Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven #1) by J.R. Ward

God, he’d never had a problem with so-called stamina before. With Lydia? He was a sixteen-year-old kid, all hormones and no control—

The sound that came out of his throat was a growl and he switched his hold on her, running his arm up between her breasts and locking on to her collarbone and shoulder. Then he braced his legs and kept going, as if his body knew this was his last shot to be with her.

His final chance to feel this way.

He had no sense of time as they kept going, riding the pleasure, skimming the eternal with their bodies … but as all things started, so, too, they had to end, and when he finally slowed to a stop and threw out a hand to the tub edge to hold his torso up, he felt like a folding table with loose joints.

Total collapse was not far.

Daniel was gentle as he helped her straighten, and then he was holding her body against his own under the warm spray, the softness of her breasts on his hard chest, the sweetness of her mouth still tempting even though it was going to be a little while before he could do anything about the lust that never seemed to leave him.

Or never left him when she was around, that was.

As the shower’s rain fell on them, he swept his hands down her soaked hair and then rested his palms on her narrow shoulders.

The knowing look in her eyes made him want to stay, made him want to find a solution that allowed that which was, to use her term, irreconcilable, somehow fit together. He was desperate to negotiate, but come on. Like destiny was ever inclined to take a seat at the bargaining table?

Because it was all he could do, he reached down for the shampoo bottle. Squeezing some into his palm, he washed her hair for her, sudsing up the strands, being careful not to get any into her eyes. Then he made sure all the soap was out, his broad palm moving over her head again and again.

There was an almost-new bar of Ivory soap in a dish, the edges still sharp as he rolled it over in his hands. He washed her body with the same care, and watching the suds slip down onto her glistening breasts and drip off her nipples was nearly enough to get him going again. But they were out of time, the hourglass having been turned over the second they’d met, all the sand now gone from the top half.

It was time to leave.

When he was sure her smooth, beautiful skin was clean, he kissed her chastely. “I’ll get you a towel.”

He cut the faucet as he stepped out and stretched for the rod across the way. When he turned back, he had to stop and just stare at the woman in the mist. She was as ancient as time in her naked glory, and some romantic notion in his fucking pea brain turned her into the pinnacle of all that had come before.

She was the apex.

At least for him.

And that was the way it worked, didn’t it. Perfection was relative, not any singular characteristic, or even a group of them, but rather how the composite fit together for the person who was regarding the whole.

Could you fall in love in a matter of days? he wondered.

Fuck that. When it came to Lydia, he’d fallen in seconds, standing in the doorway of her office for that interview.

Daniel dried her off and helped her out of the enclosure. Then he wrapped her up.

“What about you?” she said as he opened the door to the hall. “You’ll get cold.”

It’s nothing compared to the center of my chest, he thought.

“Don’t worry about me.”

As she lowered her head, he tipped her chin back up. And kissed her softly.

Lydia left the bathroom, turning away from him, going alone to where they’d slept side by side. Her wet feet left prints on the wood, and as she disappeared into her bedroom, he watched the moisture marks recede.

Closing the door, he opened the saddlebags he’d brought in with him. He used the T-shirt he’d slept in to dry off, and he threw some clothes on. Back out in the hall, he glanced to her open bedroom. He could hear her moving around, the creaking of the floor and the rustling of cloth making him picture her standing in front of her bureau, snapping on her bra, pulling on her panties, drawing up pants, tugging on a shirt over her still-wet hair.

Shaking his head, he hit the stairs with his stuff. If he went in there?

He was never going to leave her.

Down in the kitchen, he set his bags by the door and hustled into the cellar. During dinner, he’d run a load of wash through her machines, and as he pulled out his boxers, alternate pair of jeans, and three T-shirts from her dryer, he pressed them to his nose because they smelled like her.

He was ascending the rough-hewn steps, halfway back up, when he heard the knocking on the front door.

Instantly alert, he put his hand to the small of his back—

Damn it, he’d been distracted and hadn’t tucked.

Hurrying up to the kitchen, he leaned around the open cellar door, using it as a cover to look to the front of the house. Overhead, Lydia was jogging down the stairs.

“It’s okay,” she called out. “It’s just Eastwind.”

“Lydia, don’t answer the door before I—”

“I’ve got it.”

Just as she reached for the knob, Daniel dove for his saddlebags and got out a gun. As he wheeled around, he got a look at the sheriff standing in the entry. The man took off his hat and held it in front of himself with both hands.

“Is there something wrong?” Lydia asked the guy.

A pair of dark brown eyes shifted past her and locked on Daniel’s face. The other man’s expression hardened to the point of granite.