Chapter 69

AURORA

1/5

I swallowed hard. “What is it?”

He leaned in. “Do you want to keep doing this?”

My breath shuddered out of my chest. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

“This?” I asked.

He gestured at the doors the wolves had just left through. “This. Working with us. I’ve failed to protect you. I’ve accused you of terrible things. Now my pack turns on you. Through it all, you have a poise and grace I’ve never seen.”

Warmth started in my chest. I didn’t want to fall for him again. I’d spent so many years getting over Dane Montague. But when he spoke to me like this…tenderly.

I could defend myself day in and day out against his anger, his disdain.

I had no defense when he looked at me like this.

Like he cared for me.

“I’m all right,” I said, even though I wasn’t. But for once, it wasn’t because of him or anything he’d done.

It was because of me…and what I might do to him.

What if I got my memories back? What if I became the evil woman who’d written that journal? Who wanted him dead? Who served something unknown and dark?

2/5

Dane’s eyes flicked across my face, light as butterfly kisses. His brows drew together. “You’re holding something back from me.”

My cheeks heated. He’d never been able to read me before. But maybe that wasn’t because he couldn’t…it was because he chose not to.

Now that he was choosing to see me, I didn’t know if I could hide anything from him.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“Okay isn’t good enough. But I suppose it leaves me room to make you feel…” his eyes darkened and dropped to my lips, and instead of finishing his sentence, he kissed me.

This was no gentle kiss. It was hard and passionate and desperate, like he’d been waiting all this time, hating every second he wasn’t touching me.

I gasped as he cupped my ass and lifted me, so I was sitting on the conference table. A hand braced against my ass kept me pressed hard against him as he devoured me, possessed me with lips and tongue and teeth.

First my mouth, then my jaw. He tangled a hand in my hair, pulling my head back and forcing me to arch into him.

3/5

He wrapped my legs around his hips, and I groaned as I felt him harden, his cock pressed against my aching sex.

I moaned, and he answered with a satisfied growl. “Moan for me again.”

“Dane,” I gasped as his mouth moved down, from my neck to my collarbone.

“Goddess, you taste so good,” he breathed. “I want to taste the sweetest part of you. I want to hear you scream in pleasure before we leave this room.”

He paused in his exploration of my collarbone and his eyes met mine. They were hot, but serious. “Do you want that? My mouth on you until you come?”

He tilted his head down, his gaze intensifying. “I can never change what I’ve done in the past, but let me start to balance the scales. Let me make you feel good.”

I breathed in slowly. Say no, I commanded myself. Don’t let him get closer to you. Don’t fall in love with him again. But when I spoke, the word that came out wasn’t no. It was a breathless, longing, “Yes.”

He stood me up and yanked my skirt up to my hips, then hooked his fingers in either side of my underwear and yanked it down.

4/5

When it didn’t come down fast enough for his taste, he shredded it as easily as if it were paper.

“I’ll buy you more,” he said.

Then he sat me back on the table, the wood cool against my bare ass. He had me plant one foot on the floor and put the other over his shoulder.

Gently, he ran his fingertips over the skin of my inner thighs. His thumb gently circled a small mole so close to the crease where my thighs met my hips it shot pleasure straight to my core.

If his touch did this much to me, I wasn’t going to survive this. I was going to melt right into this table.

“This is a place I should know well,” he whispered, kissing the inside of my knee.

He worked his way up, planting kisses every few inches. “Eight years, we could have been together. Eight years, I could’ve been exploring you like this. But what I didn’t do then, I’ll make up to you now.”

He kissed higher. I wanted to let my head fall back, but when I did, he bit me lightly.

I jumped a little, but his big hands held me firmly in place.

5/5

“Watch me. I want you to see when I put my mouth on you. I want you to understand how much I enjoy tasting you.”

I was already a wet, whimpering mess for him. I wanted to feel him between my legs. His mouth, his fingers, his cock—anything to relieve the ache. But…

“Dane, we’re in a conference room. Anyone who wants to speak with you could walk in at any moment. Anyone could see…”

“Let them. You were my mate once. Let them see me claim you again.”

“Claim?” I gasped. He couldn’t mean what I thought he did. “Dane…”