He was fucking putty in her hands.

When he slipped his hands to her waist and under her top, stroking the skin on her lower back, she raised her arms. Alexei fought back a shudder and shifted them so she was straddling him, his back to the leather-synth of the seat.

He’d thought he’d have to work his way up to such intimate contact, but if Memory was ready, he wasn’t going to be an asshole and puncture her confidence. His heart drumming against his chest, he tugged her top over her head and threw it aside with his T-shirt. Her body was all woman, but still too slender despite the tempting food he’d been leaving at her door, unable to stop taking care of her that way no matter how hard he’d tried to stay away.

“Did you eat the peach pie I left you?” He’d started putting her name on everything after the blueberry cake incident.

She scrunched up her nose at him. “Yes. I cursed your name with every bite.”

Grinning, he snapped his teeth at her while stroking his hands up and down the curve of her waist. “As long as you ate it,” he said in unhidden satisfaction before returning to his visual delectation of her body.

Her bra was fuchsia lace. It made his smile deepen, his heart fall even harder into her hands. Memory would never go for the sedate or the ordinary. Memory was fuchsia lace and sequined shoes and glitter-emblazoned shirts.

Memory was color and light and a primal joy in life.

Sliding his finger under one strap, he gloried in her shiver. She didn’t tell him to stop when he leaned in to kiss her throat, and his growl this time was an uncontrolled thing that came from his wolf. Sliding her hands into his hair, she held him close, unafraid of the wolf at her throat. He made each kiss soft, slow, a little wet. Small, kittenish sounds coming from her lips, she leaned deeper into him.

Alexei’s own parched body sighed at every contact, hungry for more. For her. He’d been worried he’d left it too long, that his wolf would be aggressive, but the two sides of his nature were in primal agreement—he had to take this slow so that Memory would come to him again and again and again.

He’d been deluding himself to think he’d ever let another man put his hands on her. That is, unless Memory asked. Then he’d back off no matter his anguish. Otherwise, he’d rip the fucker apart before the unfortunate male got anywhere near Alexei’s E.

As for what his possessiveness meant, he’d deal with that later.

Tonight, he moved his hands in long, slow strokes down her back as he kissed and nipped his way across her shoulder, then back to her throat again. Arching her neck, she let him have unfettered access. Her pulse pounded at her throat, but he scented no fear, only the erotic musk of her arousal.

His cock grew impossibly harder, his claws sliding out of his hands. She didn’t flinch. “Alexei.” A husky whisper.

“Lioness.”

She growled at him, her eyes dancing.

He kissed that wickedly lush and playful mouth, then, forcing his claws back in because he wouldn’t hurt her even inadvertently, he licked and tasted his way down to the valley between her breasts.

Chapter 38

Prompt of the day: Wolves. Reply with one word!

Orgasm.

Deep.

Hard.

AllNightLong. (What? It’s one word!)

—Wild Woman app: Naughty Secrets

FOR A WOMAN with such a small frame, Memory’s breasts were more than a handful. When Alexei cupped one, she dug her nails into the back of his neck and looked down. Her throat moved. “I don’t know if I’ll survive it if you touch me without the lace between us.” Shallow breaths, her voice trembling. “Not there.”

“We’ll go slow,” Alexei promised. “No rushing.” Tonight was about feeding her touch hunger, stopping her hurt.

Stop lying, Alexei, this is as much for you. You need her touch.

Accepting that truth, he brushed his stubbled jaw across the exposed curve of her breast. She fisted her hands in his hair, moving restlessly on him, against him. Kissing the small redness caused by his stubble, he moved to her neglected breast and licked lightly across the same exposed area.

Memory shuddered before shoving at his shoulders.

Wondering if she’d hit her limit, he sat back, his vision such that his eyes had to be nightglow. Unfazed by the sight of his wolf, Memory bent her head and kissed his throat.

His body threatened to buck.

Alexei had his hand fisted in her exuberant curls before he knew he was about to move. He should’ve pulled her away, should’ve regained control of the situation, but it turned out he had a fatal weakness where Memory was concerned.

He was her willing sacrifice.

One hand on her hip, his thumb brushing the curve of her abdomen, he dropped back his head and let his E drive him insane. She sucked and kissed and used her teeth. Each time she did the latter, he gritted his own teeth to hold back a roughly primal sound until he couldn’t. The sound of his wolf filled the Jeep.

Her nipples had already been hard points against him, but now the honeyed perfume of her arousal reached fever pitch. Clenching his jaw, he told himself to act like a man, not a fucking ravenous wolf. But since he was a wolf, and a starved one at that, he bent his head to her throat again and took a big bite.

Shivering against him but making no move to get away from his teeth, Memory stroked her hand down his chest once more. “Can we do this every night? I want to put my hands and mouth on every part of you.”

His cock almost erupted then and there. Moving the hand he had in her hair to position her just right, he kissed her, demanding and hungry. Memory pressed her breasts against his chest, arms wrapping around his neck. Her tongue licked against his, her lush lips intoxicating.

His hand rising to grip her nape, he held her in place as he plundered her mouth. When he nipped gently at her lower lip, she parted her lips and licked her tongue against his. And every so often, she’d do to him what he’d done to her. It felt like they were in a dance and she was following his every move—while making a few of her own, turning him into her captive. He could imagine being buried inside her, the intimate dance of their hot, sweat-soaked bodies sliding against each other.

Molding one heavy breast on that thought, he deepened the kiss. Demanding more. Demanding everything. She moaned and gave it to him—while demanding the same in return.

My lioness.

She’d never be passive in bed, never be anything but a full partner. He wanted to thrust into her, brand her as his so damn much that his cock throbbed, but tonight was about pleasing Memory. Shifting his hand from her breast, down the slope of her abdomen, he played his fingers around her waistband . . . before sliding down to cup her through her jeans.

Memory moaned and moved against him.

Grip on her nape tightening a fraction, he pressed the heel of his palm against her.

Her breathing altered to become faster, more jagged. Breaking the kiss, she buried her face against his neck, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Smile no doubt pure wolf, Alexei very deliberately pressed hard against the seam of her jeans, right where it lay over her most delicate flesh.

Her cry was short, sharp, deliciously shocked.

Cradling her against him as she trembled, her breath lost, he rumbled raw words of pleasure in her ear. “My beautiful, sexy Memory.” He licked his tongue playfully along the shell of her ear. “That’s what I want to do between your legs.”

She stiffened against him . . . and then her entire body melted in a rolling wave. Shifting his hand to her hip, he nuzzled her through the orgasm, but when he kissed her throat in the aftermath, her responsive shiver was a touch too hard.

Protective instincts stirring, he tugged her head back so he could look at her face. She was all kiss-swollen lips and tumbled hair, and eyes of gleaming obsidian. He shouldn’t have been able to read those eyes, but for him, they were no longer fathomless. He saw her. She was drunk on sexual sensation; any more would push her over the edge into pain.

When she cuddled against his shoulder, her hair bouncing against his jaw, he put his arms around her and indulged himself in petting her back in slow, soothing strokes. Her breath was soft and warm against him, her skin silk under his palm. And her scent, it was wild and bright tangled with the languid richness of something intrinsically soft and feminine.

He knew this was it tonight. Memory was emerging out of an enforced deep freeze. He couldn’t and wouldn’t force her, wouldn’t rush her.

He would, however, do his best to charm her.

Careful, little bro. Remember what happened to me.

The ghostly voice was painfully familiar. His heart fucking hurt.

“Alexei?” Memory sat up in his lap, raising her hand to cup his cheek. “You’re sad.”

Turning his head, he pressed his lips to her palm and knew he had to tell her the truth. Because this, what was growing between them, it was a thing of truth. It held the kind of potent power that could make a man . . . or break him. “My brother was two years older than me, and he loved crazy adventures and a lovely woman called Etta, and he had this laugh that was so infectious it caught from person to person until an entire room would be rolling around on the floor.”

Memory brushed her fingers through his hair, her eyes slowly shifting back to deepest brown. “You loved him a lot.”

“Yeah.” Brodie had been the most important person in his life for a long time. “Our folks died when I was seven, and Brodie was nine. Our aunt—our mother’s much younger sister—raised us, and the entire pack was there for us, but we were brothers. That bond . . .” It had been formed of loyalty and love and grief and a stubborn commitment to stay alive.

Then Brodie had died.

Petting her hands across his shoulders, Memory said, “You love him still, but you’re so angry, too.” Gentle voice, an empath’s knowledge. “What did Brodie do?”

“He died.” The words were gritted out. “After our father died the same way, we made a promise and he broke it and he fucking died.”

“Alexei.” She wove her fingers through his hair again. “Unless your brother took his own life”—a pause where he shook his head—“then he couldn’t thwart death. At first, I was angry at my mother for being dead and leaving me alone in the world, but I knew all the time that she couldn’t help it. The monster was too powerful.” Her eyes shimmered. “I wish every day that she was alive, but I’m not angry at her anymore.”