Page 48 of Hungry Like the Wolf

“No,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “No, no, no. I don’t… want it—I can’t—unless you… actually… want it… Want me.”

“Is that what this is all about? You don’t think I want you?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and he wondered if she was bracing herself for him to refuse her.

“Sweetheart, I’ve wanted you from the moment I came to on that mess hall couch and heard you standing up for me. And I’ve never wanted anyone in my life more than I wanted you yesterday.”

“But you left.”

He had. Because he hadn’t wanted to push. He’d been told all his life how very “too much” he was sometimes. In everything. Too much noise. Too much personality. Too much chaos. The last thing he’d wanted was to be too much for her.

“Because I didn’t know if you wanted me.”

“I do,” she whined. “I do.”

He took her face between his palms. “Do I have your permission to feed you?” he asked. “Nadja, can I feed you?”

She nodded.

“No, baby. I need the words.”

She didn’t say anything right away. But he felt her cold fingertips graze the back of his hand as she reached for his wrist, holding on.

“Yes, Robbie. You can feed me.”

Robbie hadn’t kissed anyone in a while. But he’d always romanticized the first kiss. You could never get it back, and there was always something so unique about them. Some first kisses had been frenzied, thunderclaps of passion as two bodies collided. Others were sweet and hesitant.

But he’d never had a first kiss like this one. He’d never set out to save someone’s life with a kiss. He licked his lips and pressed them gently against hers. She gasped, almost pulling the air from his lungs into her. His lips moved against hers in a slow, gentle press. Her other hand came to grab his wrist, and he used his hold to angle her head slightly.

She kissed him back. Timid and unsure, as if she’d never done it before. Maybe she hadn’t. She was so guarded, so careful. She held herself to such an impossible standard. Maybe a kiss had always been too much for her.

“Take what you need,” he murmured against her mouth and he felt her hands squeeze his wrists. “Do it,” he said, kissing her with more force, opening his mouth and letting his tongue dance against her lips.

“Do it, Nadja,” he said. “Goddamnit, please.”

That was all it took.

In the next moment, her arms were around his neck and his tongue was tangling with hers and she groaned low and long like she’d never tasted anything so good in her life as his kiss.

He unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her toward him and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He could feel her growing stronger second by second, could feel the warmth rising in her body as she clung to him. He pressed her against the back door of the car, his hands holding her secure under her thighs, her hands rubbing over his hair, pulling him closer to her. As if she had to, as if he wasn’t desperate to dive into her, without oxygen, without tether, without any hope or desire of ever returning.

He pulled away, panting heavily and looked at her. Her eyes were bright, almost glowing in the dim, misty air. She was breathing just as heavily, her swollen lips parted.

“Get in the car, Robbie,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

CHAPTER 23

Robbie set her down just long enough to open the back door of the SUV and climb in, scooting ungracefully backward until his back rested against the opposite door, legs stretched out across the seat. Nadja prowled over him, shaking and hungry. Desperate. Craving him. Had that ever happened? She knew the feeling of craving energy well. It had been her constant companion for millennia. But had she ever craved a person? The taste of one specific person’s energy crossing her tongue?

He was delicious. And he was smiling at her, his grin spreading from ear to ear, showing his teeth—even the crooked ones, unashamed—which made her smile back, because he had nothing to be ashamed of.

She closed the door behind her and kept crawling over him until she sat on his lap, knees on either side of his hips. He reached for her immediately, one hand gripping her hip and the other clasping behind her neck, pulling her into him. He kissed her ravenously, and she fell headfirst into the feeling of falling, feeling her body growing stronger on a cellular level. She knew nothing about physics but couldn’t help thinking that whatever fusion was happening inside of her should be studied. She could keep the lights of the world on if only Robbie would keep kissing her.

“Is this enough?” Robbie said against her neck, his lips dragging against her pulse.

Was it enough? To feed her, certainly. Being wanted by him, being wanted by him just as much as she wanted him was as electrifying as it was satisfying.