Page 65 of The Hunter

After dipping the soap in the water to rewet it, he lifted the bar to her neck. “Always I have seen you. From the first moment, I have seen you. Not your scars, Lacey. You.”

As his hand worked lower, slowly washing, Lacey’s lips parted, and she lifted her chin to allow him easier access.

“This smooth skin,” he said as he ran the soap along her delicate collarbone, tracing the dip at its center with his thumb. Heat built low in his core, radiating into his stem. “These soft mounds.” He trailed the soap down and circled her breast, delighting in its give, its weight.

Lacey’s breath quickened, and her fingers curled into his leg as he neared the round, pink flesh at the tip of her breast. With a single brush of that soap, her nipple hardened.

Telok growled. “By the Eight, the way your human body responds to me…”

Turning his hand, he stroked that tight bud with his knuckle.

Lacey sucked in a sharp breath, and her back arched as she leaned into his touch, her lashes growing heavy. “Telok…”

Crimson tinged the edges of his vision. Throbbing for release from its confinement, his stem pressed forward, held within only by his clutching claspers. Need echoed through him, down into his bones. As if her body’s reactions and the feel of her in his hands hadn’t been enough, the scent of Lacey’s desire clouded his mind. It flooded his nostrils, filled his lungs, and clung to his fine hairs, most concentrated where her slit was pressed against his leg. That tantalizing flesh was hot and wet, coating the hide beneath it with her essence.

She was right here, yearning for him, succumbing to him, an offering for the taking…

He ran the soap down her stomach and over her scar, making her belly quiver. “These are beautiful because they are part of you.”

Telok’s eyes followed his hand as it trailed lower, toward the source of that heat and that maddening scent, watching his fingers brush the hair above her slit. He purred, and his claspers eased their grip on his slit. “As are these red curls covering your pus⁠—”

“You guys still alive over there?” Cole yelled.

Lacey gasped and grabbed Telok’s wrist, halting his hand. She stared at him with wide, startled eyes, her cheeks flushed.

Telok growled.

I will kill Cole.

She let out a nervous laugh. “I… I, uh, got it from here.”

Snatching the soap from him, she quickly hopped off his leg, her slippery skin easily escaping his hold. She splashed into the water, stumbling slightly before she caught her balance.

“Oh, my God, I can’t believe that happened,” she rasped, almost too quietly for him to hear over the sound of the stream, as she stepped away from him.

Telok remained still. A storm raged inside him with howling winds, lashing rain, and booming thunder as desire and instinct clashed with shock and reason. He’d been so close to taking her. How had he allowed that to happen?

How had he lost control so suddenly?

“Uh, guys?” Cole’s voice carried over to Telok. “You all good? I’m about to walk over th⁠—”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Lacey shouted.

Clenching his fists, Telok drew his claspers over his slit tight enough for it to hurt. If Cole came over here, if he saw Lacey like this, Telok would claw out his fucking eyes.

She is mine.

“Jeez, okay,” Cole replied. “If I hear any screams, I’ll just assume you’re getting rayld!”

Each thump of Telok’s hearts renewed the ache in his cock, and pulses of that agony, that torturous need, reverberated through every thread of his being.

Several segments away, Lacey stopped with her back toward him. Grumbling to herself, she dunked her body into the water until she was submerged to her neck.

The red haze in Telok’s vision receded. His mind cleared along with it.

They were in a stream in the middle of the jungle, days away from Kaldarak, out of sight—but not hearing—of their group. He’d been moments away from falling into a mating frenzy, which would’ve left them both vulnerable and unaware of their surroundings. Were any of their companions to have come near while he was in the throes of that frenzy, he wouldn’t have seen a friend. He would’ve seen a challenger. An enemy to destroy.

This was not the place to claim his Lacey, and that was not the way he meant to make her his mate.