“You wore a blue shirt, no logo, hugged your curves. Dark blue jeans with holes at the knees, and your hair was down in waves. When the sun peeked out from the clouds, it made your hair look like it had gold streaks. Your eyes looked so green with Kane’s woods behind you. I thought you would be sweet. Too sweet, but then when you flipped me off and turned off one of your hearing aids, my wolf sat up straight inside me and couldn’t stop watching you.” He kissed the base of her throat. “Little human who knew how to posture. Who knew how to handle herself in the middle of all those monsters.” He kissed her right under her earlobe. “You were writing in that journal, and I wanted to see just one page, so bad. I wanted to see what you were writing, and if it was about me. I hoped it was about me, even though we were strangers. But every time I got too close, you closed it up and lifted your little chin. You glared me down like I wasn’t scary to you. I knew you wouldn’t let me push you around, and my wolf sat up a little straighter.” He kissed her lips, nibbled her bottom one. “Remember when I bought all that Chinese food and the D-Team sat around eating, waiting on the call-backs from Kane?”
“Yes,” she panted out.
“I bought the food for you. I wanted you to eat with me, and you did. And then I wanted you to eat after me. I wanted your lips to touch what mine did. I couldn’t stop watching you. And still, you didn’t take my shit. You saw through it. You giggled when the others wanted to murder me. And my wolf sat up a little straighter.”
Was this what it was like to fall in love? Emma ran her knuckles along the underneath of his defined jaw. “What else?” she whispered.
He smiled and bit her wrist gently. Emma gasped and rolled her hips in an embarrassing reaction. Dustin didn’t seem to mind, though. His eyes turned wicked, and he sucked hard right where his teeth had been.
“Remember when my arm got dislocated at the stables?”
She dipped her chin once. His hand was tracing her body, curve by curve, and it was harder to focus now.
“I was going to bite Winter. I couldn’t help it. I was hurting and she was snarling, riled up, calling my animal out to battle, and then you came running over. I couldn’t stop watching you as you instructed her how to put my shoulder back in its socket. My wolf, at the peak of wanting to attack, just…stopped…to watch you.”
“Has this happened to you before?” she asked, risking it all. Risking this moment for an answer she wished for more than anything.
Dustin shook his head slowly. “Never. You’re terrifying. You’re a hellion. You’re fragile and outspoken and flawless.”
“Even hearing impaired?” she whispered.
Dustin leaned down and kissed her again, then rested his cheek on hers and said against her ear, “I’ll hear for the both of us. You’re perfect to me, Emma. Human or vampire, I’ll still be your friend.”
And that right there—that was exactly what she needed after their fight. He was accepting her no matter what. She didn’t know how he’d done it, but Dustin had seduced her mind, body, and soul. He’d bound them in ways he probably didn’t understand. He’d changed the way she thought about werewolves, about the crew, about people, about men, about everything.
Emma reached down and unbuttoned her jeans. Dustin frowned and looked down at where he was pressed between her legs.
“Emma,” he said in a tone that said he was denying her.
“I’m on birth control,” she whispered, pushing her pants down her hips.
He shook his head back and forth, back and forth, as his breath deepened and his eyes turned bright like blue and green flames. “That’s…” He swallowed hard. “That’s not like kissing in the woods, Emma. Sex will change things.”
“For the better?”
“I don’t know. There are things I haven’t told you about me. About why I’m here…”
Emma pressed one hand over the angel wing on his chest. “But you will, right?”
His nostrils flared as she brushed her fingers down to his erection. “Yes. Eventually.”
Good enough. She wasn’t surprised at all that Dustin was slow at exposing secrets. He’d hidden how affected he was by her this entire time. She’d had no idea, and now she was fine with being patient because some deep instinct told her Dustin is worth it. “That’s good enough for me now.”
There was a loaded moment where they locked eyes, and the air sparked between them with something just above her senses. Some animal magnetism or…something.
Dustin slid his hands between her legs and dragged his fingers up her wet folds as he kissed her again. She let off a helpless noise and rolled her hips against his hand. Dustin smiled against her lips, then nipped her with a growl.
Needing to explore his body, she ran her fingertips over the swell of muscle on his shoulders, his biceps, and forearms, then back up to his chest. Down, down his chiseled abs and lower. As she gripped his shaft, the growl in his throat got loud enough for her to hear, not just feel. He bucked into the hold she made with her hand, and his kisses suddenly got harder, more urgent.
His lips drifted to her neck, and he sucked hard enough to sting, then grazed his teeth against her sensitive skin. Tease. He wouldn’t bite her, surely, but just in case…
“Don’t bite me, okay?”
“Someday you’ll beg me for it,” he said in a low voice she almost didn’t recognize. “I’ll wait for you to ask.” The promises of a werewolf. I’ll only bleed you when you beg. Dustin didn’t understand humans. Pain wasn’t sexy, and she was nobody’s prey.