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A gorgeous expanse of golden skin lay before me, his cock standing out of a thatch of short-trimmed black curls. I groaned as I took him in. “I want to fucking devour you.”

Dakota was breathing hard, even before I kicked off my Oxfords, shed my trousers and left them in a heap on the floor. Between one moment and the next, I bore myself to him and pressed my knee onto the mattress between his legs.

He wiggled farther up the bed, but he wasn’t trying to get away. He reached for me desperately, and I was all too eager to follow. The way up gave me the chance to drag my lips across his skin. I kissed across his ribcage, sucked one pert brown nipple into my mouth, and teased his neck before I found his mouth again.

I could spend all night tasting every inch of him.

But the longer we kissed, the more obvious it became that something was the matter.

Dakota’s hitched breaths turned desperate. He wouldn’t look directly at me. His scent was aroused, sure, but there was more to it—a wrongness.

A sour, heavy stone dropped in my stomach as I leaned back. Was he regretting coming home with me already? I’d thought things were going... well, they were certainly going in the direction I wanted them to.

Leave it to a mage to get cold feet.

“You’re nervous.”

He gulped. “I’m not nervous.”

If I rolled my eyes at him, this was going to end before we got to the good part, but damn it, it took every ounce of self-control I had. What was the goddamn point in pretending a werewolf couldn’t tell you were nervous? Even if they weren’t acting like it, a person’s scent turned slightly acrid. We could hear when their pulse began to race.

Even a mage would know that, especially one bold enough to march into Howl.

“Youare.” I knew what they said about us—we were beasts, untrustworthy and ungovernable, wild and dangerous. I... would have to try not to take it personally, if he’d heard those things, but already, my armor was creeping up. “Dakota, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know that.”

But the spike in his anxiety was coming from somewhere. If he wasn’t sure, we couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t.

“You say the word, and I’ll stop, no questions.”

Another rush of panic from him, this one stronger than the last.

“Don’t stop!” He gripped my shoulders hard and pulled me down. He... wanted me?

I frowned, bracing to hold my weight off him even as he tried to drag me into another kiss. Obviously, I was missing something. He’d clearly come to Howl with one thing on his mind.

“Okay.” I set my palm against his cheek, felt his smooth skin beneath my fingers, and held there. After a shaky breath, he pressed into my hand, and I felt a little better. If nothing else, my touch seemed to comfort him. I wanted that. Being an alpha meant being a source of safety for the people around you. Dakota might be a mage, but I wanted to make him comfortable. “Can you just... tell me what’s going on? I want to understand.”

More importantly, my wolf didn’t like the thought of forcing anybody, mistreating pack.

No, he wasn’tactuallypack, but while Dakota was in my bed, he was still under my care. The same rules applied.

The tip of his tongue ran across his teeth. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Had sex with someone like me?” That wasn’t all that surprising. I’d never been with a mage either. It wasn’t something commonly done, and not as brazenly as Dakota had been, walking into Howl that night.

Disappointment still twisted in my gut. He’d wanted one of us, and while it wasn’t that surprising that he’d hesitate at the finish line, I would’ve hoped to win him over enough that my species factor.

An edgy laugh escaped him. “More like... had sex.”

That—

What?

He was a virgin, sure, but that didn’t matter to me. We’d all been virgins once, and I wasn’t about to judge someone on how much experience they had or didn’t have.

It was just...