War of Hearts(71)

“Werewolf,” he said.

“What?”

“Werewolf, not Neanderthal.”

Thea rolled her eyes. “I don’t think there’s a difference.”

She tried very hard not to smile at his answering bark of laughter.





*



It was a mistake.

Rationally, Conall knew it was a mistake.

However, calling what he felt for Thea a mistake seemed like a betrayal.

As he drove them into Denmark, Thea sleeping soundly in the passenger seat beside him, Conall used the icy control he was known for to keep the fullness of his emotions buried deep.

Letting them out was dangerous.

Before her, he’d been a fairly simple wolf. The world was black and white, and although wolves felt deeply, his emotions had been pretty black and white too. There was right and there was wrong; there was loyalty and responsibility.

Everything he felt now was complicated and confusing.

His eyes kept moving from the road to her. Glancing off her cheek, her mouth, her lashes fluttering in her sleep. The urge to pull the car off the road somewhere so he could haul her into his arms was nearly overwhelming. He tried to squash it down deep too, but the animal in him made it difficult.

When they’d arrived in Frederikshavn at the ferry terminal, Conall had kissed Thea awake, and she’d pushed willingly into his kiss. It took a lot not to dwell on the feeling that rose swiftly in him. The same encompassing euphoria he’d felt as Thea came apart in his arms last night.

She’d trusted no one for years.

Until him.

It was a privilege and responsibility but more, it was a gift. A gift that made him want to howl from the tallest peak back home in Torridon. A gift that made him want to claim a woman he had no future with.

Now the ferry was on the move, cutting through dark waters to Norway, and Thea sat across from him in the busy restaurant. Conall’s control was slipping. There was an invisible hourglass between them, the sand falling faster and faster with every second.

It made him feel powerless with despair, much like how he’d felt when Callie was diagnosed.

And from the way the tension thickened between them, Conall knew Thea felt it too.

They should never have touched each other.

But he couldn’t regret it.

He’d never regret it.

In fact, he’d hold on to the memory of Thea in his arms until his dying fucking breath.

Thea pushed back from the table. “I’m not hungry.”

Oh, aye, she was.

Conall’s heart pounded hard in his chest as he nodded and stood, leaving cash for the meal on the table. His body brushed hers as he followed her through the wind of tables to the exit, all blood rushing south in anticipation.

As they turned the corner and into the narrow hallway that housed their small cabin, Thea suddenly slammed him into the wall, tugging his shirt front and him with it down to her so she could reach his mouth. The taste of her filled Conall, and he groaned, sliding his hands under her shirt to feel her hot skin.

Abruptly, he was flying.

Conall had never moved so fast in his life, and he was bloody speedy.

He heard the crash of a door seconds before he landed on his back on the small double bed in their tiny cabin.

Amusement and arousal flooded him as Thea was a blur of movement, undressing.

“Are you trying to get caught, lass?” He grinned, taking in her nakedness with much appreciation as she crawled over his body. She’d just used the full force of her speed to take them back to the room, and now Conall knew that when she ran with him, she was holding back.

Thea pushed his shirt up just enough to bare his stomach, and Conall’s breath stuttered when she pressed kisses along his waistline. She stared up at him with those soulful eyes. “I’ve never kissed a man like you kissed me last night.” She tugged on his belt and then his zipper, shrugging him free. “I want to.”

Conall shuddered at the question in the words. Another gift from his Thea. He nodded, reaching out to caress her beautiful face. His heart almost exploded out of his chest watching her mouth bend toward him, and then he was in fucking heaven.

Hours passed.

Everything ceased to exist beyond Thea. She was everything. Every inch of her. It had never been this way for him. To want with this kind of madness. When he was inside her, he wanted the world to stop—to freeze them in that moment—with a desperation that fucking terrified him.

And yet he couldn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop touching and tasting and wanting her.

Needing her.

At one point their fucking was so primal, he cracked the small wooden headboard of the cabin bed right down the middle, he was holding onto it so hard. In fact, Conall was almost sure they were moving the entire bloody boat with their thrusts.

As the night wore on, they became less frenzied, less savage with fear that time was running out. They began to savor the moment instead. It became an exploration. Conall was certain no woman would ever know every inch of his body as well as Thea, and no man would ever know hers. The thought of any man touching her, knowing her like this, caused him pain he buried as quickly as he felt it.

He stared at Thea, her lush breasts cupped in his hands, as she rose slowly up and down his length, a tight sheath of heat slowly wrenching a climax from him. He held taut beneath her, wanting her to come first. Her low-lidded gaze locked with his and Conall mentally captured the image, to keep with him always.