Desert Wolf. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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СКАЧАТЬ her like this forever, staring, thankful, ravenous. His body pulsed with longing. His temperature spiked dramatically. His inner wolf, caught up in these new emotions, wanted to get in on the fun.

      Without knowing how he got there, he had Paxton on the bed, on her back, and was leaning over her with his hands on the mattress. Her face was serious, sober. She was quiet.

      Kissing her again, briefly, teasingly, he drew in her breath and played with her lower lip, backing off seconds later to look into her eyes. The corners of her lips quirked to show him she was on board. Her scent already saturated his face and his skin with she-wolf pheromones that were exotic and intoxicating.

      Paxton was gloriously beautiful, and also so very small when pitted against the sheer force of his desire for her. Having her for himself had become necessary. Grant felt truly possessive as he got down to the business of removing her shoes. He then rested a hand on her zipper, testing his willpower by waiting out several harsh breaths, counting each tick of passing time through the strong pulses in his neck.

      The zipper hummed a siren’s tune as it slid downward. There was still time for Paxton to stop this. Once her jeans came off, it would be too late.

      All you have to do is whisper one word, Paxton, and I’ll be gone.

      That word didn’t come.

      Fragile lace underwear, a deep midnight black, peeked out from behind the zipper, barely covering a taut belly that stretched between sharp-bladed hip bones. Grant stared at those things as if temporarily transfixed until Paxton made an impatient sound that made him glance up.

      “What are you?” she asked when their eyes met.

      “Hungry,” he replied.

      Paxton’s amber eyes were bright. She wasn’t smiling now. He knew she couldn’t possibly have seen the wolf lurking behind the man’s facade, because she wasn’t yet in a position to recognize it. So he waited for her to back up her question.

      “I’m not sure what this means,” she said.

      She was confessing to being as confused as he was about ending up on this bed with a stranger. Grant supposed she thought men were often more lax about casual sex than women were.

      “Does it have to mean anything?” he asked.

      “I have a feeling it does.”

      “Yes,” he admitted, while knowing Paxton couldn’t possibly understand the intricacies of wolf needs, even though her comment showed that she was trying to find a reason for putting herself in this situation. “I have that same feeling.”

      Her face was smooth and expressionless. “If I think about it, I won’t want this to happen,” she confessed.

      “Should I go?”

      She shook her head. “Don’t you dare.”

      Those were the words Grant wanted to hear. Two tugs over Paxton’s sleek thighs, and her jeans hit the floor. The next question Grant faced was whether he would take the time to fully undress, or if his rush to have her would win out. He was hard, aching and barely able to suppress a groan. In spite of the things she’d noted, Paxton was willing.

      She sat up gracefully, bare except for the insignificant lingerie. Pushing him away, she got to her feet and backed him toward the wall by the door. With shaky fingers, she unbuckled his belt and slid his zipper downward without taking her gaze from his. In those amber eyes, Grant watched a flicker of wildness grow.

      Deep inside him, his wolf moved, stirred by his racing pulse. He’d never felt so large, so strong, raw and powerful as he did right that moment. Hell, yes, he wanted this. Wanted her. What he felt for Paxton Hall, the sheer depth of emotion, was a first for him. He’d been with plenty of women. Hell, he was no saint. But he hadn’t felt the need to devour or possess any of them.

      As much as he hated to believe it, signs all pointed to that damn word he had managed to avoid for all of his life so far. Imprint. Because if that were true, and that’s what was happening to the two of them, there really would be no escape clause if and when Paxton’s wolf finally emerged.

      It was far too late to worry about that now. Paxton’s hands were on his zipper. Her fair hair curtained the sides of her face, contributing to that hint of wildness. Contained in the gleam of her golden eyes were flames that might have set his soul on fire.

      “To hell with it,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her. “Question time is over.”

      Paxton’s breath whooshed out as he took her back to the bed with the kind of speed she should have questioned. As he stretched out beside her, Grant bristled with pleasure. His wolf silently called to hers, but the moon wasn’t full tonight, and that fact was in Grant’s favor. Man to woman was how this was going down. Paxton couldn’t shift without that moon, given that now was the time for her first transformation to happen. He didn’t have to worry about intimacy tonight, though tomorrow would be another matter.

      Slipping his hand between her thighs, he skimmed the black lace, seeking the soft feminine folds that lay beneath the filmy scrap of fabric. Paxton made another sound...a surprised, breathy, totally sexy sigh.

      He stroked her gently with his fingers, studying each reaction she made. Paxton clutched at the covers and arched her back. The light pressure of his fingers on her sex made her reach for him. In an attempt to hold on to whatever pleasure she was experiencing, she dug into him with her nails.

      “Go ahead,” Grant whispered to her, his voice hoarse with expectation. “Enjoy this. Hell, your father might have planned for things to happen this way.”

      Paxton’s lips parted as if she might challenge his remark. Grant’s mouth again found hers, sealing off any argument she might care to make.

      Her hands moved, sliding up his neck and into his hair to tug him closer. He didn’t need the extra invitation. His hardness, at the moment still tucked inside his jeans, pressed against her hips. She, in turn, writhed on the bed enticingly, seductively, as if she couldn’t wait much longer to accept everything he held back.

      But sliding his fingers over her arms made him hesitate. What he found there made him balk. Paxton had a birthmark on her left upper arm, a few inches down from her shoulder. Without having to see it up close, Grant knew exactly what that mark meant. Christ, he had one just like it.

      Paxton Hall had a moon mark—a special kind of birthmark that would look exactly like an old bite from a full set of wolf teeth. And moon marks were proof of Were heritage that went way back.

      What did she assume that mark was? Wouldn’t anyone question something like that?

      “Do you know?” he asked her with his lips moving over hers, hoping she was too caught up in the same sensations moving through him to understand what he was getting at. “Do you understand what this is, between us?”

      Realizing there was no way for Paxton to make sense of those words, and feeling way too wolfish all of a sudden, Grant took the fragile ivory skin beneath her right ear between his teeth and bit down lightly, as if teeth were part of the mating game.

      He brought his lips back to hers for more kisses, more connection, more fire, tasting Paxton’s heat and allowing the flames she gave off to sink in. Her body moved like liquid sin beneath his. Her mouth was a monstrous delight.

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