"I can wait until tomorrow." Her voice is reedy.
"Are you sure?"
Fuck. I'm an asshole. I need to offer her something more than retrieving the meds she's been trying to get all day. My gut says I should be able fix this for her and goddammit, it's unfixable.
I want to curse and howl. To shift and run back to the mountains where I almost lost myself once before.
"If there was no Barrington's, if your mom was still alive and the world didn't need saving, what would you do, instead?" My lips are right beside her ear. She's trembling. Tears drying on her cheeks.
"I don't know." Her voice breaks. "What would you do if you weren't bent on revenge?"
"I'd figure out a way to be with you." I answer immediately, possibly surprising myself as much as her.
She turns in my arms, her dark eyes wide. "Sam." My name seems to carry so much meaning, yet I can't decipher her thoughts.
I run my thumb along her cheek. "I'm so drawn to you, Layne. I don't know what it's like for a human, but for shifters, sometimes our animal chooses for us. My wolf wants you. Even though I can't have you. Even though these are the worst of circumstances. So yeah, if I were free right now-if my future were wide open-I'd set my sights on you. I'd figure out what this thing is between us and where we could go with it." Suddenly self-conscious, I pull my arms away from her and shove my hands in my pockets. "I know I have no game, but-"
"I'd like that."
I go still.
She lays her palms flat on my chest. Tips her face up to mine, like she wants a kiss.
My wolf, previously subdued by her tears, roars to life within me. I take her mouth at the same time I hook my forearm under her ass. She wraps her legs around me, returning the kiss with a fervor I don't expect.
"Layne." I need her naked. Now.
Without breaking the kiss, I hoof it past Laurie's cottage, straight to the shack behind it. Laurie's standing there, key in hand, eyes wide at the spectacle of our Olympic-worthy lip wrestling. He shoves the door open and steps back to let me pass without a word. The door closes softly behind us, but I barely register it.
The structure is a tiny studio, with a bed in the middle of the room. I drop her onto it and reach behind my neck to yank off my t-shirt with one hand, never looking away from my beautiful, fragile female.
Layne sits up, a pretty blush coloring her cheeks.
I'm on her again in a flash, melding our lips as I tear her clothes off. I need her to feel all the emotion inside me. Everything I don't know how to express. The chaos storming about her illness, my intense desire to change her fate, to change our fates.
~.~
Layne
SAM'S KISSES top the list of things I'm glad I've experienced before I die. There's so much passion behind them. So much command.
For a guy who claims he has no game with women, he sure knows what he's doing. His tongue sweeps between my lips, demands my surrender. I melt beneath him, offer myself up as he wrestles my shirt off over my head. Because what else do we have?
Neither of us has anything to give the other. Except this. Our passion. The incredible music our bodies make together.
And no, I'm not afraid of his wolf. If I know anything by now, it's that Sam won't hurt me.
He snaps his hips in the cradle of my legs, drags his open mouth down my neck. His hands work the clasp of my bra at the same time he nips my breast. The bra disappears to the same place my shirt went and his lips are on my nipple, his tongue swirling around the hard tip.
I gasp and arch into him. The insistent thrum of need between my legs has me wriggling to shove down my leggings and panties. He releases my nipple and licks down the plane of my belly.
Need.
More.
Now.
"Sam," I pant, kicking off the fabric still tangled around my ankle.
He hooks his hands under my knees and pushes them up, spreading me wide. My belly flutters with excitement. He growls just before he licks into me, using his tongue generously. Cleverly.
My inner thighs tighten to clamp around his ears, but he pushes me back open, holds my hips down as he tortures me with firm licks of my clit.
I grab his blond hair, tug it as I rub shamelessly over his face. But I don't want to just receive pleasure from him again. I want to give it. "Let me up," I croak. "Let me up." I shove at his shoulders when he doesn't respond.
He lifts his head, startled eyes glowing yellow, lips glossy with my juices. I scramble out from under him and pull him up on the bed. He falls back on his forearm, a bewildered expression on his face.
"My turn." I reach for the button on his jeans.
He lets out a choked sound. "Tie me up," he says hoarsely.
"What?"
"You'd better tie me up or I won't be able to stop myself. I'll be pounding between those sweet thighs until morning comes."
A shocked laugh escapes my lips. His words flame my desire even hotter. My nipples throb in time with my clit. His eyelids droop, gaze traveling up and down my body like a starved man. I rub my lips together. "Do you have a condom?"
Sam stares at me for a moment in disbelief, then his hand flies to his pocket. He pulls out his wallet and rifles through it with shaking fingers until he produces the small square foil packet. "Yes." He holds it up like he's got the winning lottery ticket.