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Nell wanted me. Not the Alpha in waiting. Not the man who could keep her safe or give her a company or neutralize the threats that had arranged themselves around her life since the park. She wanted Magnus, the man who had been running the wolf so long that he had forgotten the man was there.

I kissed her back.

The wolf surged. My canines pushed against my gums, lengthening before I could stop them. Pain flashed through my jaw. I forced them back with a growl buried deep in my throat.

It was just in time. Nell slipped her tongue into my mouth. Her weight shifted in my lap.

Dangerous woman.

The wolf liked that far too much. Heat rolled through me. Possessive. Hungry. Mine.

My hands tightened on her hips. Claws punched against the tips of my fingers. For one second, I imagined dragging them down her thighs. To leave my scent on every inch of her.

I shoved the claws back, clenching my fingers into fists in the process.

Nell pulled back from the kiss. "Don't you dare."

My brain jolted. Dare what? Had I gotten it wrong? Did she know the wolf wanted a piece of her?

"Don't you dare do what you did in the office and leave me hanging."

"I won't deny you," I promised. "I am going to bring you to the edge and pull you back. More than once. I'm going to make you fly so high and leave you dangling in that space between agony and ecstasy for as long as I think you can take it before I make you come so hard you pass out. But I will let you come, Nell. I promise you that."

She considered this with the expression of a woman reviewing contract terms.

"Do you trust me to do that for you?" I asked.

I watched the answer dawn on her face. The softening around the eyes. The slight parting of the lips. The way desire came to blur the hard edges of a person's thoughts until instinct and feeling became louder than logic.

It was my favorite expression. The anticipation. The surrender of certainty. The instant when a woman stopped worrying about what came next and simply existed in the wanting of it.

Nell was there now.

A split second after her head ascended in a nod, I reached for the tie of her robe. I slid it off her shoulders. The fabric fell, and her beautiful nakedness was revealed to me.

I looked at her the way I had been wanting to look at her since the cabin. Not the urgent assessment of a man running on adrenaline. The slow, deliberate attention of a man with time and intention and nowhere else to be. The lamplight cast warm gold against the deep brown of her. Her taut nipples were almost black. Her pink folds glistened between her thighs, marking the fabric of my trousers.

"Magnus," she said, with a slight edge that meant stop looking and start.

I started.

I pressed my mouth to the curve of her shoulder. The line of her collarbone. The hollow at the base of her throat. She made an impatient sound low in her throat.

I took my time.

I kissed every inch of her with the methodical patience of a man who had been starving himself for days and had finally decided that patience was its own form of feast. Her shoulders, her arms, the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat fast against my lips. The soft skin below her ribs. The curve of her hip. I learned the topography of Petronella Odhiambo as if she was a remote island that I had all to myself.

By the time I worked my way back to where I needed to be, she was trembling. Her hands were tangled in my hair. Her breathing had become uneven. Whatever determination she normally carried like armor had melted. She was mine. Not just for this night. At least for a few days. I would spend all the days I had left of my freedom with this woman. My pack, my family, they owed me that much for the sacrifice I was about to make at the end of the week.

I was going to take my time with the woman in my arms. Nell was accustomed to solving problems, making decisions, and moving forward. She attacked life head-on and expected results for her efforts. I wanted her to forget all of that. I wanted her to exist in this moment and nowhere else. Here, where every kiss drew another shiver from her. Every slow pass of my mouth had her leaning closer, chasing more.

The wolf wanted to devour. The man wanted to savor.

I watched the tension gather in her. Watched her eyes drift closed as anticipation replaced thought. There; that expression. That was my favorite part. Not the finish line. Not the victory. The moments before it.

"Magnus—"

"I have you. I promised."