ghosts over hers. She softens against me, eager for my lips on hers, and I know she craves me. Fuck, I consider stripping her and fucking her here and now, my hardening cock a painful reminder that with any other female, I wouldn’t have hesitated as much as I do with Narah.
Her lips part, and as my erection twitches against her stomach, her breathing hitches. Such a perfect sound.
And this here is why I’ve kept my distance. Mixing pleasure and business never works out… first I get what I want from this mission, then I’ll take what I’ve longed for from her. I can’t let my thoughts go there just yet.
She watches me with worry, with lust… her emotions are all over the place.
“Trust me, Narah, when I’m torturing you, you will be very aware of it.”
Her breasts are pressed against my chest, and it’s hard to focus on anything else but her unspoken need for my torture… my cock, more precisely. I feel the pounding of her heart, watch the fear in her eyes, sense the desire in her trembling body. Everything about her riles me up, awakening my wolf, and it takes more effort than it should to stop from making her mine.
A snarl breaks from my chest, and as if that gives her the wake-up call she needs, she drives her hands against my bare chest. Heat pours from her and across my skin.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I’m a Cursed, nothing freaking more.”
“Then how did you kill the tree goddesses?”
She stiffens in my arms, and my cock twitches at the most inappropriate time. “No, they were just animated trees,” she rebuts. “Controlled like puppets by the witches.”
“Those were not mere trees, my little fox, and deep inside you must know that. The only person I’ve heard capable of using fire magic was a witch coven elder. So, who exactly are you? I don’t take well to being lied to.”
She holds her head high, water dripping down her nose and cheeks from her wet hair. She is stunning, and I curse her beauty.
“I never lied, because we never spoke about my ability. All you cared about was that I could take you through the woods with magic. That’s it. Now get the hell off me.”
My grip tightens, and a frustrated growl rolls past my lips. I’m torn between wanting to force her to tell me the truth, knowing she will hate me for it, and letting this go, trusting her. But how can I do that when there is so much at risk?
Her gaze floods with fury, and already the fire to her body intensifies. My pulse picks up at the notion of what she is capable of, but I won’t back down.
“You so much as touch me with your magic, little fox, and we will have a big problem on our hands.”
The blaze between us remains, like she is provoking me on purpose, and I love her tenacity.
I grab her jaw and hold her close to me, our bodies plastered. “While on this mission, you are mine. Now, talk.”
She looks me in the eyes, and beneath the anger, I sense her trepidation. She’s scared of what she’s done but insists on putting on a brave face, on not letting down her guard. Her small body shakes against me, and I scoop an arm across her back, holding her still.
“What do you want to hear?” Her voice grows brittle, and I soften my hold. “My father was a wolf, and my mother a Cursed. They’re dead now, and that’s all I know of my family line. So how can I tell you what I am when I have not a fucking clue myself? And you want to know the truth? What happened back in the woods scared the hell out of me too. I’ve never done that before.”
She trembles harshly now, her lips paling from the cold water, and any self-control I had evaporates. My mind swims with her response, and it seems my earlier observation was accurate. She’s still working her way around magic, except what she carries in her veins is a lot more dangerous than any of us could have guessed.
“We will work on this together, and I give you my word, Narah, that I will help you uncover your abilities safely.” I release her to show her I am a man of my word, and she rears back as if I’ve struck her.
“You have a brutish way of