Brie
At first, I feel nothing but his mouth on mine. He inhales, but otherwise, is still as stone. The tension between us is so thick I could drown in it, and I wouldn’t bother saving myself by coming up for air.
I pull away just a touch–just enough to take a shuddering breath. Maybe this was a mistake. I’m not sure what I was thinking kissing him back, but… here I am, wondering when he’s going to start laughing at me.
Logan’s nose brushes mine as he closes his eyes. His hands drift to my waist, and my eyes flutter closed as his grip tightens. He takes a step toward me, then another, until I’m forced back, until my shoulders hit the wall. Time moves in slow motion as his lips brush the corner of my mouth, and he groans.
Logan presses me to the wall and kisses me hard enough to steal my breath away. I rise on my toes to meet him, my lips parting as I try to suck in another breath, but his tongue slides along my lower lip before gliding into my mouth. I have no idea what to do or think. Isn’t there a specific way to do this? Something that makes someone a good kisser versus a bad one? Because I desperately want him to think I’m good at this.
His hands move from my waist to my back while he presses me closer, trying to deepen the kiss with our bodies flush against each other. He leans into me, pressing his body against mine in a way that makes me moan against my will. I’m losing focus with every slow, exploratory circle of his tongue. The room fades when he growls with satisfaction as he gently bites down on my lower lip.
I’m a goner, and the worst part is, I know… deep, deep down, that I want this more than anything.
My hand curls around the back of his neck, the other planted on his bare chest like I have any chance of pushing him away. He’ll stop if I ask. I know he will. But I can’t think of a reason why I’d want that.
“Come here,” he whispers against my mouth, his voice low and gravelly with hunger.
He lifts me up like I weigh as much as a feather and deposits me on the counter, my thighs pressed against his hips. I have a single second to breathe, to reconsider what I’ve started, when he kisses me again so deeply my toes curl, and my body thrums to life with heat that radiates and settles in my core.
I gasp around his tongue. One of his hands slides up my back to cup my neck. He guides my head from side to side, curling his body into mine and kissing me like–like his life depends on it.
This can’t be how everyone kisses, right? I know Maeve has kissed boys before because she gloats about it, and Aris is definitely the family slut as it stands, but this?
This is… this is…
His free hand travels up my thigh, taking the fabric of my nightgown with it. His warm, solid palm on my bare skin ignites a fire that burns through me, melting me into a puddle of want so deep I can’t see past it. My heart beats out of rhythm, skipping and sprinting while our tongues dance, and he groans my name against my mouth like a prayer.
I squeeze my eyes shut and tilt my head back as his mouth moves from my lips to my cheek, brushing over my skin in a featherlight touch. His breath is warm over the ridge of my ear and into my hair, where he inhales deeply, his grip on my thigh tightening as he shudders. I feel my cheeks beginning to burn as his mouth finds my skin again, pressing a soft kiss just below my ear, and it’s such a sensitive sensation. I shiver, gripping his arms for support as his mouth travels lower, down my neck, his tongue drawing a long, slow line to my sternum.
My nipples peek beneath my silky nightgown, and I arch toward him against my will, desperate to be touched.
But he pauses, panting against my skin, and slowly rises up to face me, so close our noses brush. I chase his mouth with mine, but he chuckles low, almost cruelly, and says, “That was a kiss, Brie. You should know the difference when you meet your Alpha husband.”
Reality crashes down around me like a cold, wet blanket.
His eyes are as dark as polished obsidian as he pulls away, his mouth slightly red and swollen, and he looks…
Angry.
He turns and leaves the bathroom in a huff. I’m sitting on the counter with my legs splayed, his handprint a firm, red splotch on my exposed thigh. I teeter between heartbreak and righteous fury. His comment had been an insult, that’s clear. A dig meant to make me feel… guilt, maybe even shame. Who the hell does he think he is?
I slide off the counter and rush into the bedroom.
He just finished pulling on a pair of pants and is reaching for a shirt when I yell, “What’s wrong with you? Why would you say that to me?”
He looks over his shoulder, arching an eyebrow. “Say what? We’re going home, and once we’re there, you’ll continue to try to make a match, won’t you?”
My hands curl into fists at my side. I can’t find an answer for him. Normally, yes would be resting on the tip of my tongue, but the look on his face is borderline shattered, a mess of emotion I’m shocked he feels.
He rolls his eyes back to the closet where he fishes out a shirt, shrugging it on, his voice muffled by the fabric, “It meant nothing, Brie. Just a kiss.” His voice drops as he moves toward the door, opening and closing it with a snap, leaving me alone and in silence with nothing but my thundering heartbeat as company.
I flop into bed and curl myself into a ball, unsure what to think. I hug my pillow, my eyes overflowing with hot, angry tears. I can still taste him–still smell the shaving cream and his rich, male scent beneath, and it hurts.
Worse, I think I just hurt him in some way, and I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong because he wanted this separation–this dissolution of our bond–as much as I did.
As much as I used to.
I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I fall into a fitful sleep and wake to pink-hued sunlight creeping through the windows above the bed. The door opening startles me upright. Logan steps inside looking worn and tired, like he didn’t sleep a wink. The cool side of the bed he didn’t occupy tells me he didn’t return to our room last night at all. He scans my face, my body, determining that I’m in one piece, but that look is still in his eyes, that look I can’t quite make sense of.
Something obviously shifted between us. I’m not sure when it happened. Maybe it’s been like this from the beginning, and I’ve been too focused on ignoring my growing feelings to realize what was happening.
I liked him… I liked being his friend, but… my body is telling me with every passing moment I spend in his company that it craves more, and he just…
“Get dressed,” he says sternly, turning from me to start gathering my things off the vanity.
“Why?”
“Brie, just do it.”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling, cursing myself for kissing him back and ruining everything, and snatch another dress from the closet before rushing into the bathroom.
When I emerge a few minutes later, he’s waiting by the door, his back pressed against it. His face is drawn, his eyes holding absently on the bed, like he’s stuck in his mind.
“We’re moving boats, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, rolling his lower lip between his teeth. “We are. I’ll be captaining the Asteria and you’ll be… there.”
“I can stay on this ship,” I offer, a knot forming in my throat. “Logan–last night–I’m sorry. I don’t know what–”
“That was all me,” he says quietly, and his eyes rise to meet mine. “And so is what I need to do to you now.”
I stiffen, confused. “What do you need to do to me now?” I nervously chuckle, but he reaches behind his back to lock the door.
My heart rate starts to skyrocket as he edges toward me, each step he takes like a predator stalking his prey.
“What are you doing?” I ask nervously.
He stops a foot away and reaches for me. I command my legs to move back, but they don’t, and he manages to turn me around so my back is facing him. I shiver involuntarily as he brushes my hair away from the back of my neck and sighs deeply, saying, “I don’t know the men who’ve been in charge of Asteria. They know I have a mate with me, but you… you don’t carry my scent, Brie.”
My cheeks flush. “Is that a problem?”
“I’ve been questioned about it already,” he says quietly, his thumb tracing a line from the base of my neck down my spine until he reaches the zipper holding my dress in place. He gives it a tug and it pulls down.
I’m not naive enough to think this isn’t a huge problem. He’s right. I don’t carry his scent like mates do when they’ve acknowledged their bond, slept together, marked each other… and I’m about to be in the company of strangers–strange men, from a pack that’s not my own.
Logan has proven he’ll do anything to protect me.
“Are you going to mark me?” I ask, the words wobbling off my tongue.
“No, but you need to hold still.”
He walks us against the vanity. I can see his reflection in the mirror. His eyes are glassy, dark and conflicted while he winds an arm around my body to hold me in place as he bends me over the vanity just a touch.
I can’t breathe. My body forgets how to function as he dips his head, and his mouth rests on the back of my neck. He takes a breath, inhaling deeply, his body shuddering just like it had last night when he pressed kisses into my hair.
Then he kisses my skin–light and tender. I close my eyes as he presses his tongue to my neck, drawing a line from the base of my head down my spine, leaving the occasional bruising kiss that has my body careening back to life again. When he’s done, he slowly turns me around, his eyes briefly meeting mine before giving my neck and chest the same treatment. Slow kisses. Drawing his tongue over my skin. Sucking bruises just behind my ears. Nuzzling me like this is just–just what we do together. Every touch sends ripples of excitement across my skin and has that same heat from last night roaring to life.
I stand still as best I can and allow it to happen. He braces his hands on either side of me on the vanity, clutching it for dear life.
But I’m… melting again. I start to lean into his touch. When he licks across my collarbone, I gasp, a strangled moan leaving my lips, and he rocks into my body, breathless, like he’s hanging on by a thread.
I’ve heard about this ritual before. It’s ancient, of course, from a time when shifters were almost completely nomadic and constantly migrating, coming in contact with other packs. He’s… scenting me. Marking his territory. And I’ve never felt more alive than right now.
When I start to slump, he presses a hand against my belly to keep me steady, my back biting into the edge of the vanity. He nibbles my collarbone and up to my neck again, gently biting my flesh–not hard enough to break the skin and leave a mark, but close.
Close enough I almost beg him to just do it.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No,” I breathe, my hands leaving the vanity to clutch his sides. Another nibble of his teeth against my neck has me grinding my hips against his in an almost involuntary movement. Desperation clouds my senses. My wolf is in agony, which is something I’ve never experienced before, even when we rejected each other.
When he turns me around again to face the vanity, and leans down to continue his ministrations, I begin to whimper.
“I know,” he breathes, clutching my hips to steady himself as he kisses up my skin, causing gooseflesh to erupt all over my body as a heated chill licks down my spin. “I’m almost done–”
“Don’t stop,” I rasp, unable to stop myself.
His lips part against my skin, a straggled sign escaping. “Brie, I–”
A thunderous rap on the door jolts us both. Logan lifts his head as Sawyer’s voice rings out, alerting him that the skiff is here to take us to the Asteria, and we need to hurry.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” Logan says as firmly as he can, but his voice still shakes. He holds perfectly still with me bent over the vanity, totally prone and at his mercy, until Sawyer’s footsteps recede.
I catch his gaze in the mirror. He’s disheveled, breathless, his cheeks stained a ruddy pink as he looks down at me. He closes his eyes, whispering a curse under his breath, biting down on his lower lip like it’s taking all of his strength to pull my zipper back up and step away.
He manages it, gently helping me upright.
I can’t look at him right now. I can’t let him see how much that just affected me. My inner thighs slide together–wet and aching for him, and I’m… suddenly desperate to get away from him. Far away.
“Do not wash my scent off until I tell you to,” he says under his breath then takes my hand and moves toward the door.