Tomas didn't speak. His eyes flicked down to my lips and back up, almost like he was asking permission. I would've thought the Lycan King took what he wanted.
I should have said something. Should have eased this tension clawing through us. But my next breath dragged in his scent, something woodsy and male, and I swayed forward without meaning to.
His lips crashed into mine.
He didn't hesitate. There was nothing romantic and joyful, like new love should have been.
No, this was heat and hunger and punishment all in one. This was straight desire given a physical form. My knees nearly gave out and he crushed my body to him like we both needed help to stay standing.
His lips parted mine, deepening the kiss to something feral.
My hands found his shoulders, fingers bunching in the soft linen of his shirt, and I kissed him back with everything I couldn't say. All the confusion, the tension, the need I kept pretending wasn't growing every time he looked at me like I was his and he hated that he wanted me.
A whisper edged along my awareness. Not out loud, no, in me. A word, what was it?
He groaned into my mouth, something low and desperate, and his other hand slid down to anchor at the curve of my hip. My body burned where he touched, like the heat of him could mark me through my skin.
I made a sound, soft and needy against his lips, and suddenly I wasn't on my feet anymore. Something crashed to the floor as he settled me on the edge of the vanity. I didn't really care, whatever it was could wait.
He pulled me to the edge and I wrapped my legs around him, desperately trying to get his body closer to mine.
My hands slid down his chest, and he groaned again when my fingers found the edge of his shirt, slipping under to ghost across his blazing skin.
He pulled back long enough to kiss a lazy trail along my jaw to my ear. "Tell me to stop, Cassidy."
I couldn't. It was all I could do to keep from drowning in him. I needed something to ease the ache unfurling low in my belly.
Something whispered along the back edge of my mind. Tracing itself through my thoughts. I shook my head, whatever it was, it could wait.
He kissed me again when I didn't say anything, his fingertips trailing along my leg, to where the skirt of my dress bunched up around us.
I groaned against him as his touch burned a trail along my inner thigh. So close. If he'd just move a little more. I tilted my hips slightly, hands dropping to brace on the edge of the vanity.
My head fell back, breaking the kiss. His lips found my jaw again as his fingers twisted in the edge of my underwear. His thumb ghosted the slick fabric, and I couldn't stop the sound that escaped, part sigh, part moan.
"This is mine." The words were whispered against my throat. "I don't care if you flirt with this entire kingdom. This…" He pressed his thumb against me and I cried out. "Is mine, Cassidy."
There it was again. That unspoken word that trailed along the edge of my awareness. My brain was too fuzzed to understand it. And I didn't want to.
I rolled my hips, trying to get more pressure to ease the ache. I reached out, hands fisting in his shirt and jerking him forward, desperate to get him even tighter against me.
"Tell me." His words were hissed on my skin.
"It's yours. I'm yours." I sobbed out, aching for something, anything.
"You're mine, Cassidy. You don't even understand how deep we are."
"Then tell me!"
"I am, little fox. I'm telling you, no matter what your words say, this…this is what you are. No one touches what is mine."
I couldn't think with him touching me. Especially not with that swirling word chanting itself in my head. But I couldn't…what…
I hissed as he nipped my throat hard, bringing me back into the moment. Back into needing him.
He stroked his thumb along the fabric. Circling, dipping, pressing into me. My breath caught, so close. So close to…
His mouth crashed into mine again, swallowing my cry as the world shattered around me. I gasped, pleaded, begged into his kiss.
And then he was gone, six steps back. I almost toppled forward, reaching out and catching myself on the back of the chair next to the vanity.
I blinked at him, my brain not catching up to what my body already knew. He was leaving. And I desperately wanted him to stay.
He backed slowly to the door, staring at me like he'd never seen me before, chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. My eyes skimmed him and he chuckled, the sound low and raspy and doing funny things to my insides.
"Don't look at me like that little fox, or I won't be able to stop. And you're not ready yet. Not for this."
"What?"
"There's so many things I want to say right now, Cassidy, and none of them are good. I can't do this. I need time to get the right words."
He wasn't making any sense. I didn't understand. I slid off the vanity, my knees weak as I stumbled forward. Heat flared across my cheeks and I couldn't decide if I was embarrassed or pissed.
"What do you–"
The door shut behind him before I could get the words out. But something clanged around in my head, beating and banging for my attention. A word that had been on the edge of my consciousness.
Mate.
That was it. The word begging me to understand. The word I didn't think. The word that was screamed down mind-speak as I fell off the edge of the world just a few minutes before. The word that had been swirling between us from the moment he kissed me.
Mate.