Page 11

A lina

The second his lips collide with mine, something inside me shatters.

It’s overwhelming and incredible, the way I melt into the ferocious pressure of his mouth on mine.

His lips are warm, almost feverish, and they turn my blood into liquid fire.

There is no gentleness in the way he captures me in this kiss, and I can’t help but respond to him with the same degree of desperation.

Or maybe shatter isn’t the right word, because I’ve already been broken beyond repair for ten years now. It’s more like something unravels, unspools, untethers itself from the tangle of knots that I’ve woven inside myself. Knots made of anxiety and desperation and heartbreak.

With one kiss, Rowan undoes all of that.

At least, it feels like he does.

Deep down, I know that I’m still a mess. But, in this moment, I’ve never felt more perfectly whole.

The kiss is fierce and forceful, the tender fury of an Alpha unable to resist his instincts tinging it with something ravenous. It’s the opposite of the first time we kissed, which was gentle and shy…until it wa sn’t. Until we were overcome with a frenzy that made us forget reason and logic.

I don’t think about the past, though.

All I can focus on is him, right now, right here.

The worst part, though, is that I don’t even hesitate to kiss him back. My body responds automatically to his touch, echoing his passion with such fervor that it’s almost like I’d been expecting him to do this from the moment I opened the door and saw him standing at the threshold.

The wolf inside me comes alive under his touch, causing me to claw at him like I can’t get close enough. I am no longer a person with rational thoughts, but a ravenous creature that wants to be free and wild with him.

Rowan backs me into the counter, pressing his hips against mine.

I cling to his shoulders, digging my fingernails into his skin through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.

I want to claw at it, to shred it to pieces so that I can taste the smooth flesh underneath, but there’s a voice in the back of my head that screams just loudly enough for me to remember that our son is just upstairs.

Now is not the time to rip Rowan’s clothes off.

He groans into my mouth, the sound so low and primal that it sends my heart skittering into an uneven beat.

The bond shimmers, tattered threads stretching and expanding.

I need to stop this. I need to remember why he’s here, and why I swore I’d hate him for as long as I live.

Instead, I roll my hips against his, feeling the firm press of his erection through the fabric of his jeans. It takes no time at all for him to be rock hard and ready for his Mate, rejected bond be damned.

Rowan tilts his head, slipping his tongue between my lips and deepening the kiss. At the taste of him, I can’t hold back a breathy whimper. The sound of it does something to him. His muscles tense, and his grip on my waist tightens toward the boundary between pleasure and pain.

He’s trembling. I’m shaking, too.

It’s too much. I forgot it would be like this. That to touch him would feel like the world was simultaneously falling apart and being built anew all at once.

How could we have been so stupid when we were young? How could we have not seen it right away?

Would it have changed anything? Does it even matter?

I drag my teeth along his bottom lip. He lets out a greedy snarl and, in one quick motion that I don’t anticipate, lifts me off the ground, twists around, and sets me down on the edge of the kitchen table.

I catch a glimpse of his vicious, single-minded gaze as he drops his head to the curve of my throat and suckles what will soon be a bruise into the delicate skin of my neck.

I bite my lip to muffle the whimper that threatens to escape me, wrapping my legs around his waist tightly.

“Rowan,” I gasp. “Rowan, we—we can’t.”

Even as I say it, my mind offers me images fueled by the howling Mating bond.

It yearns to be reconnected, to be accepted, and it wants us to commit the final act to secure it back together.

It wants us to Mate, and therefore, I can only think of how incredible it would be to feel him inside me.

To give in to my base instincts and let my animal nature take over.

In my head, I throw caution to the wind and let him rip my clothes off.

In my head, he bends me over the table and takes me with unforgiving thrusts that make me forget my own name.

But, in reality, I know that can’t happen.

“We can,” he grunts into the warm skin just beneath my ear. I feel his teeth scrape against my earlobe, causing me to shiver. “Let me—fuck, Alina, let me show you how much I…I can’t even think straight, I want you so bad.”

How much he what? What was he going to say?

I pull back from him, breathing fast. He allows only inches of distance between us, hooking one hand under my thigh to keep my leg wrapped around his hips.

“Noah is upstairs,” I remind him.

“We’re being quiet, aren't we?”

I give him a look. Pump the brakes, a voice screams in the back of my mind. Put an end to this before it can go too far.

Recklessness takes over, though. It just feels too good to be close to him. It feels so painfully right to be overwhelmed with his scent .

“Rowan…”

His pupils are blown, making his eyes look nearly black. He’s barely keeping a hold of his control, and it doesn’t help that I just sighed his name like that.

“Let me taste you,” he breathes.

Was he not just kissing my mouth? My neck? What else could he possibly want to taste?

My stomach flips when I realize what he means.

“Our son is—”

“Upstairs, yes. Stop using him as an excuse. I can hear him up there, and he’s fully absorbed in his music, headphones on. We’re alone right now.”

I swallow hard. My head spins. Let me taste you.

It’s been so long since I’ve been touched like this. Since I’ve been savored on his tongue. The wolf within growls with need, filling my veins with hot impatience that he isn’t already devouring me.

Goosebumps prickle on my arms. Still a little breathless, I reach up and brush a stray strand of dark hair off his forehead.

This is the part where I extricate myself from his arms. Where I put my foot down and revisit the earlier argument. This is the part when I’m practical and reasonable, where I remember my own sense of self-respect.

Instead, I shiver lightly and tangle my fingers in his hair, pulling his lips back to mine. Rowan moans in the back of his throat. Heat pulses between my thighs.

“Alina…”

“Yes,” I whisper against his mouth. “Please.”

With my consent granted, Rowan doesn’t hesitate. His hands slip from my waist, his fingers hooking into the tight band of my leggings. I lean back on my hands to lift my hips off the table. He peels them off, taking my underwear with them.

As soon as Rowan lowers himself to his knees and tugs my hips to the very edge of the table, I know that thinking coherently is no longer an option.

My chest heaves as if I’ve just run miles through the forest. I gaze down at him, watching as he props my thighs on his broad shoulders and then turns his face to press a kiss to my inner thigh.

“Look at you,” he croons. “Look how wet you are for me.”

Obviously, the wolf snarls from inside my very soul. Our bodies exist to be enjoyed by each other. I was made for you, just as you are made for me. Of course I respond to you this willingly, so pliant and needy from little more than a kiss.

Instead, I moan.

“Shh,” he murmurs, the hint of a laugh in his voice.

He ducks his head, lapping his tongue against my center. I toss my head back, relishing the way his body rumbles with a low groan.

Rowan is merciless with the strokes of his tongue, favoring efficiency over drawing this out. I have to clap a hand over my mouth to muffle the sounds that escape me against my best efforts.

It’s too much and not enough all at once.

His tongue swirls expertly, and then he suckles with just the right amount of pressure.

I squirm, approaching my climax at a breakneck pace.

I have to bite the skin of my palm to keep myself quiet when he slides one finger inside me and crooks it at just the right angle, still working my clit with his tongue as if he’s never tasted anything more delicious in his life.

He’s too good at this. He knows exactly how to touch me.

Almost as if he’s had a lot of practice with this. As if, during the years of separated, he’s gained ample experience.

The thought makes my blood run cold. Harsh, icy reality hits me at the exact time my orgasm does. I writhe against him as a deluge of pleasure takes over, but not even that can keep the tide of horror that’s sweeping in underneath it all.

When the waves ebb, Rowan sits back on his heels and gazes up at me. His lips are wet with…with me…and the sight of it should turn me on all over again, but there’s dread simmering in the pit of my stomach now.

On shaky legs, I slip off the table and nudge him away.

Rowan brought me over the edge with the kind of precision that can only be gained through hands-on learning. Which can only mean one thing—he has been intimate with other women during the past decade .

Of course, he has. He’s an Alpha male. He has certain needs. And he rejected me, anyway. He thought he’d never see me again. The mere thought that he’d choose celibacy is…ridiculous.

And yet, the realization feels like a punch to the gut.

Rowan rises to his feet slowly, still dark-eyed and caught up in the heat of the moment. I move around him and retrieve my leggings from the floor, tugging them back on quickly.

“Alina?”

I take a deep breath. “How many others?”

A beat of silence. “What?”

Trying not to let him see how feral the thought of him being with other women makes me, I swallow hard and turn to face him.

“How many other females have you taken to bed since you rejected me?”

Rowan stumbles back a step as if I’ve struck him. His dilated pupils shrink back to normal, human size. A bitterness creeps into his scent that tells me I’ve managed to kill the mood with a single question.

“Just answer the question. Please.”

He furrows his brow. Hurt colors his expression and, if I didn’t know any better, I might think I’ve just hurled a nasty insult at him.

Maybe I have.

“Do you really think I would do that?” he murmurs.

He tries to take a step toward me, but I move away and wrap my arms protectively around myself.

“Why wouldn’t you?” I snap back.

Rowan shakes his head. “Alina, it’s been years. I haven’t touched anyone but you. I haven’t wanted to touch anyone else. How can you believe otherwise?”

“What do you mean, how? You rejected me.”

But all he does is continue to shake his head. “You don’t understand, do you? You’re my Mate, Alina. Rejection or not, you are the only one I will ever truly want. It sickens me to think of being with someone else.”

Such sweet, honeyed words. Exactly what I want to hear. They would be so easy to believe.

It would be so easy to trust him .

I take a deep breath. “I think you should go. What just happened—it was a mistake.”

Again, he tries to close the distance between us. My lips are swollen from his kiss, my center still aching for more of his touch. I shove all those feelings away and steel my spine.

“I understand that the Blackburns are a threat,” I tell him as calmly as I can, even as I feel myself crumbling apart. “And I appreciate that you would come here to warn us.”

“You have to—”

“I’m speaking,” I interrupt firmly. Rowan swallows hard, struggling to bow to his would-be Luna’s ferocity.

And yet, he nods his head in a gesture for me to continue.

“You cannot pick and choose who to love,” I continue.

“You can’t reject me, yet claim Noah as your son.

It’s either both of us or neither of us, and since you’ve made no indication that you wish to take back your rejection of the bond, then I’m afraid there is no version of reality where we will be going with you back to Greenbriar territory. ”

“That’s not what I want. I never wanted to reject my own Mate.”

“And yet you did. And you still do. Can you really look me in the eyes and tell me you’re willing to ignore Kseniya’s prophecy?”

When Rowan looks away, I have my answer.

“I think you should go,” I whisper.

He flinches, but he doesn’t put up a fight as I jerk my chin toward the door.

That’s the problem, after all. Rowan has never fought for me.