19. Scarlett

In response to my question,Lyssa just gives a grim smile. The whole drive back to the abandoned farm is tense and silent, her hands wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that her knuckles are white. An aura radiates off her, like the building pressure in the atmosphere before a storm finally breaks.

I watch her surreptitiously, feeling that familiar fear and thrill shivering through me—that intoxicating mix of terror and fascination I always get around the infamous Wolf. Because no matter how weirdly close we've become, I'll never be able to shake the feeling that this woman is a predator through and through.

A beautiful, lethal monster in human skin. Just like me.

And I'm utterly entranced by her.

Wanting a monster. Wanting the monster to want me back.

When we finally pull up to the dilapidated old barn, Lyssa kills the engine but makes no move to get out. I shift in my seat, the soft susurration against the leather strangely loud. Lyssa's shoulders are drawn up in a tight bunch.

"Are you…pissed at me?" I venture cautiously. "Because I get it, if you are. I never meant for you to put your life on the line like that for m?—"

"Goddamnit, Scarlett!" Lyssa explodes with a burst of furious laughter. When she turns to me, my heart stands still for a moment. Everything about her is a snarling threat—from the hard slash of her bared teeth to the flaring of her nostrils to the towering wildness of her rage.

It should terrify me…but it doesn't. If anything, some shameful part of me thrills at seeing her like this.

"You think I'm angry at you?" Lyssa demands, her voice rough. "Jesus Christ, how can you be so fucking clueless?"

My mouth falls open in confusion. Because even as every sinew in Lyssa's body screams menace, there's a vulnerability shining through her eyes.

"Don't you get it?" she says softly, the abrupt shift in her tone throwing me even more off-kilter.

She unbuckles her seatbelt and leans across the narrow gap separating us, crowding into my space. I shrink back against the door instinctively, but she keeps coming until her face is just inches from mine.

"Get…it?" I whisper hoarsely.

Lyssa's hungry gaze drops to my parted lips, and understanding blooms inside me in a hot, insistent rush. "If you don't want me to kiss you," she murmurs, "now's the time to say so."

That's what this is. Not rage, but wanting. Needing.

Lyssa wants me.

She needs me.

Maybe she even…

"Please kiss me," I manage to say, and then Lyssa's mouth is on mine, moving against my lips in a skilled and demanding, coaxing me open. One hand cups the back of my head, holding me in place as she angles her head for deeper access. I melt into her helplessly, clutch at the hard muscles of her shoulders.

It's like a dam has burst inside me. All the weeks—hell, months—of tension and confusion and warring emotions crash together in desire and understanding. Desire for the woman devouring me with such wanton intensity. And understanding of my own soul-deep cravings, the yearning I've ignored for far too long.

I'm in love with the Big Bad Wolf.

And I want her to claim me, mark me, own every inch of me as hers. It feels like the most natural, right thing in the world. Like the final piece of a puzzle sliding into place after being missing for far too long. Like I'm exactly where I was always meant to be—in the arms of this brutal, untamed creature who could just as easily rip me to shreds as worship me.

But right now, she does seem set on worshipping me, as she tugs at my clothes, kisses into my cleavage. I unsnap my safety belt impatiently and whimper into Lyssa's mouth when it returns to mine, a broken, needy sound that makes her even more insistent, hauling me bodily across into her seat until I'm straddling her powerful thighs.

Our kisses turn messy and frantic and I roll my hips shamelessly against her, the delicious friction too teasing to be anywhere near satisfying.

"Get these off," she mutters, yanking at my pants. Somehow we both get free of our bottoms, and we're too desperate to bother pulling off our tops. She lets the seat slam down as horizontal as it'll go so that I can mount her, my thigh between hers and hers between mine, each of us shoving a hand down instinctively to give that extra something we're both seeking.

Oh, God, the heat of her thighs against mine, the wet warmth from her already flooding my fingers, the urgency in the little noises she's making as she arches her hips upward, lifting herself frantically up for me—all of it fuels my own desire to fever pitch.

I groan low in my throat as I grind down on Lyssa's working hand, spreading my folds open so that her fingers can delve deep, the heel of her hand rubbing at my swollen clit.

Lyssa groans, too, when I slide my fingers into her—three of them, curling—and it's a sound straight from the depths of her soul, raw and animalistic. I've never heard her make a sound like that before, and my core clenches in response around her hand.

This powerful, deadly woman is at my mercy right now.

Just as much as I am at hers.

"Harder," she pleads, and I obey, thrusting deep into her as I ride her hand. We're both dripping everywhere, the mixed scent of our arousal filling up the car, I meet her gaze through heavy-lidded eyes.

"Come on," I pant. "Come on, Wolf, come for me."

She cries out, her inner walls clenching hard around my fingers as her climax crashes through her. I can feel her whole body shuddering beneath me, her hips jerking erratically, and I don't let up, relentlessly driving into her as she comes. I'm so close myself, right on the edge, and watching the vicious beauty of her release is enough to tip me over. I grind down hard on Lyssa's still-working hand, fucking myself on her fingers as the bliss explodes through me…

And then I collapse forward onto her, into her arms, and cling together, trembling through the aftershocks. Slowly, we come back down to earth, remove our hands with a mutual grimace and a sigh. I slump down against Lyssa's chest, nuzzling into her neck. Her arms go around me, tender and comforting.

I want to say it. I want to tell her.

"Lyssa," I pant against the scorching, sweat-slicked skin of her neck. "Lyssa, I…"

But the words won't come, won't let themselves be heard.

"It's okay." She strokes a hand up and down my still-clothed back. "I know, Scar. I know."

There's nothing more to say after that. Not when we're both teetering on the edge of something so visceral and profound. So primal.

So dangerous.

I may have started out wanting nothing more than to see the infamous Wolf bleed. But now, with our bodies spent from the aftermath of the oldest hunt in the world, I've never felt more alive. I belong to Lyssa now, on a level that runs deeper than blood and bone.

Every shameful thing I've done, every sadistic fantasy, every warped piece of my soul...it's hers, now. All of it.

And she belongs to me, too.