swirled inside her and an ache formed, a desperate need only he could ease.
A flicker of a frown danced on his eyebrows, there and gone in a heartbeat, and then he dipped his head and captured her mouth.
Fire swept through her as he claimed her lips, his kiss possessive and fierce, dominant in a way that had her melting into him, on the verge of clawing at him as a need for more crashed over her. She leaned into the kiss, lost herself in it as his heat and his taste branded itself on her mind, as it roused a wicked urge to claw him anyway, to dominate him and stake a claim on him. She moaned and trembled, every inch of her quivering as he gathered her closer, as their tongues brushed and tangled.
She gasped at air, a little dizzy and wild with a hunger for more, as he pulled back on a curse.
“That was…” he mumbled, sounding unsure of himself, or perhaps he just felt as off-balance as she did as she swayed in his arms, hazy all over. “I hadn’t expected that.”
She tingled all over, aching for more as she murmured, “That was some first kiss.”
He tensed.
Holly’s eyes shot open, shock sweeping through her too, fear colliding with it.
“A first kiss for us… is what I meant. That was some first kiss for us.” The words rushed from her, but she could see in his wide eyes that the truth was out there now.
He knew.
Her thoughts tangled and twisted into a blur as she stared at him, wanting to say something, to show him it wasn’t a big deal, even when she knew it was.
“You can’t miss the celebration.” Ivy grabbed her arm, making her jump and blink, and throw a thank you to the gods as Ivy pulled her back into the tent. “You can play with the bear later.”
Oh gods.
Holly glanced back at Saint, seared by the fire in his eyes.
She wanted that so badly.
Chapter 19
Saint was undone.
He couldn’t move, could only stare after Holly as Ivy pulled her into the crowd, as his beautiful blushing female kept glancing his way, a flicker of nerves in her grey-green eyes. He couldn’t think straight, could only repeat one thing in his head, over and over again, trying to make it sink in. Unable to believe it.
Holly was a virgin.
Untouched by any male.
A virgin.
Knox waggled a bottle of beer in his face. “You look like you need this.”
Saint shook himself and grabbed the bottle, lifted it to his lips and drank it down in one go.
Beside him, Knox chuckled. “I admit, she does look stunning in that little number.”
Saint growled at him, flashing fangs as an urge to rip his head off shot through him. Around them, several cougars fell silent and backed away. Knox held his hands up beside his head, his own bottle of beer dangling from the fingers of his right hand.
“Fair enough. I won’t compliment her again.” Knox was quick to back off a step when Saint growled again, just the thought of Knox looking at her enough to have him wanting to throttle the male, and then lash out at every unmated cougar in the area.
Knox went to the buckets and grabbed him another beer, looked at it and then grabbed a second. He came back to Saint and held both out to him.
“Not sure it’ll help my mood,” Saint grumbled but took the beers anyway, exchanging his empty one for them. He swigged the first one as Knox disposed of their empties and came back to him.
“You want to talk?” Knox shrugged when Saint growled low at him again. “Or not. We could just stand here drinking beer. Although, I’m feeling like the local freak a little.”
Saint didn’t like the way the cougars kept stopping to stare at them either.
“You think Lowe is all right?” Knox’s tone gained a worried note as he stared into the tent. He took a long pull on his beer and sighed, his blue gaze shifting to his right, towards the Ridge. “Not sure what the deal is with this human.”
Saint wasn’t either, but he was determined to find out. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I wanted to have a word with him before we came here, but your brother was… confrontational.”
Something he usually left to Knox.
Knox took another long drink of his beer, his dark blond eyebrows meeting hard as he glared into the marquee. He was worried about Lowe, and so was Saint. Although