I feel the guilt shivering through her like something alive, like a parasite trying to cannibalize her happiness.
“That wasn’t your fault,” I snarl firmly. “You can’t blame yourself for that. You can’t even think about blaming yourself for that.”
“I know.” She sighs shakily. “I didn’t choose for my mom to have complications with her pregnancy. But it doesn’t make it any easier, you know?”
I think about my parents.
“I didn’t choose for my parents to be murdered by the Cartel. But I sometimes think about what I could’ve done differently. I could’ve joined the force earlier. I could’ve been with them that night, and never mind I was on the other side of the country. Yeah, Ruby, I know what you mean.”
She grabs onto my forearm, squeezes down, and brings her lips to my hand. She kisses softly, triggering ricocheting waves of contentment to move through me… followed by an explosion of lust, my manhood pulsing.
“I’m going to seem like the biggest hypocrite in the world,” she murmurs. “But you know it wasn’t your fault, don’t you?”
I squeeze her tighter against me. “So you read a lot as a kid?”
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I would sit in there for days at a time, just, just freaking consumed by the books. And then one day Dad got me this notepad and I started writing my own stories. They were all so bad, to begin with, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even know they were bad. I was simply having the time of my life. And then somewhere along the way, I started to do my research, take it seriously…”
“And now you’ve finished a book,” I say.
“Yeah. I’m still not sure it’s any good though. Uncle Aaron wouldn’t let me submit it anywhere.”
“Your uncle doesn’t have a say in it anymore,” I snarl. “That bastard’s days of stifling you are long gone. Are you going to submit it?”
I feel her stiffen against me.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I want to,” she says quietly.
My chest goes tight, as though part of me is experiencing her anxiety, a mirrored emotion. “But you’re nervous,” I say.
“Yeah.” She laughs drily. “And that’s probably an understatement. I’ve never submitted anything before. I’ve written lots, thrown lots in the trash. But never put myself out there.”
“You’re going to shock the world, princess,” I say, meaning it.
She wriggles. “You’re teasing me.”
I squeeze her harder, trapping her against me. Even now, I can’t resist the urge to push my hips forward, to make her feel the solid desire between my legs.
“I’m fucking not,” I snarl. “I mean it. I can’t wait to see you become a bestseller.”
She swivels in my arm, so we’re facing each other, her lips twisted somewhere between a smile and an anxious frown. “Are you really not teasing me?”
“No damn way,” I say passionately. “I mean it.”
“But you haven’t read my work. How can you know?”
“Because I know you, princess,” I pause. “I don’t have to read your work to know how passionate you are. Your passion… it burns off of you, every damn second. Every time you talk about writing, I can see it blazing through you. I know that probably doesn’t make sense—”
“It does,” she says passionately – which is damn appropriate – squeezing tighter against me. “I know you can read me. It’s the same way I can read you. I feel it too.”
I smirk, bringing my face closer to hers, her breath whispering over my lips. “I need you so fucking badly.”
“What about the guards?” she whispers.
My chest ignites when she asks this question because it’s a hint she’s open to it, open to giving herself to me whereas before she was trapped in a tangle of nerves.
But since our dinner – even if it wasn’t the high-class date I’d prefer to have taken her on – something has changed between us.
We’ve shared parts of ourselves we’ve never revealed to anyone else before.
“The guards are at the front of the house,” I growl. “There are external security cameras watching the streets, but there’s none in the bedroom. And the previous owner of this place must’ve been into some weird shit.”
“What do you mean?”
I grin like the wolf I am, unable to hold back the feral hunger coursing through me, blazing through my body the same way my woman’s passion moves through her.
“The guest bedroom is soundproof.”
She gasps, her eyes widening alluringly, making me want to claim her even more. I thought that was impossible, for my need to expand, for my hunger to somehow grow, but when she looks at me like that I know I’ll die if I don’t claim my woman.
I’d kill to protect her.
I’d die if I couldn’t have her.
She’s mine.
Forever.
Fuck, my manhood is getting hard, so stiff it’s like the tension is going to force my seed to explode early.
“Are you serious?” she asks.