He was strong and beautiful, and Sera crept to him with her head bent low, savoring the whisper of instinct that urged caution and respect, because for the first time she had no fear of rejection or danger. He met her with a soft rumble, rubbed his nose against hers.
The clearing was thick grass covered in leaves. Comfortable enough to stretch out upon, even when she let magic shimmer through her on a wave of giddy heat that left her human and tingling, naked beneath the endless sky. “I love the woods at night.”
Another pulse of magic behind her. “So do I.”
Shifting brought arousal, a high no drug could match. Awareness left her limbs liquid as she rolled to her stomach. “I love running with the big bad wolf too.”
Julio huffed out a laugh a split second before his mouth descended on the back of her neck.
Teeth dug into her skin, and she gasped, fingers closing helplessly on the grass as the sweetly edged pain brought her body from lazily interested to starving in the space between heartbeats. Her hips lifted without her permission, driven by the urge to submit. To offer herself, to beg to be taken.
He covered her body with his and continued to nibble on her skin. “How much do you love it out here?”
“I could live in a cabin in the woods.” She curled her toes as his teeth scraped across her shoulder, and had to fight the urge to squirm. If he dragged her to her knees and drove into her, she wouldn’t complain. Not when she was this hungry, this ready. Thinking enough to talk was a struggle, and her words came out breathless. “As long as I got cable and a modern kitchen.”
“Here, or anywhere?”
“Anywhere.” She shivered as his breath ghosted across her skin. “But I like it here too. I like Patty. She knows about hard living.”
He brushed her hair away from her shoulder and covered the newly bared skin with kisses.
“They like you more than me, that’s for sure.”
“Because they don’t know you.” His lips found every spot that made her breathing hitch, but he kept kissing her, slow and easy. She was starting to wonder if he knew how to go fast.
“You’re a Mendoza, baby. They’re always going to assume you’re one of the elite. And I’m a coyote. They’ll always know I’m not.”
“You’re better than elite.” His fingers trailed down her spine to her hip. “You’re Sera.”
She twisted to look over her shoulder at him. Darkly handsome and so serious, even now.
“I’m your girl. And you’re my wolf. You’d better keep that in mind. I may be a submissive, but I’m still damn territorial.”
He smiled, slow and dark, and jerked her hips up, pulling her to her knees. “I know better than to forget.”
Oh yeah. The less-human parts of her thrilled as she bowed her back, stretching her arms out above her head and pressing her forehead to the grass. “I don’t know what to beg for. Your fingers, your tongue or a fast, hard fucking.”
He slapped her ass, driving a startled moan from her lips. “Then let me decide.”
Her skin burned where his hand had fallen. A good burn, the kind that fuzzed the edges of the world and let her focus on nothing beyond her body. She dug her fingers into the grass and wiggled, teasing him with a throaty laugh. “Can’t keep your hands off my ass, can you?”
“You don’t mind.” He leaned down, his chest against her back, and nudged his erection between her thighs.
She whimpered and arched, entirely unselfconscious for once in her life. “Again? Please?”
He rubbed his hand over her tingling skin, then rewarded her with another slap.
Heaven. Not tied up in games and guilt, just something that afforded them both pleasure. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to sensation as her lips formed another plea. Mindless, begging words, tangled up with his name.
Julio pushed forward, the head of his cock slicking close to her entrance. “Sera.”
She edged her knees apart. “I want you inside me. So bad. So deep.”
“If we weren’t rolling in the dirt, I’d make you wait.” Then he thrust into her, only a few inches, but hard enough to claim.
She bit her own arm to muffle her cry, a helpless noise that squeaked out regardless. One knee slipped on damp leaves, and it was so much hotter like this. Outdoors, on the ground.
Messy and a little uncomfortable, with a twig digging into one arm and the sharp smell of crushed grass twisting with the forest and Julio and the unmistakable scent of sex.
It was raw and real, and she pushed back against his grip, ready to take every stretching inch of him. Ready to be fucked inside out, to scream her release to the sky and not care that every wolf in the pack heard her.
Julio twisted a hand in her hair and pulled her head back. “You want to be loud, don’t you?”
“Yes.” A rasped confession. A groan, because the fist in her hair was the right kind of dirty.
“I don’t care if they all know. I want them to know that you’re mine.”
“You think they can’t tell?” His skin slid over hers, and he breathed his next words in her ear.
“They saw the way I look at you. How much I want you.”
She twisted against his grip and pressed her lips to his jaw. “How much? Tell me.”
He buried his nose in the hollow of her throat and inhaled deeply. “I didn’t even want them breathing in your perfume. You belong to me.”
Oh, that touched off a shiver—one of fear as much as longing. Those were words she’d heard before. Words that she’d craved, words that had turned claustrophobic and cruel.
She rubbed her back against his chest and closed her eyes. “I’m your girl.”
“No,” he whispered, his muscles tense. “Because it’s not okay. It’s too much, too far.”
“It’s us.” Reaching back, she gripped his hip, dug her nails into his skin and tried to pull him deeper. “It doesn’t have to be okay to be true.”
“Yes, it does.” He didn’t move. “I won’t be that asshole, Sera. I’m enough of one already without adding ‘stupidly possessive bastard’ to the list.”
Frustration raked her, and she snarled and dropped her hand to claw at the grass. He was right, and there should have been relief in it. To know that Julio wouldn’t trap her, wouldn’t crush her.
Human relief, maybe, but this wasn’t a night for human things. She twisted to bite his jaw.
“Mine. Tonight, you’re all mine.”
He pulled her hair again. “I’m what?”
“Mine.” She panted the word as she squirmed, needing him deeper as much as she needed to be claimed. He was hot and hard, but he was still holding back.
He drove forward, pushing into her with a grunt as his teeth closed on her neck. The force pushed her back to her elbows, body bent low to the ground with his chest burning possession against her back as he covered her.
Over her and surrounding her. Inside her. Everything about his touch was proprietary and possessive, and she found she didn’t need the words when his body spoke a language her coyote understood.
Except he wasn’t fucking her. Just pinning her to the earth, every nerve aflame, her entire being focused on how good it would be when he moved…
She whimpered and arched her back. “Julio. For the love of—are you waiting for me to spontaneously combust?”
He flexed his hips against hers. “Shh. Can you feel it?”
“What, your dick?” She rasped out a laugh and clenched around him. Maybe words would get him moving. “Your perfect fucking cock, which feels really good and will feel better when you’re riding the hell out of me?”
“Dirty bitch.” His own laugh tickled her ears as he slipped one hand down and stroked her clit. “Not my cock. Us. When we’re close like this.”