She shivered at the sound but didn’t respond. Just leaned forward, placing her hands on the cool tile and pushed her backside into him. They’d made love enough times in the shower that he knew exactly what she wanted.

Talking was beyond her at the moment. She didn’t trust herself around him. Not now. She was likely to say something asinine, like she loved him too. That so wasn’t happening. Not if she wanted to live with any semblance of her pride still intact. When she’d been only human he hadn’t wanted to bond with her, linking them so she would stay young just like him. Instead he’d lied. She had to remember that even though he’d said he loved her.

She shook herself, shoving those thoughts far away. She didn’t want to focus on that. Pleasure was the only thing that could drown her emotions. When she arched into him, he growled deep and low as he slid one of his big hands around to her stomach. He moved lower until he was cupping her mound, then gently began stroking her clit with his middle finger.

Her nipples tingled and her fingers splayed against the hard surface of the wall. “I want more,” she whispered. The sound seemed overly loud in the small enclosure.

“Tell me exactly what you want.” His voice was just as quiet as his stroking slowed over her sensitive bundle of nerves.

Her inner walls clenched, needing to be filled by him. “You.”

Jayce lightly nipped her shoulder with his teeth. “Give me details.”

She let out a frustrated sound. This was a game they’d played back when they’d been together. He’d loved pushing her to her limits and out of her comfort zone. And talking during sex had always made her blush. While he might not need or even care about talking, she knew he loved to get her worked up. And this was sure to do it. “Don’t do this,” she murmured.

He slowed even more, his finger barely working her. Moving her hips, she tried to force him, but he just chuckled against her skin and nipped her shoulder again. This time it felt like an actual bite. The sting was oddly pleasurable and made her nipples ache with a pent-up need to be teased.

“Then tell me what you want or I’ll do this all day.” He followed up with the satisfied laugh of a male who knew he held all the cards. In this instance he did. But payback would be fun.

So she gave in. “I want to feel your cock inside me, filling me, making me come until I can’t think straight,” she said on a breathless whisper, unwilling to say the words as loud as he no doubt wanted.

It didn’t seem to matter. His body jerked behind her and the scent of that dark male lust intensified, wrapping around her so tightly it was nearly smothering.

Before she realized what he intended, he drew his hand back, grasped both her hips, then plunged into her in one solid stroke.

Despite the fact that they’d made love last night, it had still been a while before that—almost a year—since she’d been with him. Her body needed a moment to adjust. Something he thankfully seemed to understand, because he remained where he was, buried deep inside her, panting hard behind her yet not moving.

The energy vibrating off him was almost palpable. That heavy scent of dark chocolate—of course his lust had to smell that good—was back in full force, threatening to push her under.

When he began moving inside her, her lower abdomen clenched and her nipples tingled with each steady stroke. Sex with him had always been amazing, but now that she was a shifter it seemed even more intense. Each time he thrust, he hit that perfect spot deep inside her that made her moan his name and forget the outside world and all the reasons she and Jayce would never work.

Because when he was inside her, it was impossible to care about anything other than pleasure. Anything other than him. In the quiet morning in this sparkly, luminescent shower all she cared about was finding release with the man who had such a tight hold on her heart it was terrifying.

“Say you want me, Kat,” Jayce said behind her, a soft almost imperceptible whisper.

“I want you.”

“Only me.” A low growl.

“Only you.” Always you, she thought but couldn’t bring herself to say. Her back arched as the orgasm began to build and then intensify.

All her nerve endings tingled with an awareness that left her feeling raw and exposed. Letting Jayce dominate her like this made her vulnerable in a way she would never allow anyone else to witness. Because it was him. Because she trusted him on a level no one else could ever come close to.

When he reached around and cupped her breasts exactly as she’d been craving he would, strumming her nipples with expert fingers, she let go and the climax rippled through her.

His name fell from her lips as she bucked against him, unable to control herself. Those strong hands squeezed her breasts before they found her hips and held on tight enough to leave marks. Not that she cared. Part of her liked the thought of him marking her. His own shout of her name intermingled with her cry as he released himself inside her.

The feel of his heat in her made her toes curl along with the remnants of the orgasm still spinning through her. And when she felt his teeth dig into the soft area where her neck and shoulder met, she let out another cry of pleasure until she was panting and barely able to move.

As he pulled out, he wrapped an arm around her waist. Holding her tight against him, he softly nuzzled her neck. For an instant she wondered what it would be like to bond with him. For him to take her from behind under the full moon and sink his canines into her flesh, linking them forever. Linking them so that nothing would ever separate them except death. Just as quickly she banished the thought. Thinking about something that would never happen would only bring her a bitter agony she wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not now, not ever.

When her knees threatened to give way, he held her tighter for a moment, then moved toward the built-in bench. Despite the heated water rushing over them, the tile was cool beneath her as she sat.

Before she could ask him what he was doing, he grabbed her bottle of shampoo. As he started to wash her hair with hands so gentle that her insides twisted, she could feel those traitorous tears begin to fill her eyes again. She turned back toward the tile and let him get the back of her hair. She absolutely refused to cry in front of him. Not again.

It would be so easy to lean into him and let the tears fall. To let him hold her and ask him why he’d told her that he loved her. Ask him why he hadn’t been willing to bond with her before. But the words stuck in her throat. She wasn’t ready for the answers, so she wasn’t going to ask those questions. If he told her she hadn’t been good enough as a human, it would crush her soul. And if he told her that he might love her but they still had no future—and she really couldn’t see Jayce settling down—living with that knowledge would slice her right open.

Right now she would just take the time she’d been offered with Jayce. It was enough for her. It had to be. She knew him—he would be leaving soon enough.

Chapter 13

Jayce stared at Kat’s back as she pulled a long-sleeved black T-shirt over her head. As all that expanse of smooth skin disappeared from sight, he resisted sighing. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

“You not wearing a bra on purpose?” The question slipped out before he could stop himself. It didn’t matter why she wasn’t wearing one, just that she wasn’t. Fewer clothes for him to take off of her later.

She looked over her shoulder as she pulled her hair free from her shirt, her hair a dark, silky waterfall that he wanted to run his fingers through. It was still damp from their recent shower. Her cheeks tinged pink and she shrugged as she bent to tug her jeans on. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s an interesting choice.”

She rolled her eyes but her cheeks flushed an even darker shade. “Losing it later seems like a foregone conclusion.” He started to say she should just go naked, but she shook her head. “Don’t even think about suggesting I start running around here without any clothes on.”

“It would save us a lot of time,” he murmured. He’d planned to go to the ranch to train Erin and Kat hours ago, but after last night he had known it wasn’t going to happen. He was taking the day off. Well, a couple of hours off this morning. He craved spending more time alone with Kat. Just the two of them. He needed it on a level he wasn’t yet willing to admit.

If he could he’d take off all day—hell, all week. He would, but after this morning he needed to check in with Brianna to see how her infiltration was going and then he wanted to sit down with Leila and figure out what he was going to do with her. By her cedar scent and eye color—which was so rare among their kind—he had a feeling she was like him, was perhaps an enforcer. But it was too soon to tell. Those were just a couple of signs she might be one of them. He needed to see how she fought. How she moved, how quickly she learned.

After that, if he had time he might take a trip into Winston-Salem to check out one of the names that dealer had given him. Jayce had wanted to wait to see if that laptop gave him anything useful, but mainly he knew that once he went he’d probably be staying there for a few days while he got familiar with the territory. Leaving Kat right now wasn’t something he was willing to do, not even for his job. He simply couldn’t.

When Kat pulled a pair of socks out of one of the drawers of an antique-looking dresser, he paused. “What are you doing?”

“Uh, what does it look like?” she asked without turning around.

“Like you’re putting on far too many clothes.” His inner wolf snapped at him, telling him to strip her and take her again.

“I promised Leila I’d be there for breakfast this morning. She looked so lost yesterday I don’t want to disappoint her.”

“Oh.” Kat’s big heart was one of the reasons he loved her, but his own heart ached at the lack of her reciprocation from his stupid admission last night. What had he been thinking? The more time that elapsed after what he’d said, the bigger the ache inside him grew. He’d thought he would be okay with simply her body and her affection, but damn. That would never be enough. But how could he ask her for more when he wasn’t sure they even had a chance together? How could he ask her to be his when she would then become an instant target for the hundreds of enemies he’d made over the centuries? She’d been through more than enough already. He wouldn’t place her in danger ever again.