Page 24 of The Alpha Dire Wolf (Bloodlines & Bloodbonds #1)

Sylvie

P anic draped over me like a wet sheet, clinging to every inch of my body and locking down my joints and muscles. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. I could barely force my body to breathe. Each aching lungful came in protest.

I had never planned on kissing Lincoln, but I’d just been so darn mad and desperate to get rid of Caidyn that I lost control. Which had nothing to do with the fact Lincoln had been about to kiss me before my ex showed up.

Now, the outlandish fantasy that had only ever been allowed to exist in the back of my head had played out.

Not only that, but Lincoln wasn’t satisfied with my hasty action.

He wanted more. More of me . And he was staring right at me, waiting to hear whether he could have it.

Not answering wasn’t an option. I had to do something . But what? I needed more time.

Stall. That was it. Stall, and … throw it back at him?

Crossing my arms, I stared him down, trying to fake some confidence until I could feel it for real. “Kiss me properly?”

Lincoln nodded.

“Just what are you trying to say with that?” I demanded. “Is this some sort of insinuation that I’m a bad kisser? That I didn’t somehow kiss you properly, and only you can do it right?”

His eyes twinkled wickedly in the overhead light. “No to the first,” he rumbled. “A partial yes to the second.”

I questioned him without words, letting my eyebrows do the talking.

“You didn’t know what you were doing. It was a frantic response. I certainly didn’t think you were capable of doing something so … outlandish.”

Could he read my mind?

“Safe to say,” he continued, “we were all shocked. Me the most, but I’m more than okay with that, given the result.”

He winked at me, which did terribly good things to that spot below my waist, right between my legs.

A spot I was trying desperately to ignore, to pretend didn’t exist at that moment.

Thinking clearly would be easier. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so simple.

Try as I might, the slow dull pulsing grew stronger by the second.

“Lincoln,” I said slowly, desperate to interject some semblance of control.

“Yes?” he drawled with lazy confidence, knowing full well he had me in his palm, no matter what I was going to say.

“You are aware that the guy I just kicked out—”

He cleared his throat emphatically. I glared.

“The guy you just kicked out,” I corrected to a nod, “was my ex-boyfriend. Right? The one that I broke up with on the day I found out my grandmother was dead, and her funeral was later that day? All of which happened just this week alone.”

Lincoln wasn’t fazed. I hadn’t held out much hope he would be, but I had to try.

“I wasn’t aware of the timeline. But I had heard it mentioned briefly in passing during his visit that you two had dated, yes.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s most definitely past tense.” Shaking my head, trying to refocus, I pushed on. “The point I’m trying to make is that I just exited a long-term relationship days ago, and in a most messy way. I’m not looking. I’m not ready.”

“You’re not ready,” Lincoln countered, “because you think it will be more of the same. That anything you get will be just as mediocre, and not great. You deserve greatness.”

I licked my lips, uncomfortable at his seriousness. “Um, thank you. I agree.”

“Good,” he said with a sharp, short nod. “Because that’s what I’m going to give you.”

“Huh?”

“Greatness. I am going to give you what you deserve. Every hour, of every day, I am going to show you why you deserve nothing but the absolute best. Then I’m going to make sure you get it.

No matter what it takes. The things you aren’t even aware you deserve …

I will give them to you. And I’m going to prove it, starting with a kiss. ”

At some point during his little speech the bottom of my stomach fell out. “I’m, um, I’m not looking for anything,” I managed to force out in a tiny whisper, knowing full well I had to say it that way, and not that I wasn’t interested.

Because I was. I was beyond interested. I wanted. Badly.

Lincoln shook his head slowly, his mismatched eyes ablaze. “We both know you wouldn’t have kissed me like that if the idea wasn’t already in your head, Sylvie.”

He took a step forward.

The room shrank. My jaw quivered. I tried to retreat, to step back from him, but the floor was suddenly glue, pinning my feet in place despite the frantic calls coming from the one remaining part of my brain that worked. The intrigue promised in his words was too great.

“I’ve been thinking about kissing you,” he growled, taking another step forward and entering my personal space.

“ Oh ,” I whimpered. “Y-you have?”

He nodded slowly, never breaking eye contact. Blue and gold circles burned brightly, hypnotizing in their difference. “I’ve thought of kissing you many times. In many different ways. Each one would give you what you deserve. What you crave.”

My blood burned hotter with every word tumbling from his lips. The air in the room shimmered like a desert mirage.

“We’ve been down this path, Sylvie.”

A tiny exhale slipped from between parched lips. A crack in my defenses as he said my name, the sound pleasing to the ears. Pleasurable.

“You feel it.”

He was right in front of me now. Practically touching. Invading my space. Conquering it. The next step after that was reaping the rewards. Was I his reward?

“I feel it too,” he rumbled deep and gravelly, nearly caving my knees in with that admittance of his own wants. His own needs.

Me. I was what he wanted. What he desired.

“This is just the next natural step.” His hand came up to caress my jaw, tilting my head upward ever so slowly while he stopped my heart.

I fought against the shiver that sped down my spine when he brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers. Tender. Gentle. Dominating. He was making me his without forcing a thing.

Now that was power.

“All I’m saying is I want a chance to show you how I would do it.”

“You really know how to woo a girl,” I said in a rush, somehow finding a bit of a backbone that he hadn’t blown aside just yet. “Insulting her ability to kiss well just makes her want to do it again really bad. How did you know?”

Lincoln smiled widely, like a wolf about to devour its prey. “If you’re so upset and insulted by what I’m saying, blaming it all on the shock and anger, come on up here and show me how you really kiss,” he taunted, pressing a finger to his lips.

It was my turn to laugh. “You can’t honestly believe I’m that gullible. Can you?”

“No. But it was worth a try, wasn’t it?”

I licked my lips.

Crap. Why did I do that? Why did I make them ready to be kissed while he could easily see? Stupid. That was stupid.

“I guess it wasn’t the worst attempt in the history of bad attempts,” I caved.

“Last chance to back out then,” he all but purred, once more cupping my jaw in his hand.

His grip was firm and commanding but not restrictive. Despite the predatory prowl, the billboard-sized proclamation of intent, he was still giving me a way out if I wanted it.

Lincoln was going to take, but he wasn’t going to force it on me.

And I didn’t step back.

His lips curled up in wicked delight, and then he bent over and kissed me.

Hard. Firm. But somehow soft and full of desire at the same time.

Heat seared through my brain as he kissed me, so very differently than the way I’d done it to him mere minutes earlier.

This was a triumphant howl of victory, sealed between our lips, even as I rose on tiptoe to meet him.

Fresh hormonal chemicals took over, lighting me on fire from head to toe, his touch the ignition source.

I couldn’t fight it. I didn’t want to fight it.

What I wanted was him. All of him. His lips were scalding hot yet soft and full as he covered my mouth with the perfect amount of aggression.

I surrendered, nanosecond by nanosecond, sinking deep into whoever, and whatever, Lincoln was. Whatever this was.

Arms moved, fingers grasped flesh, and suddenly I was airborne, my legs wrapping round his waist out of pure instinct.

Muscles made of wound titanium held me aloft, my fingertips sinking into his biceps and feeling the power contained in there as he didn’t even quiver with the effort to hold me aloft.

He pulled back a fraction of an inch, forcing me to lean in deeper to him. Caving, revealing that I wanted it too. I was under attack, and on every front, I surrendered to his advances without a fight. I flung the walls open, and he marched in.

The kiss lengthened and deepened as his tongue parted my lips, conquering yet more territory. As he did, a single thought fluttered across my mind like a banner falling from the castle tower in defeat.

I am in so much trouble.

Whoever Lincoln truly was, whatever he truly wanted, there was no way I was stopping him.

Not now. If he wanted to take me to the bed, or the couch, or even the counter right next to us, I was powerless.

That assumed I even wanted to stop him. That was why I was in trouble.

Because I couldn’t differentiate needs from wants from desires. They were all a blur. A mess.

My body was crying out with need now. Sensitive tips rubbed against my undergarments, and vicious heat coiled like a serpent between my legs, burning brightly with a need to be released. To be satiated.

The intensity of it all was wildly out of line for being a kiss.

A great kiss, as promised, but a kiss nonetheless.

What did it mean? I didn’t know. Stringing two coherent thoughts together was impossible with the way his fingers effortlessly curled around my legs, holding me tightly to him like I was a feather.

A flash of guilt at the ease with which he’d seduced me flickered through my brain. Was I really the type to just jump into bed with the first guy who showed interest?

Then again, is Lincoln really “just another guy”?

The answer to that question scared me enough to break the seal and put the moment on hold. Cold slivers of fear breached my stomach. Fear at how easily I’d surrendered, and how much more I wanted, but also at the intensity of how much more I wanted.

“You need to go,” I whispered through heat-scorched lips and a parched throat. “Now, please.”

Lincoln immediately set me down, and I braced myself for the fight. For the insistence he stay, that it was okay, that he could behave, and a list of all the myriad other tricks men played to convince a woman to let them back in.

He looked me up and down once and then nodded. “Okay,” he said evenly without a hint of protest. “I’ll go. But I need to know first. Did I hurt you? Did I take something that you didn’t give?”

Relief flowed through me like fresh rains down a dry creek bed at his concern. “No, Linc, nothing like that. It’s just—”

He pressed a finger to my lips. “You never have to justify yourself to me, Sylvie. Ever . Your reasons are your own, and that’s okay. I just had to be sure.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say.

Lincoln took a deep breath and smiled, backing up a step toward the door. “Thank you for an incredible evening, it was …” He paused, searching for words, but then shook his head. “It was.”

He spun and headed for the door, pulling it open. But then he paused and reached into his pocket for his phone. “Here,” he said, handing it to me.

I looked at the screen to see a new contact page.

“I promise, I won’t text unless you text me. But this seems easier than waiting in your grandmother’s house for you to get back from wherever you’ve been.”

Blowing air from my nose, I considered for a moment. Then I took the phone, punched my number in, and handed it back. Lincoln looked at it, saved it, and then sent me a message with the single word “hi.” My phone pinged.

“You know,” I said as he strode through the doorway and stopped at the top of the porch stairs. “You could always try this wild new thing where you just come up those stairs right in front of you, knock on the door, and wait for me to answer before you go inside.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said with a wink and a smile. Then his face grew solemn. “By the way. Just because I’m leaving now doesn’t mean you can deny what just happened between us. I know you felt it too, Vee.”

Then he was gone.