Page 38 of The Alpha Dire Wolf (Bloodlines & Bloodbonds #1)

“What are you doing?” I whispered, shivering as his breath caressed my exposed neck, lifting hairs as it went.

“What I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” he growled. “The exact same thing you want. You try to deny it out loud, but …”

I whimpered as he kissed my neck and then bent forward to try to slip free. All that did was press my half-exposed ass right against his groin. His muscles weren’t the only hard thing about him.

“You can leave if you want to,” he said, his arms loosening just enough that I could slip free.

If I wanted.

“I won’t stop you.” He spoke into my ear once more. “I won’t force it, but you have to tell me that walking away is something you truly desire, Vee. But I don’t think it is.”

“Why not?” I asked, trying to summon the will to do just that, to walk away.

“Because you want me too.” His growl was deeper, filling the room with a desire he was barely keeping restrained.

A desire for me.

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I can feel it, you know. In the way you tremble at my touch.” A hand slid down, across my stomach one heart-stopping inch at a time, pausing just below my waistline.

I stiffened. His fingertips were getting precariously close to somewhere very sensitive.

“I can see it in your eyes,” he added, his teeth nipping at the bared, sensitive skin of my neck, making me inhale sharp and fast in surprise.

“And I hear it, in the tremble of your voice.”

His tongue slid up my neck, hitting every sensitive spot along the way as he paused to suck ever so gently at his final destination. I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop myself. I moaned.

My limbs were shaking, my heart doing its best to explode from overuse. And below my waist, a ball of coiled heat began to pulse with unanswered need.

Lincoln’s fingers dipped a little lower as my hips moved without permission, pressing back into him.

It was a fraction of an inch. A few hairs.

But it happened. It was all the answer he needed.

Bringing his other hand up, he caressed my breast through the shirt, easily finding the tip and softly pinching it.

My moan was louder this time. Heated. I ground back against him harder now, inviting more. He pushed his fingers between my pants and my skin, sinking lower and finding me wet and waiting. My head fell back against his shoulder as I gasped. He was so warm. His touch burned in all the right ways.

It was a torment, waiting for him to reach ever so lower. His hand entirely on me now, his fingers circling, exploring, teasing. I writhed in his grip, held firm, pinned between his arms and his body. It was exactly where I wanted to be.

He slid a finger inside easily and then another.

His thumb curled around and brushed against the outside, finding that most sensitive of areas.

Touching it. Touching me . I was breathing hard already, my hips thrusting of their own accord, trying to swallow more of his fingers.

I was silently begging him to continue, to bring me the pleasure he had promised … that I longed for.

But he was slow. His teeth nipped at my exposed neck, bringing fresh shudders through my body as the shivers crept down my spine, arching it out and way, only for his biceps to flex and pull me back. Overpowering me. Holding me firm.

“Oh, fuck,” I gasped, biting down on his arm as his thumb brushed against me again.

And again. And again. He was doing it on purpose now.

I was flushed and breathing hard, my muscles tensing and eyes closed, hyperaware of every part of him pressed against every part of me.

Everything screamed out for more . Every nerve ending was overstimulated, neurons firing in my brain out of my control.

My scream came without warning as the tidal wave of pressure his hands had been building was finally unleashed, surging through my body in one spasm after another.

I came hard and fast, the force of it driving air from my lungs and thought from my brain.

There was only brilliant ecstasy as his hand continued to ply its trade.

It didn’t stop. We weren’t at the end. Not yet.

A second orgasm burst from between my legs. I squirmed and moaned, hunching forward, my body struggling to accept the pummeling of golden pleasure working its way from my core out to the tips of my fingers and toes, warming me from the inside while clouding my thoughts with murky fog.

It was good. Too good? No. That wasn’t a thing. Just better than I’d had in a long, long time, a reminder of what it was like.

“I told you that you wanted me,” he whispered in my ear as I recovered my wits one painstaking breath at a time.

He wasn’t wrong. I did want it. I wanted him . Badly. I wanted him to rip the clothes from my body and push me down right there, my ass in the air, my face on the floor, his hands on my hips pulling me back against him until he howled with his own pleasure.

Howled.

A cold wave of air brought me back to reality. I wanted him, yes.

Except as I was discovering, I barely knew him.

“Wait,” I said suddenly, grabbing his hand before it could remove my shirt and holding it still.

“What is it?” Lincoln immediately pulled back, though he didn’t withdraw.

“I-I’m not saying I don’t want more,” I told him, turning to face him, to look him in the eyes. “I think we both know I can’t say that. Not after …”

“But …”

“But,” I echoed, nodding. “But I don’t want it right now , Linc. Too much has happened. I just discovered you’re not even really human. I’m sorry for leaving you like, you know, but I can’t go further. Not yet. I need to know you first. The real you.”

“I’m the same person I was before. This hasn’t been an act,” he said, but his hands fell to his sides, and his voice was no longer laced with the heat of a thousand pleasurable promises.

“I need to know that,” I told him.

Lincoln looked at me warily, rightly suspicious that I had something specific in mind.

“What do you want?” he asked. “If I can, I’ll give it to you. I’ll make it happen.”

I licked my lips, not entirely sure this was my smartest idea ever, but at the same time knowing full well it’s what I needed. “I want you to show me who you really are, Lincoln. I want you to take me to your home.”