I leaned in and swept my lips across her as gently as possible, ready to assure her that I would make her choice worth it. That was unnecessary though. Instead, she grabbed hold of my head and refused to let go as she initiated the deepening of our kiss.
Chapter Three Hundred Seventy-Nine
Being careful with her was always at the back of my mind, but only just. Something about the woman, the call of the bond we would soon share, or pheromones made me ache with a need I’d never felt before. My cock was already hard and heavy, pounding against my jeans for release, for her. The breathy sigh she exhaled on my lips as I pulled away told me she was feeling the same way. That didn’t stop me from checking for myself though, just to be sure. I slid a hand down her body until my finger plunged into her saturated depths. Jesus. There was no way she was this wet, and I had to check.
I was pulled from the moment immediately when I realized I couldn’t feel her need in the supernatural way I usually did. She wasn’t hinting from her mind to mine exactly how she wanted to be taken. Her impatience wasn’t battering my resolve. No, the urge to speed forward was all me, all for her, but not because it’s what she was leading me to do.
“Is something wrong?” she finally asked after staring at me for a few moments. I hadn’t realized I’d just halted everything and sat there contemplating what was happening between us. It was just so fucking jarring, I didn’t know what to do with the feeling.
“It’s just that,” I started to say, but how the fuck was I supposed to explain to my intended mate that I’d always been able to feel a partner’s wants and desires as if it were a palpable part of me before? No one wanted to hear about their mate’s prior sex life, but especially not when they were just about to get down to business.
She cocked a brow at me in question. “It’s just, what?”
I growled and ran my hands through the shoulder length russet brown hair that laid in unruly waves against my neck.
“I have an ability,” the explanation stumbled from my tongue as if I were a prepubescent boy talking to a girl for the first time in his life. Fuck’s sake. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs of insecurity that blanketed my mind all of a sudden. “I can usually feel what someone wants, what they need, if they’re lying, if they’re honest, excited,” I rattled on only to have her fingers brush against my moving lips to stop me. Her slight smile nearly stopped my heart mid-beat.
“I understand. Most abilities of other shifters do not work on my kind. I don’t know why. My grandmother was never able to tell me the why of it all. She just hinted that it didn’t seem to be possible for the most part, but also not to rule it out.”
“Will that ability follow you into the body you’ll gain from me?”
She nodded her head. “With one exception. You will be able to use your abilities on me, to an extent. It will be lesser than what you feel with others, but enough to give a balance.” She shrugged her shoulders. “This is only what I learned from my grandmother. I never knew what my grandfather’s abilities were since he came from the older generation. The ones who didn’t speak openly of them, for fear of exposing a weakness or a strength to be used by others.”
That, I understood. “Okay,” I agreed with her because I didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s okay to not know. You knew anyway,” she offered her reassurance as she leaned in and kissed my bare shoulder. Hell, I didn’t even know when we managed to get my shirt free from my body, that’s how swept up in our little tryst I had been until realizing I was flying blind.
“It’s not that I don’t think I can handle myself without using the ability, it was just…”
“Jarring to realize you weren’t in use of it?” she asked while grinning those sexy lips of her against my skin. The image of her pale skin and rosy red lips against my tanned flesh sent a shiver down my spine, but when her teeth raked across the cap of my shoulder, I was done for. Grabbing hold of her face, I pulled her from my shoulder to my face where my lips met hers and plundered into her mouth, seeking the relief that I needed more than my next breath. You grow up as a shifter hearing about the mating call, the need to bond, and how it all consumes you at the moment when you find your mate. I never understood the truth of what I’d been told all my life until it consumed me.
“Gray,” she hissed into my ear as my mouth moved off of hers to nip and suck along the column of her neck. Her quicksilver eyes penetrated to the depths of my soul when we made the connection. It wasn’t the same as I’d always felt, but in that moment of eye contact with her, I felt her desire, the need to be one with me. Either that or the need I saw in hers simply matched what I was already feeling. “Please, Gray!” She whimpered into my neck. The vibrations of her plea against my throat snapped the last thread of sane response in me. I was off of her in a flash. The disappointment of her look settled in until she realized I was getting rid of the rest of the clothing that was holding me back from sinking into her heat.
The moment my boots, jeans, and socks hit the floor I was back on top of her, settled with my hips between her legs, elbows
