Chapter 186

I mean, could there have been a worse moment to admit the truth to my mate?

“God, I have such shit timing,” I mutter to myself.

My wolf lays down in my soul, stretching out her long, sorry nose, burying it under my mental hand, wanting to show me love at the same moment that she begs for a little attention. I turn towards her, giving her a little scratch, marveling again at the softness of her fur.

It will be okay, she assures me, her eyes wide and limpid and sad. No matter what happens…it will be okay.

I hope so, I say, smoothing her fur back lovingly. She lets her eyes drift shut, holding on to the hope for both of us.

But she sits up at the same moment I do at the sound of footsteps pounding back towards us.

My breath hitches because…

I mean, is it Jackson? Coming back?

Or…I mean, we weren’t precisely quiet, were we?

Despite our earlier decision to be stealthy and quiet, to hide up here all night and sneak back out at dawn, we just got into a shouting match that other people were bound to notice. noveldrama

So…could it be someone else? Could it be someone coming…coming to hurt me?

Anxious, I spin, looking for my crossbow. I reach for it, snatching it up into my left hand, my right working anxiously at the quarrel, wanting to get it loaded before whoever is approaching actually gets here.

But it’s too late – I’m not fast enough.

And when I look up, and see who it is, the crossbow falls from my hands anyway.

Because those shoulders, that height, that steady stride – I’d recognize it anywhere. In my sleep, in my dreams.

Anywhere.

My breath hitches as Jackson stalks across the little plateau towards me, his face stern.

“Jacks,” I murmur, taking a step back, but there’s no time for anything else.

Suddenly, he’s there, in front of me, and he doesn’t even pause his as he dips low, one arm going around my waist while the other hand wraps around the back of my thigh, lifting me suddenly and steadily up against him as he continues forward until my back is pressed against the wall of the cliff behind me.

And then, before I even realize what’s happening, Jackson is kissing me.

My physical reaction to Jackson is immediate, and visceral, and vivid. I cling to him, my legs wrapping instinctually around his waist as he moves his lips against mine, bidding my mouth open, dipping his tongue inside to lick me, to taste me.

I’m completely frantic both with shock and the immediacy of wanting him. My hands seem like they move everywhere at once as I gasp against him, my eyes pressed shut. My fingers are in his hair, and then down his neck and his back as his hand untucks my shirt, pulling it out of my pants like it was stupid that it was ever in there in the first place. And then his palm is flat against the skin of my back and it makes me tilt my head back with a deep moan. God, Jackson’s skin against mine, suddenly it’s all – all that I want.

Jackson takes immediate advantage of my bared throat, dragging his mouth down the length of it, taking a long, slow breath of my scent as he goes. He drags his canines across my skin when his mouth gets to my shoulder, pressing his teeth delicately against the tendons there in a way that makes me shudder, hard.

God, fuck, but I want him – immediately I want him. I pull my head back up and use my hands to lift his face, putting my thumbs beneath his heavy jaw and moving his mouth back to mine. Jackson immediately complies, kissing me fervidly, with utter abandon – taking my mouth with his, tasting me however he wants to. And every inch of me responds, pressing him closer, wrapping myself tighter around him.