She struggled to keep up. Struggled to make sense of how she felt. Of the truth in his words and her bone-deep fear that if she trusted them she’d end up hurt far worse than anything she’d ever felt before.

Fear that she’d fail at this like she’d failed those witches at the haven.

He was different. On every level. She knew from Lark that Lycian males put the alpha in alpha male. That was a lot to manage, even if it came in a package that looked as good as the one looming over her, blanketing her in all those feel-good hormones that were designed to part a girl from her underpants.

“You can’t run scared from me, you know. First, you’re too dominant for that. Second, you’re too honest for it. Third, I’m a predator and that only makes you hotter to me.” A flash of his grin and though she was going to groan she only managed a breathy sound. “Last, you’re a highly sensual being and you know just exactly how it will be between us physically.”

Her heart stuttered as he traced a fingertip down her chest, between her breasts, down to her belly button, circling it slowly.

“And because you feel it too. This magnetic thing between us. This thread that pulls us together each time we’re near each other.”

She opened her mouth to deny it but couldn’t. She was drawn to him on so many levels.

His smile changed and tightened things low in her belly. “I locked the door. And I think I know something else that will help you get your energy back up.”

She gulped.

“I know this momentary reprieve from your bossiness is just that—temporary. So I figure it’s best to divest you of your clothing before you start arguing.”

Chapter 10

HE waited to see if she was on board and she didn’t argue, thank the heavens.

She was hurt and he wanted to go slow, reined himself in the best he could as he got to his knees and started to pull his shirt off.

But he should have known Helena would have her own ideas. Quicker than he’d expected, she grabbed his wrist, moving to get to her knees facing him. “No. I want to.”

She leaned in close, breathing him in at his neck, sending gooseflesh skittering over his skin. After he’d laid himself bare before her, after he’d seen those walls of hers break and the tears come, he needed this more than he could articulate. Needed to connect with her on a whole new level.

“Have at it.” Even to his own ears, his words were breathy and a little shaky. She rendered him into a nervous, needy mass. Even with Lydia it hadn’t been like this.

She pulled his shirt up and off, tossing it to the side, skimming her palms over his chest. “I love these.” She pressed kisses over his marks. “Four hundred years of your life, all over your skin.”

With each major achievement in a Lycian’s life, he or she received ink from the family elders, turning each Lycian into a walking record of their honor and service. He and his siblings were the most marked in Lycia other than their father. He wore his skin with a great deal of pride. That she found it beautiful only made him want to preen for her gaze.

That she understood just how much it meant made him rejoice that he’d found this female.

She traced over the trails of ink. Over dates and words, over animals and maps, kissing here and there as she did. It was difficult not to push her back and feast on her skin, but he managed to hold still, his beast taking over and standing proudly for her to examine him.

“Your body is ridiculous.” She looked up into his gaze, a smile marking her lips.

He didn’t resist the urge to dip and take a taste of her mouth, his fingers sliding through her hair, taking it down from the ponytail. He breathed her in, the scent of her hair, of her skin, of everything that made her. His beast stirred, satisfied, but demanding more.

“Ridiculous bad or ridiculous good?”

She laughed, her head tipping back, and he feasted on the line of her neck, warm and supple skin, heavy with her scent and the tang of her magick.

“So, even four-hundred-year-old males who look like you do fish for compliments?”

“Only from the most beautiful women in the world.”

He unbuttoned her blouse and eased it away from her body, pausing to take in the sight of the pale silk camisole she wore underneath. “You have marks too?” He figured she would. He knew her sister had them; he’d seen them when she’d come to Lycia for the binding ceremony and had worn a backless gown.

She hummed her delight as he kissed her shoulders and over to her neck. “Yes. Lark and I wanted to honor all the big moments. It sort of became a competition to see who got what tattoo first.”

“You and your sister are very competitive.” He brushed his fingertips over a scar on her side and another on her upper arm.

“Rogue wolf,” she gasped as he licked over the inside of her arm, at the elbow.

“And where is that wolf today?”

“Nowhere.”

He smiled against her skin. So fierce. “You should probably know up front just how sexy I find it when you say such things.”

He pulled the right strap down, kissing to her elbow, then followed up with the left. But he leaned back, speechless after he’d pulled the camisole free of her body and she knelt there, her upper body in nothing but her bra. And the beginnings of a wash of bruises. He’d be angry about that later.

“We’ve competed at everything I can remember since we were little kids. Never in a mean-spirited way. I’ve always felt that we push each other to be our best. Sometimes we manage to do it right.”

“You and I are going to have to discuss this guilt you seem to carry over things you can’t possibly really be guilty for. After.”

His annoyance at her self-blame dissolved like smoke as he took her in. Long and lean, fit. Layers of muscle defined her upper arms. Her tits were freaking magnificent in a barely there wisp of a pale blue bra.

“I don’t say a lot, but fifty thousand pages of poetry could be written about you.”

The harsher edges of need on her features eased into a flattered smile. And a blush.

“Do you know I can smell you when you blush?” He slid his thumbs over her nipples through the bra and she arched into his touch.

“Huh?”

He popped the hooks at the back and removed the bra, exposing all that glorious tawny skin to his gaze. “Am I distracting you?” He gently laid her back on the bed, pulling the soft pants from her long-as-sin legs. Her panties were in the boy-short style, accentuating her belly and thighs and most likely her ass.

But she’d have to stand up for him to see and he didn’t want that. Not right then. He pulled her underpants from her, leaving her totally naked.

“When you blush it heats your skin and your scent rises. I’ve never smelled anything like you before. Your magick smells like snowflakes and pomegranate. And sex. Heaven help me, when you heat up my beast wants to drop to his knees and worship you.”

“Wow, you’re lethal with your mouth.”

He laughed, loving the way her gaze never left his hands at his waistband as he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and shimmied from them and his shorts.

“I haven’t even begun to show you just how talented I am with my mouth.”

She sucked in a breath. “I can’t wait.”

Helena knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, the place she was actively ignoring, that having sex with Faine was a monumentally bad idea.

But he was too much. Big and tall, broad shouldered. Covered in ink and muscles and tight skin. She sighed happily as she took him in. He smiled, knowing she was objectifying him. Totally digging it, and who was she to judge? The way his gaze ate up every bit of her body thrilled her to her toes.

He kissed her slow and deep, his lips were sure and gentle. At first. But once he lay against her, skin to skin, he hissed as she arched. His skin was hot, nearly scalding hers, and yet she couldn’t get more. Her magick seemed to wake and radiate outward in a way that left her dizzy.