He laughed and looked over at a very old crypt that bore the name of a family he didn’t recognize; they had wandered into the most remote part of the cemetery. Ash laughed. “I’m not high. I’m talking about easing into things. Getting people acclimated to seeing me around before, you know, going public with our private business.”
She smiled up at him and inched in closer. The slight chill in the late winter air had turned the tip of her nose pink, and Ash had to fight the urge to nip at it with his teeth. The quickly fading sunlight dappled her face with the swinging of branches in the wind, making her layered hair even wilder. Something about the way the sun was shining on her face, combined with the eerie shadows, made him see something else in her. A strange, feral creature with reflecting eyes, if he was not mistaken. It was there but then gone in a nanosecond. But no, that was crazy, he told himself.
“Does that mean we’re officially a couple? Or are you one of those guys who is all I don’t want to define this thing, let’s just have fun?” Rosemary asked.
Ash put his arms around her and hugged her close against the chilly air. “Baby, if I can’t make myself exclusive to the girl who makes me come four times in one night and asks for nothing in return, then I ain’t worth the salt on the rim of my mommy’s margarita on the night she and Daddy made me.”
He felt Rosemary giggle and snuggle in closer. “You sure have a strange way with words. But I like the way you say them.”
Ash kissed the top of her head. “And I like the way you press your tits up against me. Makes me want to grab you up and kiss you all over.” He bent lower and placed small kisses on her ears and down her neck. She tugged herself closer into his embrace and snuggled her face into his chest. His lips feathered over her skin until he found the spot where her pulse pounded. He ran his tongue over the spot and kissed it, eliciting a little moan from Rosemary, deep in her throat. Once again, her intoxicating pheromones filled the air around him, and if he held her just right, he could almost smell her blood.
But what’s this? he thought. Am I mistaken or does her blood smell different from regular humans? The Static People—what Ash and his kind referred to as humans who didn’t shift—had a certain kind of scent when they bled. Ash had picked up the difference quickly as a child. The blood of non-shifters smelled like metal. Wolf shifters’ blood—his blood—smelled and tasted sweet. Rosemary’s blood didn’t smell sweet, though. What was that? Like the odd shadow that passed across her face a moment ago, the unusual scent was there and gone in half a second. He could be hallucinating, caught up in the heady throes of a new romance, and imagining his mate was larger than life. More than human, like him.
Even as he dismissed these thoughts, he still felt himself wishing for it to be true. He wished she were a shifter because this would make the truth about him that much easier to share with her.
But at that moment, all he wanted was to kiss her. “Baby, can I please taste those lips? I’ve been thinking of nothing but that sweet mouth of yours since I left you the other night.”
Rosemary sighed, and her body relaxed against him.
“Yes, you can, but I have to tell you something.”
Ash grinned mischievously. “Chlamydia?”
“Gross!” She slapped him with the edge of her fringed scarf. “No…I’ve never been kissed before.”
Ash could have been knocked over with not just a feather but with a flea on that feather.
“Let me get this straight. You’ve never even kissed a guy, but you know how to give a blowjob to send a guy through the roof?”
She looked up at him sheepishly, and he watched her blush. “Well, you know there’s this thing called the Internet. And I don’t like to kiss on the first date.”
“Wow. I’d say you’re a damn quick study,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her nose. It was cold, and he pulled her in even tighter against him. “I was wondering why you wouldn’t let me kiss you.”
She breathed, “I’m very sheltered. And I’m…different. I just didn’t want you to think I was a freak.”
He chuckled and kissed the tip of her ear. “Oh, you are most definitely a freak. In an incredibly amazing way.”
“Oh Ash, that feels good. Kiss me.” She looked up, and Ash saw the flush of blood plumping her lips. She was past due for a kiss.
He leaned down, and their lips met with a soft, interlocking bliss. Ash felt her sigh, and it sent heated sparks all through him. Her lips tasted like a delicious secret only he was privy to. Whatever she was hiding, he wanted more of it. He pressed a little harder, and her lips opened up. He slipped in his tongue to meet hers. Like a pair of eager teenagers, the two of them stood there exploring each other’s lips and mouths. Everything stood still, as if they were the only two people in the world.
When they finally pulled apart, Ash could not stop his mouth from spilling it all. Most of it, anyway. “All right. There’s something you need to know about me. Not only am I not a one-night stand kind of guy. But also I just
