Bride

He turns to me, stone-faced. “You’re joking.”

“Please look ahead.”

“You can, right? You are able to tell apart—”

“Husband, darling, deep inside you know the answer to that, and please look at the road when you’re landing a plane.”

He turns back. “It’s about scents,” he says, clearly forcing himself to change the topic.

“Of course. What isn’t?” He’s been a champ. He doesn’t seem to react to my scent anymore. Maybe it’s all the baths. Maybe he’s getting used to me, like Serena when she lived by the fish market. By the time her lease was ending, she found the eggyness almost comforting.

“If we smell the same, it’ll send that message.”

“Does it mean you should be smelling like dog breath?” I joke.

“I’m going to do that.” His voice is raspy.

“To do what?”

“Make you smell like”—the plane touches down with a graceful bump—“me.”

My hands tighten around the armrests as we race down the runway. I’m horror-stricken, scenarios of us splattered against the building at the end of the strip blooming in my brain. Little by little, we slow down—and little by little, Lowe’s words settle like dust.

“Like you?”

He nods, busy with some final maneuvers. I notice a small group of people gathered by the hangar. Emery’s welcoming committee, ready to slaughter us.

“That’s fine. Do what you want with my body,” I say absently, trying to guess which one of them is more likely to throw a clove of garlic at me. “Fair warning, Serena often bitches about how gross and cold I feel. Those three degrees make all the difference.”

“Misery.”

“Seriously, I don’t care. Do whatever.”

The maneuvering is over. He unbuckles and assesses the Weres waiting for us. There’s five of them, and they look tall. Then again: so am I. And so is Lowe.

“If they attack us—”

“They won’t,” he interrupts me. “Not now.”

“But if they do, I can help—”

“I know, but I can take them on my own. Come on, we don’t have much time.” He takes me by the wrist, pulling me into the main sitting area, which is larger than the cabin, but too small for the way we’re standing in front of each other. “I’m going to—”

“Do whatever.” I crane my neck past him to catch a glimpse of the Weres through the portholes. Some are actually in wolf form.

“Misery.”

“Just hurry and—”

“Misery.” I jolt back to him at the command in his voice. There’s an angry V between his brows. “I need your explicit consent.”

“For what?”

“I’m going to scent you the traditional Were way. It entails rubbing my skin against yours. My tongue, too.”

Oh. Oh.

Something electric, liquid, pools inside my body. I deal with it the only way I can: by laughing. “Seriously?”

He nods, as serious as quicksand.

“Like a wet willy?”

His hand lifts to my neck.

Stops.

“May I touch you?” He’s asking for permission, but there’s nothing insecure or tentative about it. I nod. “Weres have scent glands—here.” He brushes the pad of his thumb against the hollow on the left side of my throat. “Here.” The right side. “And here.” His hand wraps around my neck, palm flush against my nape. “Your wrists, too.”

“Ah.” I clear my throat. And resist the urge to squirm, because I’m feeling . . . I have no idea. It’s the way he looks at me. His pale, piercing eyes. “This is a, um, fascinating anatomy lecture, but—Oh, shit. The green markings, at our wedding! But I—”

“You don’t have scent glands,” he says, like I’m more predictable than taxes, “but you do have pulse points, where your blood pumps closer to the surface, and the heat—”

“—will augment the scent. I’m familiar with the whole blood thing.”

He nods and holds my eyes expectantly, until he understands that I have no clue what he’s waiting for. “Misery. Do I have your permission?”

I could say no. I know that I could say no and he’d probably just find another way to protect me—or die trying, because he’s that kind of guy. And maybe that’s exactly why I nod and close my eyes, thinking that it won’t be a big deal.

Which, I soon realize, might not be the case.

It starts with heat, drifting over me as he shifts closer. The faint, pleasant scent of his blood climbing into my nostrils. After that, his touch. First his hand on my jaw, holding me still, angling my head to the right, and then . . . his nose, I think. Nuzzling down the column of my throat, moving back and forth over the place where my blood flows the strongest. He inhales once. Again, deeper. Then travels back up, the scratch of his jaw tickling my flesh.

“Okay?” he asks in a low rumble.

I nod. Yes. It’s okay. More than okay, though I wouldn’t be able to qualify how, or why. An “I’m sorry” stumbles out of my mouth.

“Sorry?” The word vibrates through my skin.

“Because.” My knees are buckling, so I lock them. I still feel like I might lose my bearings, so I blindly reach up. Find Lowe’s shoulder. Grasp it for dear life. “I know you don’t like my scent.”

“I fucking love your scent.”

“So the baths did work— Oh.”

When he said tongue, I expected . . . Not that his lips would part at the base of my throat, and then a soft, drawn-out lick. Because this feels like a kiss. Like Lowe Moreland is kissing my neck, slowly. Grazing it with his teeth and finishing off with a light nibble.

I nearly moan. But at the last moment, I manage to swallow back inside my body the whimpery, throaty sound, and . . .

God. Why does what he’s doing feel so phenomenally good?

“Is this as weird for you as it is for me?” I ask, trying to make light of the flutters of pleasure in my stomach. Because this thing spreading like spilled water below my navel, it’s arousal, and it could explode into wildfire very fast. It makes me think of blood and touching and maybe fucking, and as things are happening to my body, I’m terrified that he’ll be able to smell them.

Smell me.

“No,” he growls.

“But—”

“It’s not weird.” Lowe lifts his head from my neck. I’m so close to begging him to come back and do it some more, but he’s just switching sides, and I almost yelp in relief. This time, his palm cradles the entire back of my head, and for a few moments he thumbs the tip of my ear, exhaling slowly, reverently, like my body is a precious, beautiful thing. “It’s perfect,” he says, and then his mouth lowers again.

First a delicate bite on my earlobe. Then the swipe of his tongue at the base of my jaw. Last, right as I’m thinking that this is different from what I thought scenting would be, he moves to the bottom of my throat and sucks.

He grunts.

I gasp.

We both let out staggered breaths as my hand creeps up to press his face deeper into me. He pulls gently at my skin, open-mouthed, and the stimulation is like electricity, flooding me with warmth. Weres’ body temperature is much higher than Vampyres’, and his body is a scant inch of air and possibilities away, and the heat of him . . .

My breasts ache, nipples hard as gems, and I want to arch into him. I want contact and flesh and skin. Lowe is solid, and I feel so soft, and his thundering heartbeat—his delicious beating heart—is a hazy, indescribable wonder pulling me to him. I squirm in his arms, trying to press against him, rub just a little, but no.

Because Lowe pulls back. His hand closes on my shoulder, spi

“Okay?” he asks, wrapping his fingers around the base of my throat. I say yes as fast as I can, well before the word is fully out of his mouth, and he doesn’t waste time, either: he lifts away the heavy mass of my hair. Clutches my hips in his palm. Presses my body against his.