Page 57 of Wolfhaven

You cannot keep her.

He shoved that thought away. They had made no promises to one another. He would savor this night together.

He lined himself up at her entrance, feeling her wet welcoming. Her eyes were half-closed until he thrust forward in one insistent thrust of his cock. Then they flared wide with surprise.

“Oh, fuck,” she muttered. Her nails raked his shoulders. “Gareth—that’s so—please⁠—”

He didn’t wait for her to find the words to verbalize her request. He pulled back and sank in again, deeper this time, his hips snapping. He was torn between wanting to draw this out and wanting to race toward the inevitable conclusion. Need won out. He’d needed this release for so long. Desperately. Evaine gave him what no other woman ever had—herself. Freely. Openly. By choice. He gorged himself upon her, a glutton for every ragged gasp and moan as she pulsed around his cock.

So fucking good.

He was so close, yet he held off until she climaxed again. Only then did he drive himself to the hilt, imagining what it would feel like to spend inside her like this⁠—

And then pull out at the very last second.

Gasping, they hung suspended in time, strung up by disbelief. For a moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the distant creak of the mansion settling around them.

“You have remarkable self-control, Your Grace,” Evaine said in a shuddery, breathless tone.

“I almost didn’t pull out in time. It was close.”

She gathered him to her. Gareth sank into her embrace. He buried his face in her neck and sighed. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt at peace.

Evaine

Evaine hadn’t meant to fall asleep. In the aftermath of their lovemaking, the threat of getting caught by her grandmother compared to the challenge of locating her nightgown and crawling out of Gareth’s warm, cozy embrace felt distant, and so she stayed. Naked cradled next to his long, hard body.

In the wee hours of the night, a long, low creak startled her rudely awake. Barely breathing, she jerked her gaze to the doorway, watching in horror as it inched open slowly to reveal a figure in a red cloak standing there. Watching.

A scream tore from her throat.

Chapter 27

Gareth

“I swear someone was standing right there,” Evaine fumed. “Wearing my red cloak.”

Gareth couldn’t tell whether she was angrier about the peeping tom or the stolen garment. Or, if she was putting on a show to fend off her grandmother’s righteous fury. He believed Evaine had genuinely been startled. Yet he knew how this house played tricks on the mind.

A shiver ran through him. He would not allow Wolfhaven to get to Evaine and Hazel. He would send them away. Send them anywhere they wanted to go. As long as it wasn’t here.

They had searched the halls for an intruder. He’d carried his walking stick with its hidden sword, on the off chance that there was a living human prowler and not a malevolent haunt. They found nothing.

“Pray tell, what were you doing in his lordship’s room at four in the morning?” Hazel asked sternly. Evaine’s cheeks turned as red as her missing cloak. Her throat worked.

“We were having a discussion and she fell asleep. I let her stay. It seemed easier than moving her,” Gareth said smoothly. Hazel cast him a sharp glare.

“Do you expect me to believe that, young man?”

Heat rushed to his face. They were in the kitchen, with imminent dawn painting the sky a dull-gray that lightened by the moment.

“That is not the salient issue, Gran. We have an intruder,” Evaine tried valiantly to steer the conversation away from where she had slept and with whom. An unsuccessful attempt.

“I was young once, too. I am not a fool.”

“I know that, Gran. Give me some credit. Gareth and I are grown adults. Besides, you’re the one who encouraged me to flirt with him.” Now Evaine’s pale face was beet-red, discernible even in the dim lighting.

“Yes, flirt with him, not bed him! Didn’t you learn your lesson from last time?” Hazel’s eyes flew wide. She clapped her hand over her mouth. Immediately, a bone-rattling cough tore through her frail body.