I grab the front of his shirt, hissing, “Don’t you dare do this to me! I will never forgive you if you destroy everything I’ve worked for!”
His eyes search mine as I dig my nails into his chest. “I don’t care why you don’t want me, but I will never let anybody trample on my pride. You seem to have a habit of doing that. You keep making me feel small and worthless. Fuck you for that!”
Under the anger and tears is a pain so raw that it scrapes at my insides. “You think you’re the only one who can humiliate someone by choosing someone else? I did exactly what you did. I gave you back the same pain you gave me. We’re even now.”
All he does is look at me, his jaw tense. His silence grates at my nerves. “What? Now you can’t speak? You know what, I will go back to Moonvale, but not until I am done here. And when I do return, I’m going to let Ethan court me!”
We glare at each other fiercely. “I don’t want you anyway, Lucas. You and your vague excuses. Ethan cares more for me than you ever have. I’m not going to hold back any longer. I’ll wear his mark, have him in my bed, bear his child—”
Lucas’s mouth slams down on mine with an intensity that stops my heart. My eyes widen for a moment, and I know I should push him away and slap him.
Instead, I cling to his chest, and every word I just threw at him disintegrates between our mouths.
Chapter Seventeen
Lucas
Her fingers dig into my shirt.
That small claim to the cotton over my chest is what undoes me. Not the kiss itself, not the heat of her mouth opening under mine, but the way she grips my shirt as if she can’t bear to let me go. She is not pushing me away. She is pulling me in.
The threat she just made breaks apart against my teeth. “Wear his mark. Bear his child.” I taste those words on her tongue, and I taste them dying. My whole body responds with a single, low sound that is barely human, scraped out of the place inside me that has been awake every minute of every night since she walked right into me and changed the architecture of my life.
I lift her. She is still unsteady on her feet, so I get my arms under her thighs and bring her up against me. Her hands reach up to my neck instantly, her mouth already chasing mine.
The bandages are gone. Her wounds have closed. I can feel the warmth of her skin through the thin shirt she is wearing, the shape of her breasts pressed against my chest, and the small, frantic stutter of her pulse where my thumb rests against her lowest ribs.
“I hate you,” she breathes into my mouth, her tears salty as they trail down her cheeks to our lips. Her fingers thread through my hair. “I hate you so much.”
“I know.” My voice has gone rough enough that even I do not recognize it.
I take three steps and lower her onto the bed, easing her down on the pillows. I should stop right now. This is the right moment to leave this room before I make a mistake I can’t undo. My body begins to pull away, but she yanks me back, kissing me fiercely.
“You’re a bastard.”
Tears cling to her eyelashes, and she looks so damn beautiful. I kiss her again. I kiss her until the tears stop, until her hand drops from my hair and slides down to the side of my throat instead, her thumb pressing against my pulse like she needs to feel it hammer.
I have wanted this ever since I can remember. I have wanted it through every restless night, every cold shower, every meeting where I sat across from her and pretended my skin was not on fire just from sharing the air with her.
I am done pretending.
“Tell me to stop.” I drag my mouth down her jaw. The skin under her ear is so sweet, my teeth ache. “Sienna, tell me to stop right now.”
Just one word from her, and I won’t doom both of us.
“Don’t.” Her hand grips the back of my neck. “Don’t you dare stop.”
The smell of her skin hits me again: the healer’s salve, the soap his assistant used on her, her own scent underneath all of it. My wolf comes roaring up out of wherever he has been hiding for days. He fills my chest. He fills my hands.
I pull her shirt up over her head carefully, mindful of the shoulder wound that has only just closed. There’s a new pinkscar shining on her side. I press my mouth to it. She makes a small sound, and her hand fists in my hair.
I do not stop there.
I pull my mouth across the slope of her ribs. Down the soft plane of her stomach. She arches up off the bed, pulling my hair harder, almost cruelly. I take the burn at my scalp and let it feed that thing low inside me that has been starving for weeks.
I strip the shorts off her in one rough pull. Her hips lift to help me. My hands shake when they grip her thighs and spread them apart.
She is wet for me already. Drenched. The scent of her hits me hard enough to make my vision blur at the edges. My wolf snarls so loudly inside my chest, I half expect her to hear it.