The scent of chocolate cake still lingered in the kitchen even though I’d polished off his entire box of desserts hours ago.
All I could do was nod in response. Now that the time had come, too many emotions were blazing through me to do anything else.
The hunter and I stood by the sliding glass doors that overlooked the pastures behind his house.
I stood in nothing but shorts and a T-shirt even though it was late autumn. Kaillen also wore easy to remove clothes, those damned loose pants again. Normally, I would have had a hard time keeping my eyes off his ridged abs and strong shoulders, but now, all I could do was watch that large ball of pale light glistening on the horizon as it began to rise.
That tug started in my chest again, stronger and more insistent than it had ever been before.
“I want to go outside,” I whispered. “I need to.”
He opened the door, his face completely blank, but the ashy scent that had plagued him on and off all day, again wafted from his skin. He’d done his best to prepare me and tell me what was to come, but given that I was the first female werewolf in the history of the world to shift, neither of us really knew what to expect.
If I truly did shift, according to Kaillen, my wolf would emerge when the moon was at its peak. She would rise and be born in an explosion of magic, and since it was the first shift, I wouldn’t have complete control of her. She was bound to run and be wild. For all I knew, I’d spend the night as a passenger while she chased down deer or bunny rabbits. Who the hell knew.
“What was your wolf like on your first shift?” I asked when the cold wet grass slid along the bottoms of my feet. I was barefoot, so was Kaillen, but the cold didn’t bother me. If anything, I welcomed it. I was burning up inside.
“Boisterous,” Kaillen answered with a faint smile. “He wanted to play with the other wolves in the Ontario pack.”
“Did he?”
A pained look came into Kaillen’s eyes. “He did. I actually spent that first night with Gavin. Our wolves, strangely, get along quite well. Or they did, until Cameron put a stop to it.” His lips thinned, and he didn’t convey any further details about his brothers or his first shift.
Hearing about his brothers reminded me of all of the problems he had back in Ontario, and for some reason—maybe it was my impending shift and the fact that I was turning into a wolf and wolves adored affection—I reached for him. I wanted to touch him. Needed to.
The second I made contact with his skin, his breath stopped. Golden light flared in his eyes, and he didn’t hesitate. His warm palm engulfed mine, and that deep golden glow grew in his eyes. I hadn’t seen many appearances from his demon today. Those eerie black flames from last night were gone. Mostly, I’d only seen his wolf. Whether that was because Kaillen was forcing his demon down or the full moon called to his wolf too, therefore, making him stronger, I didn’t know.
But I did know that I didn’t feel alone. Not at this moment. And right now, that was what I needed.
“I’m so hot,” I said with a humorless laugh. I released his hand since that haunted look had left his eyes. I fanned my T-shirt against my chest. “Which is so weird ’cause it can’t be warmer than forty degrees out here.”
“Did you want to leave your clothes on until you shift?” he asked.
I fanned my shirt again. Truth be told, I didn’t. I wanted to strip bare and stand naked under the moon. Something inside me, an instinct or calling, pulled at me. The moon was controlling me again, owning me. So yeah, I was seriously going to be one of those people that lived at those hippy communes or whatever. ’Cause if it were up to me, I would be walking around naked as a jaybird and completely unabashed about it.
“This is pretty much as embarrassing as I thought it would be,” I mumbled, gripping my shirt. “You can’t tell anyone about this, ’cause if I start barking, or dancing naked under the moon, or eating squirrels, that shit does not leave this ranch.”
Kaillen let out a laugh, his face splitting into a broad grin, and a tugging sensation began in me again, except this time it wasn’t toward the moon but instead toward him.
Weird. I brushed that thought off, ’cause some strange crap was going down right now, and I wasn’t gonna analyze it.
“Do you mind?” I asked, my hands on my shirt’s hem.
His laughter died, his eyes immediately zeroing in on my hands. “Do I mind if you take your shirt off?”
I nodded.
His lips parted as a wild glow entered his eyes. “Uh, no, I don’t mind,” he replied, practically tripping over his words. “By all means, take it off.”
I swallowed a laugh. “Pervert.”
He didn’t respond as his eyes burned brighter.
I didn’t even care, though, even if everything about this was totally fucked up. So I followed that deep-seated need inside me that told me to get naked and stay under the moon.
I lifted my shirt up and over my head, then slipped out of my shorts. When I stood naked and bare amidst the glittering stars and cold night sky, my breasts peeked and my skin pimpled into goosebumps. Strangely, though, I didn’t feel cold.
A steady beating thrum came from Kaillen, his heart’s lub-dub increasing with each second that passed. The sound of his ragged breaths came next, not loud, but subtle enough that I wouldn’t have detected them before these new sensations began to take hold of me.
When I glanced at him, the hunter’s jaw was locked, his throat bobbing in a swallow as his gaze drank me in.
“Are you okay?” I asked as that heated feeling began in my blood again. I shifted from foot to foot, a restlessness beginning to consume me.
He made a non-committal sound, but that wildness stayed in his eyes. His expression was so fierce, and filled with so much longing and heat, that I had a feeling he was having a hard time remembering language. Another groan came from him before he finally said in a deeply guttural voice, “Tala, you’re so fucking beautiful.”
I turned to face him, a part of me aware of how unabashedly ballsy I was being. I was naked. Outside. And I didn’t give two shits about it.
I just wanted to be free. To run. To howl. To fuck.
Okay, where the hell did that thought come from?
But it was true. I felt alive, on fire, and that tug began in my chest again. Not toward the moon, but again directed toward the hunter.
I felt her then, something stirring inside me, waking, and stretching. I looked down, as if I could see into my body, which of course I couldn’t, just as something deep and primal yawned inside me.
“I . . .” I brought a hand to my belly. “I can feel her.”
Kaillen’s ragged breaths increased, and with the deft flick of his hands, his loose pants fell to the ground. A rich, musky aroma surrounded the hunter, and one glance southward revealed evidence that the dude was very turned on.
A pulse began low in my belly, not related to my wolf or my magic, but to the hunter. I ached to touch him, caress him, kiss him. His large cock called to me, begging me to drop to my knees, to wrap my mouth around him, and suck his rigid length.
He groaned. “I can scent your sex. Your arousal—” He paused. “Fuck, Tala.”
And since it was the night of following instincts, I didn’t question it. I dropped to the ground and pulled him toward me. He came readily, his large erection spearing the night.
In a blurred move, I had my hand wrapped around the base of his shaft and the head of his dick in my mouth. Gods, I’d wanted to taste him and feel him for so long.