earth, fur, the blood of prey, the fast-running sap of summer trees. But then it settles on that something else underlying it all, the granite and moss, hard stone covered with fragile life, that is Evie.
“And am I?” I choke out.
“Yes,” she says, pulling away, her eyes shielded, voice suddenly distant. “But then every unattached male wants to cover the Alpha.”
A frog squawks into the night as I take her chin in my hand, kiss her between the eyebrows, and stride away fast, looking for a tree as big and thick as I am. Leaning against it, I strip off the damp boxers, then take my overfull cock with the other. It feels impossibly heavy even to the companion of lone nights in sterile hotels. I begin the stroke, so primed and tightly wound that my back arches and my eyes close before I reach the root.
“And what kind of wolf would rather masturbate than fuck the Alpha?”
Her arms are crossed in front of her, her expression hard. In the low light, her eyes burn like embers. There’s a rawness to the word fuck. I suppose that’s why it is the most popular expletive, but in her voice, it scrapes like a match on my combustible skin.
“I am not a wolf. And I do not want to fuck the Alpha.”
“It certainly seems like it.” She looks pointedly at my erection.
“Words may not be everything, but they are something,” I show her my fingers wrapped around my cock. “I don’t want to fuck the Alpha.” I squeeze tighter. “I want to taste your mouth.” I slide down. “I want to tongue your breasts.” I reach the border between pain and pleasure. “I want to touch you until you think your skin is going to split from feeling it.” I slide my hand up again. “Then I want you to come saying my name.” I slide my hand down one last time.
“Like I do.”
—
“Evie.”
I was teetering so close that all it took was groaning her name. I lean my forehead against the rough bark and in long, throbbing bursts find my release.
“I don’t want to fuck the Alpha.” I stare at the pale stripes against the dark wood. “I want to make love to Evie.”
She silently repeats her name, her lower lip sliding under her front teeth at that seductive “vee.”
After an endless moment, she takes a deep breath.
“Constantine?” she says, exhaling the whole unwieldy length of it.
Pack are constantly stripping but when Evie stands here, arms outstretched, she is bare beyond naked. For this moment, she has put aside not only her clothes, which mean nothing, but also her responsibilities, duties, customs as Alpha, and that means everything.
Straightening myself, I brush my forehead in case there are still any little bits of bark left there. I want to touch her, but I move slowly, giving her time with every step to move away. To change her mind. To remember that she is Alpha and I am an old enemy and not worth the risk.
She doesn’t move and her eyes never waver from mine except for a brief sweep downward. When she smiles, I close the last few feet, not touching but stopping close enough so that when I put out my hand, I can feel the heat from hers. Then I slowly close the space between our palms until there is no separation anymore. Her breath recoils sharply like she’s touched something hotter than she was expecting.
“The question is what do you want. What does Evie want.” I exhale her name and listen until the last syllable has turned into mist, then I kiss the touching points of our fingers and feel the tremor of my hand.
We are well matched so when Evie leans her head against mine, her shoulders are parallel to mine. I begin to rock her loose in my arms, just a tiny swinging from side to side, to coddle her for a moment and buy myself some time.
“I am not supposed to want. I am the Alpha of the Great North Pack. There shouldn’t even be an Evie.”
She tilts her pelvis, brings her hip bone closer to my growing erection. I curve in to her, touching her, feeling the pressure of her body as it draws the weight of need back into my cock and her face broadens in a smile against my face. I pull back to look at her, at that half-tweaked corner of her mouth, that slight softening of her cheek.
“But there still is