“Yes,” he muttered.
My hand still trapped under his, my arm moved with the small nod of his head.
“So, you wanted me then, the other night?”
His eyes closed tight as he said, “Yes.”
“You want me now?” I dared, then swallowed hard.
My heart beat in short, hard bursts. It could explode in my chest, and I’d die a happy woman just knowing that he loved me, wanted me, as I did him. And, I’d known him so long that it no longer felt insane to feel like that.
“Don’t,” he grumbled, shutting his eyes tighter until the skin wrinkled at the corners, matching his furrowed brow.
“Is someone watching us?” I asked, my eyes wide as if I could will this person into the open with just a glance.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head as his eyes opened back up.
“Then why?”
His eyes misted over. I licked my lips for what good it did my dry mouth, and then leaned in to kiss him. That animalistic noise that had scared me once only served to spur me on now. Though both of his hands now rested on my cheeks, he frailly tried to push my away. Grasping at his face with both of my hands, I met him inch for inch, kept my lips against his despite his efforts. I knew he wanted me even if he wouldn’t say it out loud. I let my tongue slip through my lips to urge his open.
He relented for a second, his tongue seeking to tangle with mine. The taste of him sent a ripple of energy over my skin that originated where my hands touched him and moved through me with a warped speed that zoomed down to my toes. They wiggled in my high heeled shoes as I kissed him with all I had in me, moving my head from side to side, pressing my lips against his hard and then pulling back to touch him in another way, another spot.
Between kisses, I murmured, “Take me home.”
“I can’t,” he stated in a low, light growl, breaking the moment.
His face inches from mine, he interjected in a sexy, deep voice, “That’s the problem. I can’t be with you. Not because anyone is watching us, but because I was created to serve a purpose, to protect you at all costs. But I am to do only that. My job comes with rules and regulations that I have to follow, though they’ve never been an issue before. I’m not to engage you as a man. I’ve had charges before, your father’s mother in fact, among others, but I’ve never felt for them outside of duty. Then you came along, and I lost my heart, my purely human one.”
“Why? I don’t understand. Why can you not interact with me as a man?”
“Because, feelings could compromise my duties, cloud my judgment. The night you were attacked is a prime example. I have to live with what I did to that slime bag. I’m not a violent man or beast, but I let my feelings for you turn my duty to protect into an uncontrollable rage. I could have merely scared him away, or bumped him to the side as a wolf, and that would have been enough to save you, but I let my feelings for you cloud my judgment, rule my actions. The way you looked at me that night, so briefly, but with such fear, it was all the punishment I needed because it lives in my mind, haunts me every time I think of you.”
“I didn’t know all of who you were then,” I countered, possessed to ease his guilt as it twisted my insides. “At that point in time, you were just the largest wild animal I’d ever seen. I didn’t think your actions had anything to do with protecting me. I just thought you’d wandered too far from home and had stumbled upon your next meal. Only reason you went after him first was because he’d attacked me, was on top of me. I thought I would be your next snack when you finished with him. You looked beastly enough to eat two humans.”
I grinned then, letting him know I teased, that I’d given it my best pathetic attempt at lightening the mood that hung like fog around us, so heavy one could choke on it.
“If I had known then what I know now, then I wouldn’t have looked at you that way. I could have instead thanked you for saving me,” I let the words rush from my mouth, hoping all I felt, both love and gratitude, would get through to him.
“You saved me still that night,” I continued. “And, the only way you can save me now is to make love to me again, because I love you, too.”