Dustin rocked forward in her hands. He was so close to her entrance, brushing into her shallowly. Emma released him, and when he slid deep inside her, she gasped, arched back. So big. Almost too big. Relax. So good anyway, but she hadn’t been ready for him to stretch her like that. Dustin eased out of her slowly, then bucked into her again. She was ready this time.
Cradling her head, he buried his face against her neck and pushed into her again, bumping her clit just right at the peak of each thrust. God, he was good. Perfect pace, perfect biting kisses on her throat, perfect body against hers. So strong, so snarly, so sexy. His lips were back on hers again, and as he pushed into her, he groaned a soft sound into her mouth. Well, fuck it all, she was gone now, clawing at him desperately while he built the pressure between her legs to blinding.
She bit his lip hard and then arched back against the blanket when he worked his lips over her collar bone. So close. The stars were so bright. His lips were urgent on her breast now, and she dug her nails into his back desperately. Stars, stars, blinding. Stars in the woods. In the woods? She was looking at the trees upside down. Four stars. Eyes? No…
“Aah,” Dustin groaned out, bucking into her faster. He was close, too, and that was a good thing because she couldn’t hold her release back any longer.
Orgasm blasted through her, and she curled around the sensation, clung to his strong shoulders. Dustin slammed into her and hesitated. Warmth shot into her, and when he pulled back and rammed into her again, she could feel him emptying himself deep within her. So. Damn. Sexy.
They crashed against each other like two storms colliding. She couldn’t believe how good this felt, how deeply satisfying every drive of his dick was. Sex had never been like this, not with anyone.
Dustin gritted his teeth. His chest wasn’t rattling anymore with his growl, and he settled against her, laid his full weight on top. He was much bigger than her, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
What a strange question. Of course, she was okay. “You make me feel safe,” she said, too loud in the dark. She winced, but Dustin eased up and smiled down at her. “Say that again.”
Pleasure heated her cheeks, and she ducked her gaze. In a softer voice, she said, “You make me feel safe, Dustin.”
He exhaled a long breath, and when she looked back up at him, he had his eyes closed and a sweet smile curving his lips. “No one’s ever said that about me before.” His grin stretched wider. “You owe the compliment jar.”
Emma laughed and rolled her eyes upward. The stars in the woods were gone. Maybe they’d been lightning bugs.
“What?” he asked, stroking her hair away from her face.
“Nothing. Everything is perfect.”
Dustin traced her lips with the tip of his finger. “I like this smile on you. It’s my new favorite.”
“What was your old favorite?”
“The one you get when you think I’m funny. The one you give when everyone else is annoyed at me.”
“Well, you’re horribly annoying.”
“Fucking tell me about it. I think Beast has choked me a dozen times.”
She cracked up because that was actually a really accurate number. “Yeah, you never learn your lesson with him and Logan. They’re going to lose their minds and kill you someday.”
“Nah, I’m safe enough with them.”
The smile slipped from her face, and she played with the ends of his sandy-blond hair. “What makes you so confident? They feel like monsters to me, and I’m human.”
“It’s the one advantage to being submissive. Dominants think twice before killing you. It’s instinct. Their animals tell them to protect shifters like me.”
Slowly, Emma moved his hair back and traced the scars on his neck. “Your brother doesn’t have that instinct, and he’s dominant.”
Dustin’s smile faded in an instant, and he rolled off her. Not away though, just beside her, where he rested his hands on his stomach and sighed up at the night sky. “It’s complicated with him. He’s sick right now, but he’ll get better, and this stuff won’t happen as much anymore. He’ll be able to stop himself.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Dustin rolled his head back and forth on the blanket denying her an answer.
“There’s a vampire in my coven, Lorren. He’s very old, even though he looks like he is my age. He’s losing his mind, getting dangerous. The coven calls it The Sickening. Is it like that?”
Dustin rolled toward her and traced a line from between her breasts down her stomach to her belly-button. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “My brother’s sickness is caused by the need for vengeance. Vengeance is poison for werewolves. It rots them from the inside out. People think we are just bad. Genetics, or bad wolves breeding bad wolves. The truth is the animals are to blame. Too many dominants, not enough submissives. It’s like a mob. One or two people get riled up about something, and that energy breeds more violent energy. Werewolves get caught in the energy, and their animals make it impossible to escape.”
“But not you.”
“No, not me.”
“Because you’re different.”
He bore his teeth in a flash. She could feel his snarl all the way through his fingertips when he dragged his touch across her hip. “Being different isn’t good for a wolf, Emma. Being different will get me killed someday. Early. There’s nothing I can do but draw my life out as long as I can. For a wolf like me, a broken one, my life invited pain from my first shift to now, any time I encountered one of my kind. It’s not like with Logan or Beast, or even Kane. Werewolves don’t have an instinct to protect me. There is instinct to remind me of my place at the bottom of the pack. And the way to remind me…is to bleed me.”