I cried out as his lips pressed a kiss to mine. “I love you so much, and knowing that your emotions aren’t your own ...” He leaned back, his gaze filled with sadness. “It’s fuckingkilling me, Drew.”
My heart was racing at his words. My entire body ached for him even more now. “Lucien,” I pleaded with him, rubbing against him and making him groan in agony. “Turn me into a werewolf, then. Blaise said you could do it. That it would solve my being an Eteria—”
“Blaise knows shit,” he interjected with a bitter smile before he pressed his lips to my throat, his hands grabbing my thighs. Even though we were almost fighting, we couldn’t stop touching each other. Wanting each other. Longing for one another. “You have no idea what it means to become a werewolf.”
“I don’t care,” I whispered, moaning as he licked at my throat before biting into it. “If ... if that’s what it takes—”
He leaned back to look at me, his cock probing at my entrance and making me gasp. His face was both grim and full of need. “Do you want to suffer every full moon, Drew?” he asked, his brilliant blue eyes catching my own brown ones. “Do you want to have the unavoidable risk of being afflicted with Wildlight? Do you want to be forced to live under a different set of rules than the ones you grew up with?”
Tears fell down my face as I grabbed his shoulders, digging my nails into his skin. “Lucien,” I whimpered, knowing his words were important. That his worries were valid.
I’d seen the effect of Wildlight, after all.
But did it all matter when the man before me was everything I’d ever wanted too?
He lowered his face so he could lean his forehead against mine. “It would be selfish of me to ask you to forsake your humanity and transform into a werewolf for me, just to prove your love. Not just selfish; it would be absolutely inhuman. I will never ask that of anyone. Least of all the woman I love.”
And that right there solidified my decision. Because up until now, I’d thought Lucien didn’t have any sort of feelings for me. I thought my feelings were unrequited. If I’d known I had the option to transform into a werewolf before he told me he loved me, I would’ve thought it an absurd, far-fetched idea.
But he loved me. The fact he refused to put me at risk, even if it meant never knowing how I truly felt, was enough for me to believe it. His touch, his words, his warmth ... It all told me everything I needed to know.
And so I pushed at his chest, catching him off guard, and flipped us over so I could straddle him as he lay down, staring at me with eyes wide in shock. But I was determined now. I refused to cry and beg him to believe me.
Because I knew what I wanted to do.
“For the last eight years I’ve been both lonely and alone, Lucien,” I told him, putting my hands on his chest. “Alone in my convictions, and lonely in my life. I had no one to call my own. I’m estranged from my parents, and up until a few days ago, I hadn’t spoken to Thayer. My precious sisters are long gone too. I have no remaining friends, not after Chase proved to be nothing more than a spy. I have no one. Or so I thought.
“It might not have been so long since we first met, Lucien, but you flipped my world upside down,” I confessed, my determination overridingmy fear of showing him my vulnerability. “You don’t make me feel lonely. You make me feel like I matter. Before I even realized it, I couldn’t see how I would ever be able to go back to my life from before meeting you. My life would be miserable without you in it.
“You are my everything, Lucien,” I said softly, “and I want to show you I’m your everything too.”
His expression broke. “Drew . . .”
“Transform me into a werewolf,” I said—commanded, really—as I lifted myself up to place my entrance over the tip of his hard cock. “That way, you’ll give me everything I’ve ever wanted: a home.You.”
Before he could respond, I plunged myself down, burying him deep inside me, and moaned at the feeling of him filling me up to the brim.
Lucien groaned, his hands on my hips, his scorching touch sending electric shocks to my heart and my pussy.
So I started moving, riding him hard, fast, and deep while he held on to me, disarmed and undone, shame, guilt, defeat, and relief, too, written all over his face.
And I knew I had finally gotten through to him.
Because my stubborn Alpha flipped us again so I was on my back and drove in and out of me with both power and tenderness, kissing me with affection and love, passion and desire, and pure, unadulterated need, until we both saw stars.
Lucien and I looked like we had just had sex. Which we had.
And Blaise, Teya, Callista, Ren, and Oz noticed.
After the last round of sex, Lucien and I had no time to discuss anything else because we heard people entering the cabin. At first, Lucien and I were tempted to ignore them, preparing to go another round, when there was a knock on the door, and Blaise’s voice called, “I’ve got the portals!”
Now, after hastily putting on clothes without even brushing our hair, Lucien and I sat at the round dining table with the Betas, looking like we’d just rolled out of bed and smelling like sex.
Blaise and Teya didn’t hide their knowing smiles, while Oz seemed disgusted. Ren and Callista seemed slightly uncomfortable.
While I shifted awkwardly in my seat, Lucien didn’t seem troubled as he spread out on his chair, his arm resting on the back of mine and his fingers twirling my messy, knotted hair. “Tell me about the portals,” he now instructed Blaise in a drawling voice that made me clench my thighs together.
Stop it,I admonished my stupid libido.