gasped his name.
Adam looked up at me from beneath his thick lashes, his eyes heavy with desire as he slowly licked across my nipple. My heart raced, my fingers tightening in his hair.
He nibbled his way across my skin, taking my other breast into his mouth while his free hand moved lower, unfastening my jeans. He wiggled his fingers inside my pants, gliding underneath the lace, until his fingertips were exploring past my curls to the heat of my core. My hips writhed, and I pulled him back up to my lips, kissing him with all the urgency my body demanded, my teeth nipping at his lower lip until he growled against my mouth.
Adam brought his other hand down and pushed my jeans and underwear lower, sliding them free of my legs until I was naked on the bed. He stood up, his eyes feeding on me while he got rid of his pants. I stared up at him, drinking in every inch of his naked flesh.
His legs were tanned and muscular, matching his chiseled torso, and now that he was naked, there was no hiding how badly he wanted me. My gaze moved farther up and my lips parted slightly as our eyes met. I couldn’t look away. His hungry stare possessed me. I’d been with other men before, but this intense desire and palpable need was completely new.
He positioned his body over me, and my legs parted instinctively, my hips tilting up toward him as I felt his body sink even closer. I could feel the tip of him, teasing me, pulsing against me. I’d never ached for someone like this.
I moaned and my fingers moved up his torso. “Take me, Adam.”
He growled against my lips and plunged into me, sliding so deep that I cried out, my nails digging into his back. Breaking the kiss, his lips brushed my cheek until they were right against my ear. “Put your legs around me.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist as he rose up from the bed, our bodies never separating. His hands gripped my buttocks as he turned and pressed my back against the wall.
The coolness of the drywall surprised me, and I gasped as his hips slammed into me harder. Adam bent his head to take my hardened nipple into his mouth. My back arched, offering myself to the heat of his mouth while I tangled my fingers in the back of his hair. Our bodies were slick with sweat when he finally held me tight and turned so we were back on the bed. His hand slid down between us and found a perfect spot inside my wet folds.
“Oh, yes, right there,” I gasped.
His hips thrust deeper and faster, as his fingertips massaged until I was writhing underneath him. My fingernails scratched down his back, gripping him harder as my muscles started to clench.
He growled against my ear. “Give me what I want, Lana.”
And in that instant my body gave him everything. Every muscle tightened, and my inner core spasmed around him so tightly that I felt him explode inside of me. Adam’s hips kept grinding against mine as he moaned my name until our aftershocks quieted, and we finally lay tangled up in an exhausted heap.
My fingers stroked though his hair slowly. Blood flow gradually returned to my brain, and with it, rational thought.
“Yeah?” His voice was soft and deep, warming my blood all over again.
“We forgot a condom.”
I expected him to leap back like I might have the pregnancy plague or something, but instead he tightened his hold on me, his head still resting over my heart. “We’re safe. I haven’t bitten you, so we can’t have a baby, remember?” He lifted his head to meet my eyes. “I’m also clean. I get tested every six months. Jason insists on it.”
Now I remembered. No conversion, no werewolf, no baby. “I’m clean too.” I breathed out my concern and stared at the ceiling.
This didn’t have to change anything. I wanted him, but it didn’t make the situation any different. Passions ran high during life and death situations. We were struggling for someone to hold onto, to remind ourselves we were still alive. Acting on the attraction between us didn’t mean the situation had changed.
So why did everything feel different?
Adam lifted his head and leaned up on his elbow. A tender smile curved his lips as his thumb brushed my hair back at my temple. “I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he whispered, “but I’m not sorry about any of this.”
I searched his eyes. “I’m not sorry either. Just not sure what happens next.”
Adam smiled. “Spaghetti.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And inside of me somewhere, I felt a very dangerous part of the wall around my heart started to crumble.
I had to keep my distance. Everyone walked out eventually, and it was going to hurt like hell when Adam was gone. He’d warned me himself the first night I met him.
But when he bent to kiss me one more time, I ignored my inner voice and wrapped my arms around him instead.
We ate our candlelight dinner in our underwear. I moaned when I tasted the homemade meat sauce Adam had in the Crock-Pot for a few hours. The cheesy garlic bread was pretty amazing, too.
“I had no idea wolves could cook.” He threw a piece of the bread at me. “Hey! I was giving you a compliment.” I grinned.
He raised a brow with a, for lack of a better word, wolfish grin. “Wolves can do all sorts of things.”
He lifted his frosty beer mug to his lips slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, and my body reacted. Just a look. Damn him. I was in so much trouble.
“So are you going to let me ride a horse?”
“Do you want to ride sometime?”
“I’d love to.” I smiled. “But I’ll need a horse who understands I’ve never ridden before.”
Adam laughed. “I think that could be arranged.”
I didn’t ask him when. We both knew it would be tricky to actually make happen. He could only have me over when no one else was around, or even coming over soon so my scent could fade. He was probably thinking the same thing. It was hard not to feel sorry for myself. It wasn’t my fault I was a jaguar. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet, I needed to be a secret.
We ate the rest of our food in silence.
When I set down my fork and looked up, Adam was staring at me. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said. “For once, everything’s right.”
My brow furrowed a little. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, I want my life to be like this. I want to laugh and eat dinner together and not be worried about the Pack finding out, or the Organization finding you.” He paused, his lips pressing together for a second. “But I know this isn’t real. I know that I need to take you back to the hotel tonight and open all my windows so your scent will be gone by morning. I know we still need to find out who the Nero Organization is and what they want with you.” He reached across the table and took my hand. “And I already know I don’t want you to go.”
More of the wall protecting my heart cracked. “I don’t want to go either, Adam, but we’ve known from the first night that I can’t stay here. And that was before we knew Sebastian was tracking me. I care about you, but if I stayed I would only be hurting you and your family. I don’t know who I really am or where I come from, but you do. Your family is right here. You need to hang on to that.”
He let go of my hand and stood up, raking his fingers back through his hair. “There’s gotta be a way to make this work. We’re just not seeing it.”
I looked up at him, watching him pace back and forth. After all my worry that he would leave me, all I could see now was how much it was going to hurt when I had to be the one to walk away.
Chapter Eighteen
