Heather barely got out a surprised peep before Cody crushed her into a gargantuan kiss. Apparently, her Arizona cowboy got turned on by flirty wolf talk.
Apparently, she did, too, because her gasp turned into a lusty whimper within the space of three hammering heart beats. Her right foot wound behind his ankle and her tongue swiped over his teeth.
God, where did this desperate need come from? Sex always had a way of letting hormones overrule the mind, but this was different. Wildly different. The sound of a low, thrumming bass drum seemed to rise out of the night. An urgent hunger that demanded immediate satisfaction. Right now.
Cody’s skin seemed to have heated ten degrees in the last minute, and her clothes suddenly felt too tight for her skin. But she was all mixed up and ended up yanking at his shirt instead of her own.
“Heather,” he murmured in a voice that had dropped an octave.
His fingers flew over the buttons of his shirt. He worked the bottom ones while she fumbled with the upper few until they met at the last button which popped off completely in hasty escape.
“Cody—”
She cut off whatever she was going to say the moment her hands smoothed over his bare skin. His hot, bare skin. They’d spent three nights together already, but each time set off the same blood-thumping thrill.
“Off,” he growled. A real growl? “This has to come off.” He worked her shirt up over her torso, then her bra.
Their first night together had started with a slow dance. Their second, an exploration of unmapped territory. Their third had seemed fast, but this was going to be a new record for hot and hard. And God, did she want it bad. Needed it bad.
“Cody,” she panted. His hard length pressed into her belly, and she snaked a hand down the front of his jeans.
He hissed at the contact and let his head thump against the wall. “Heather…”
She gripped tight—almost too tight—and slid her hand up and down his shaft.
“Just like that…” he murmured, eyes sliding shut.
When she pictured every throbbing inch of him pumping inside her instead of against her palm, she just about yowled. Sped up a little, then slowed all the way to the tip and reversed, tugging his skin as she went.
“Stop.” Out of nowhere, he grabbed her hand. Locked eyes with her for a split second, flashing a glimpse of his serious side. The side he rarely showed—the real man beneath. The edges of his blue eyes didn’t just flicker with gold, they seemed aflame. Passionate, determined, and willing to fight for what was his.
And there were those words again, whispering through her mind.
Mine. Mate.
“I’m not coming anywhere but inside you,” he croaked.
“Then come to me.” She pushed his jeans down, then hers, and took a first step toward the bedroom while Cody fished a condom out of his jeans and unrolled it in one quick move.
A step was as far as she got before Cody pulled her back and pinned her against the wall. An almost-but-not-quite-too-hard kind of being pinned. The delicious kind of being pinned by a good man at the limits of his self-control.
“You okay with this?” he asked through clenched teeth.
She was absolutely, positively okay with this. They’d been through half a dozen positions that had been unfamiliar to her before, and every one had been great.
Still, a tiny, reserved part of her mind spoke up. “What if I said no?” she heard herself squeak.
His eyes flickered and darkened, and the muscles of his face seemed to turn to stone.
“Then I’ll stop.” His normally smooth voice was positively raspy now. “Just say the word, and I swear I’ll stop.”
Even if it kills me, his eyes added.
“Don’t stop,” she said, clamping her arms around his shoulders. “I want this. I want you. Here. Now.”
The right side of his mouth curved up and his hips pressed closer. “You want this?”
“This.” She nodded, wrapping her legs around him. He held her up with ease.
For a second, he didn’t move. Just watched her sweat and squirm and beg with every part of her body except her mouth.
Cody. Her lips formed his name. Please…
It was exhilarating, like standing at a cliff’s edge. Knowing that the man who pushed her over the precipice would be the same one who snatched her out of thin air half a second before he plummeted to the ground. There was a dangerous side of Cody, but it was layered over the caring one, so she knew she could let go.
His eyes darkened and he pressed closer to her slick heat. “You want this?” A coarse thumb swiped over her nipple, and she cried out.
“Yes!”
“You want this?” He hitched her up, spreading her wider with his cock poised right at her entrance.
“Yes. Yes—”
He plunged in, and a howl jumped out of her throat. “Yes!”