He continued to stare up at me, his eyes glazed over with lust, his swollen lips parted slightly. “Aurora,” he whispered, snaking a hand around my throat and pulling me down to him. He wrapped his arms around my body and locked his hands behind my back. He grazed his nose against his mark. “I love you.”
And then he started to fuck me hard. His hips bucking against mine, his cock pounding deep inside of me, my walls clenching hard around him. The pressure built in my core, higher and higher and higher.
“I love feeling your body tremble right before you’re about to come,” he whispered in my ear. “I love listening to your little whimpers while you’re sleeping.” He pushed some hair behind my ear, so I could gaze at him. “I love that fire in your eyes.”
I furrowed my brows and clenched harder. “Please, come inside of me.”
“Will that make you feel good?” he asked. “Feeling my cum filling your tight little pussy?”
I whimpered in his ear and nodded. “Yes, Ares. Please.”
Stuffing his face back into the crook of my neck, he sucked on his mark. His body tensed, and I could feel his cock pulsing inside of me and filling me with his cum. I moaned, my body shuddering against his.
A rush of pleasure washed over me. Everything was so much more intense than the last time we’d had sex, all our emotions bare and unguarded this time.
He sat up on the bed, keeping his arms around my body, his cock still buried inside of me. “Goddess, I love you,” he said.
My lips quivered as I stared at Ares, eyes filling with tears from the pure intensity of everything that had just happened. I clung on to him, terrified that I would lose him if I let go. Earlier today, I’d thought I’d lost him for good, and I didn’t ever want to feel like that again. He pulled me closer to his chest, and we embraced each other in silence for a good fifteen minutes.
Moonlight streamed into the room through the window and bounced off all the muscles in his back. Under the light, I could see every single one of his scars. Some were small and nearly invisible; others were large, swollen, and jagged. I brushed my fingers against them, feeling the rugged texture.
Every one of them made up the man I called my mate.
He touched his fingers to my mark on his neck and looked me right in the eye. “My body is covered in scars from wars that I’ve won and from battles that I’ve lost.” He glanced down at his forearms and then back at me. “So many memories etched into my skin forever, but yours, Kitten, is my favorite.”
Chapter 44
Aurora
“Let me take you out on a real date,” Mars said with a smile. He had shifted from Ares to Mars a few moments ago as we sat together on our bed, still completely naked and soaked in bath water and sweat. “You haven’t really met this pack yet. And I want to take you out.”
“And?” I asked, poking his cheek.
“And”—his cheeks flushed—“I want to show everyone my mark.”
A grin broke out onto my lips, and I pulled him into a tight hug. I’d never thought that when he took me, he’d be so … loving. I’d thought I was going to have to endure a life of war and pain and violence. But he was just a boy trapped in this big, brooding body. All Ares and Mars needed was some love.
“Go get ready,” he said, smacking my ass. “I have some business to take care of before we go.”
I crawled off him and rummaged through the closet for my clothes. Ruffles waltzed into the room a few moments after Mars disappeared into the hallway. With a bag of chips between her teeth and suds on her nose, she hopped onto the bed and swayed her tail back and forth.
“Did you get into the bath?” I asked, opening the chips for her.
She purred in response and watched me choose my outfit for tonight, meowing when she didn’t like a skirt or shirt or dress. I threw on my last outfit—a simple little black dress with silver earrings—and arched a brow at Ruffles for approval. She squinted her eyes at me and purred loudly.
I placed a kiss on her head, told her not to leave her fur all over Mars’s clothes when we were gone, and walked out of the room to meet Mars, who was dressed in a short-sleeved maroon button-up, which hugged his biceps.
He brought me to The Flaming Chariot, located in the heart of the Ironmane Pack. Bustling with people, the restaurant had a stone statue of a chariot led by horses with flames shooting out like wings from their sides. Mars said it had been created over two hundred years ago during the War of the Lycans.
For a restaurant run by werewolves, the place was surprisingly chic with a white-accented wraparound bar. We sat at a table, ordered a bottle of Bacchus white wine, and started in on our dinner.
Some people glanced over at us, and for once, they smiled at me. Before, everyone had seemed so cold and distant, but now that we both had marks on our necks, people were a bit friendlier.
I stared across the table at him and leaned forward. “Did you happen to see my father before you left the pack?” I asked.
While I had saved all those pups, I still wanted to know if the hounds had killed my dad. I couldn’t recognize him among the people who were torn up in the raid.
“Your father is in my prison,” Mars said. “I would let him out, but he’d end up going back to your pack and getting himself killed.”
“He’s here?” I asked with wide eyes. “You brought him back with you?”
The light of a candle flickered against his brown eyes, giving them a golden hue.
