my stomach.

Palming the showerhead with one hand, I gripped her hip with the other as I slowly thrust inside her. Tight, wet heat enveloped my cock as I drove forward in one push, consuming every inch she had to give and demanding another until I was seated to the hilt.