Page 74 of Bound to the Wolf
“Their coven leader said they couldn’t have a wolf in the family. It was too dangerous. I was a risk to other coven members, and they couldn’t trust that I wasn’t somehow being controlled by the enemy pack.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Delainey sat forward on the couch, her free hand gripping the edge of the cushion hard enough that her knuckles went taut under her skin.
He appreciated the support. “And that’s when I found the other pack I told you about.”
“The one that made you kill,” she prompted.
“Yes,” he answered.
“That’s disgusting,” Delainey’s upper lip curled, and she shook her head once, sharply, her curls bouncing against the band holding them back.
Reece tried to pull his hand away, but she held on tighter. “I know you don’t like the idea of wolves in?—”
“That your parents would choose their coven over their son!” she was vehement. “You were their kid the second they adopted you. That was it. They didn’t get another choice.”
He hadn’t been expecting that.
He had been braced for her to defend the coven, to explain why the rules of their existence were what they were, as if he needed the reminder. Instead she was angry on his behalf, fuming even.
Something in his chest cracked, and he let out a sound that was half relief, half sob. His whole frame shuddered once, his broad shoulders curling inward, and his grip on her hand tightened.
Delainey scrambled onto his lap and straddled his legs. She clutched his cheeks and made him look up at her. Her thumbs rested just below his cheekbones, her palms warm against his jaw. Those walls he had hated to see were gone now. All he saw was raw vulnerability, the kind of honesty he had wanted so desperately and yet was completely terrified of.
“Oh, Reece,” Delainey said.
She pressed her forehead against his. He could feel the damp ends of her curls brushing against his temples, her knees pressed tight against his hips on the narrow loveseat, the weight of her steady and grounding in his lap.
He didn’t hear pity in her voice. He might not have survived pity.
He tilted his head up and kissed her and gave her his entire soul.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
Kissing wasn’t the way to solve every emotional problem, but Delainey sure didn’t mind trying.
She clutched Reece close and moaned against his mouth, feeling something different from any of the times they had kissed before. This was more than just convenient kissing at an inconvenient location.
This was real.
And if she didn’t get some kind of control over the situation, she feared her heart was going to do something stupid, like fall in love with the guy.
Too late,a part deep inside her whispered. She did her best to ignore it and surrender to the sensation of Reece’s kisses.
His fingers were light on her skin, almost reverent, and yet the touch burned. A few curls fell into her face, and he pushed them out of the way before they could cause an issue. She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her, and it was even more intense, but she didn’t let her eyes close again. She could feel his heartbeat under her palm. Fast, steady, and all for her.
Delainey kissed him back like she could swallow the hurt and keep it safe where no one else could touch it.
Her hands slid from his cheeks into his hair, fingers tangling in the thick waves at the base of his skull, and she pulled until he groaned into her mouth. She was still straddling his lap on the couch, her knees pressing into the cushions on either side of his hips, and she could feel the heat of him through every layer of clothing between them.
None of it was enough.
She broke the kiss long enough to pull her shirt over her head. No bra underneath. She’d barely gotten dressed this morning, thrown on the first things she could find while trying to pretend she wasn’t hurt that he’d slept outside. That felt like a lifetime ago.
Reece’s gaze dropped to her bare chest and his hands followed, palms spreading wide over her ribs, thumbs tracing the undersides of her breasts. His touch was different from every other time. Slower. Like he was trying to memorize the weight of her in his hands, the way her nipples hardened under the brush of his thumbs.
She felt it in her chest. Right where the tether lived and pulsed. That stupid tether that she was starting to think had nothing to do with why her heart was hammering.
