Hit List

“I work out with our guards as often as I can.”

He gave me wide eyes. “I’ve never heard of a royal that works out with the guards.”

“I’m not big on the whole royalty thing,” I said.

“Our queen thinks you show a lack of respect.”

“She’s right,” I said.

“It’s been wonderful sleeping next to a woman again. I hadn’t realized how much I missed just holding someone in my arms.”

I realized that Ethan wasn’t dominant enough to push the sex forward. I was going to have to be bolder, or we’d be talking for another hour. Talking was good, I liked that I could talk to him, but I needed to feed the ardeur and find Edward. He needed me at his back.

“Kiss me,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Kiss me.”

He looked uncertain then, nervous.

“Has it been two years since you kissed a girl?”

He nodded, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I reached up with the hand he wasn’t holding and touched his face, made him look at me. “Has it been two years since you’ve done anything with a girl?”

“Yes.” He whispered it.

I smiled at him, trying to make it gentle. “You’re going to be good at it.”

“How can you tell?”

“You’re a wereanimal, so that makes you a sensualist, and I’ve seen you fight. You know how to use your body; that translates to the bedroom.”

“I’ve known fighters who weren’t good in the bedroom.”

“They had issues,” I said.

“How do you know that I don’t have issues?”

“Everyone has issues,” I said, “but if the issues are too much I’ll let the ardeur free and it takes away all the doubts.”

“I didn’t think I’d be this nervous,” he said, and he let go of my hand and just looked at me.

“It’s okay to be nervous,” I said.

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

I smiled at him. “I was, but I’m not now.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because you’re more nervous than I am.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why shouldn’t that make you more nervous? Why don’t you think I’m a pussy for being nervous?”

“You called me sweet earlier; I’ll return the compliment.”

“Sweet isn’t what a woman wants from a man.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find that a lot of women rate sweetness in a man pretty damn high.”

“Do you?”

I smiled up at him. “Kiss me, Ethan, just kiss me, and we’ll go from there.”

“Why not feed the ardeur and take all the doubts?”

“Because I’d like some of what we do to just be us, and not the metaphysics.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I’d rather ease you into your first sex in two years than pounce on you like a starving wolf.”

“Pounce on me?” He gave me a look as if he didn’t think I could pounce on him.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, “I could totally pounce on you.”

He smiled, flashing those dimples. “Bet you couldn’t.”

“If you mean arm-wrestle you and win, you’re right. I’d lose, but pouncing isn’t about strength.”

“What is it about?” he asked.

“Sex,” I said.

He frowned at me. “I do not think pouncing means the same thing to you that it means to me, then.”

I grinned at him. “Probably not, but you want me to have sex with you, right?”

“Very much.”

“Then I’ll win, because you want to me to pounce on you.”

He flashed those dimples again. “You’re saying that I’ll let you win.”

I reached up, sliding my hands over his shoulders, drawing him down toward me. “I’m saying that it’s a win-win.” My hands slid down his back as he came closer.

His face was so close I couldn’t focus on it, as he said, “I like to win.”

“So do I,” I said. I whispered it against his lips.

Then he kissed me, tentative at first, as if he weren’t quite sure what to do, and then a sound escaped his throat. A sound full of longing, eagerness, and he remembered how to kiss. He remembered how to kiss, and how to have eager hands run down my body while he did it. We kissed until we had to break just to catch our breath, and broke apart laughing.

We laughed until he moved his hips just a little and I could feel that he was hard and eager now. It made me look down at him and there was nothing soft now. He was very hard, long and smooth, and wide. “You’re beautiful,” I said.

“I’ve never had a woman say that to my penis before.”

I looked at his face. “Then they were fools, and I like men. I like everything about them.”

“Most women seem a little afraid of us.”

I shook my head. “I’m not afraid.”

“No,” he said, and his voice was growing deeper, “you’re not.” He drew out of my arms and slid lower on my body. “I want to taste you. I want to look up your body and watch your eyes roll back into your head, and then I want inside you.”

Just staring down at him, watching that eager darkness fill his eyes, tightened things low in my body. I tried to get in my way; tried to keep myself from enjoying the moment, but the ardeur was just there behind my eyes, inside my head, my heart, my gut, and it wanted him. The beasts inside me seemed strangely sluggish. The weretigers in all their colors that had been so eager for him earlier flicked a tail tip at me, opened lazy eyes the color of fire, and three different shades of blue: pale sky blue, the gray-blue of a cloudy day, and blue with that golden edge of dawn to it. All three of the tigresses concerned with the man who was kissing his way down my hip seemed almost sleepy, content, as if they’d already fed, or just woken from a nap. Apparently, the drugs they’d given me for pain really had worked. I’d remember to get the name of the drug so I could share it with the other wereanimals. Any painkiller that actually worked for lycanthropes would be a real godsend.

The tigers were content to let the ardeur feed, while they watched like some huge version of sleepy housecats. Or maybe it had just been so long since I’d fed the ardeur that even the beasts inside me knew it had to come first. Maybe they hadn’t liked the physical cage of my body being so badly injured either. How do you know what a tiger thinks?

Ethan snuggled down between my legs, kissing slowly on the very inner edge of my thigh, each kiss getting him closer and closer to things that were so intimate. Again, I tried to get in my own way; what was I doing letting a stranger go down on me? But his mouth moved from my thigh to other things, and that one caress of lips and tongue bowed my spine, threw my head back against the pillow, made my hands grab onto the sheets.

His mouth was so warm, his tongue licking around and over me, tracing the edges of every fold, exploring every part of me, so that it wasn’t just about hunting for that magic button and the orgasm, but truly about exploring and tasting me. He’d told me exactly what he wanted, and now he was doing it. It wasn’t just that it felt amazing, but the sheer joy he took in it. Some men, like some women, do oral sex like a duty, but some truly enjoy it. Take pleasure in every part of the act, enjoying, relishing every lick, every suck, every bit of writhing they can get from their partner. Ethan was one of those lovers. But then he’d had years to fantasize, and now that the fantasy was true, he was going to suck every bit of enjoyment out of it he could.

He sucked on that one sweet spot, and drew me over the edge, spilling that heavy, delicious, weight between