“I’m here, my love.”
And he was. Fully, entirely there.
A spark cracked inside her and another wave began to swell. She spasmed around him and he pulsed in return. His breath came in short bursts, but hers had abandoned her altogether.
A flush ran from her face down to the upper curve of her breasts as she exploded in a shattering burst of wild pleasure. Dane held her close and panted hard in her ear. At the sound of it, her hands rocketed across the plane of his back, searching for anything she could cling to.
It was the purest sensation she had ever felt; devoid of complication or fear, a complete, perfect loss of control. Wound safely in his arms, she was free to let herself slip entirely into abandon.
At last, her eyes fluttered open, and Dane was there, studying her face.
“Did you…” she asked.
“No,” he said softly, a wicked smile playing at his lips. “Not yet.”
And then he pressed into her again.
Seventeen
After his own surrender, and two more of hers, Aurora lay loosely in Dane’s arms. The curtains wafted around them, soothing them as their breathing slowed. Aurora could feel Dane’s heart beating under her cheek as she shut her eyes to drink in the sound of it.
He traced his fingers lightly along her back in lazy, aimless circles. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so content. Or secure. Only in that moment did she really feel how much anxiety she’d been carrying in her heart. Now that her muscles had slackened with release, she realized how tightly she’d been holding herself.
It was as if she’d been reborn in the arms of this gentle, powerful wolf. And, she hoped, he in hers. Her mind wandered freely, exploring all the little nooks she so often kept shut. And then, something caught the line of her mind, and her eyes snapped open.
“I wonder what the bigger picture is.”
“Bigger picture?” Dane lifted his head from the mound of pillows to look down at her. “Are you saying my junk wasn’t big enough for you?”
“Language,” she said, giving his ribs a playful slap.
“I didn’t use any naughty words.”
“Innuendo counts, you wolf.”
“Guilty.” He grinned, dropping his head back. “So, what bigger thing are you talking about?”
“It’s something you mentioned earlier. You said Mr. Abernathy’s murder let us know this was bigger than just some theft. So... what’s bigger?”
“Huh,” he stopped the grazing lines of his fingertips and planted his palm between her shoulder blades. Almost without meaning to, she snuggled even closer. So close she could feel him thinking.
The solidity of his body hummed beneath her, almost lulling her into a daze where she needed to have him again. Her own skin still tingled all over with the satisfaction of making love to him. It would be so easy to tip headlong into more and not feel a bit bad about it. To let the world spin.
“You know,” he said, “I hadn’t started chasing that particular thought just yet, but now that you mention it…” He patted her back, and she pulled back so he could sit up. “There’s a pretty clear way we could start finding out.”
“What’s that?”
Dane turned to look at her, and his eyes softened. Whatever he was going to say seemed to evaporate.
“What?” she asked, suddenly feeling his gaze on her.
“Nothing. It’s just... You look so good.”
Aurora was braced on her elbow, a corner of the sheet tugged across her hips. She followed his own gaze down to the generous curve of her breasts. His attention made her blush, but the last thing she wanted to do was cover herself. She’d never felt more beautiful than she did under his gaze.
“Is that going to help us? The way I look?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” he answered with a roguish smile. Then, shaking his head, he brought his eyes back up to hers. “But if we want to get an idea who killed Theophilus Abernathy, following Finch would be a good start.”
The intrigue of it excited Aurora, but her natural reticence crept back into her chest. As much as setting off together tempted her, propriety held her back.
“It feels like taking things into our own hands might be a violation of some sort of protocol. I’d hate to get in trouble over this.”
“Just a bit ago, you told me you weren’t even sure you were going to keep your job. If you think the OCJ is going to fire you anyway, what can it hurt?”
She couldn’t help but pull a bashful smile at the trouble still hanging over her head.
“But what about you?” she asked.
He just shrugged and made a wry face. “I’ve been in trouble before. Enforcers are used to it. Besides, if this works, it could break in both our favors. If we’re lucky enough to catch the criminal red-handed, what happened in the courtroom won’t matter. They’ll probably even forget about the fireworks.”
Aurora would have loved to know how he did it. By simply being in his presence, she felt calmer. He had the simplest way of allaying her fears and stoking her curiosity at the same time because she really did want to know.
“If we pull this off, we might just put a bad guy away and save my ass.”
“We’d better,” he said. “It’s too good of an ass to go to waste.”
She batted his knee, laughed lightly, and then scrambled out of the bed. Her clothes were strewn all over, but she set about efficiently tucking herself back into them. As she did, she could feel Dane’s eyes on her. As she fastened her bra again, he let out a sigh.
“Awful shame,” he muttered, just rakishly enough to make her knees turn to water.
He had gathered his clothes into a pile, but still sat naked to her view. A lump lodged in her throat at the sight of him. Every line of his body seemed sculpted to suit her. Even in its softness, the generous spill of his manhood drew her hungry eyes.
“Aren’t you, um…”
“What?” he asked, the picture of innocence. It was delightfully exasperating.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?”
“Nope.” He leaned forward, proffering his clothes to her, one eyebrow raised in invitation. “I figured I’d be more useful this way.”
She could think of any number of uses for him in this state, but none of them had anything to do with trailing a criminal. However, Dane had something else in mind.
He sat up, stretched his head back, and began to shift. In one fluid glide, he left his human self behind and bristled into a golden-eyed, majestic gray wolf.
“Oh,” Aurora was caught up ever so slightly. Even in this form, he was irresistible. His fur was dense and an almost charcoal gray with a single ring of black at his collar, coming to a point at the ridge of his chest.
Fully shifted, he turned those eyes up to her, and she could see every bit of what lay behind them. Then, settling herself on the task ahead, she waved their love nest into mist and released the invisibility spell.
As soon as she did, Dane lifted his nose and began to scent the air as they walked. Aurora wondered if he had some vestige of these faculties when he was in human form. It was oddly captivating, watching him search through the air for the thread that would lead them. Carving their way back into the heart of Othercross, she saw the moment when he caught it.