Page 36 of Hunted

London nodded. “I agree. We have a mole. It has to be someone on the inside.”

“All right. I’m going to order Fallon to bring in everyone who was there today and sweep their minds, make sure none of them were involved. Then we’ll start moving through the rest of the team in groups.”

“Wait, what?” I interrupted. “They just risked their lives to protect me. You can’t treat them like criminals.”

“They’re military,” River retorted coldly. “They understand why it has to be done. Someone gave them access to your position. There’s a leak on the inside, someone with access to critical data and no one, including anyone on your detail, is safe until we find out who that person is.”

* * *

SOMETIME WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT, I LAY STRETCHED OUT ACROSS MY BED, hands cuffed over my head, the warm glow of the candles in the room whispering over my bare breasts.

Relax. River’s voice purred in my mind, a mental caress I felt snake down my spine as his warm hands coaxed my thighs apart. You’re shaking.

“Sorry.”

He paused at the end of the bed, tongue poised so that the tip of it nudged tantalizingly beneath the hood of my clit. I groaned, shifting my hips to try to get more friction, but he held me fast.

I don’t want you to be sorry. I could taste you here all night, but I can tell when you’re all up in your head.

I bit my lip. “It’s not that I want you to stop. It’s that… I guess I don’t see why you would want to do that.”

That. He was smirking now. The bastard. I tried to kick him, and he caught my leg, kissing the inside of my thigh. I shivered. Can I ask you something personal?

“Because where you have your mouth isn’t personal enough?”

He chuckled, a low, throaty growl, eyes glowing gold in the dark room. All wolf. “God, I love your smart mouth. Did none of your exes ever pleasure you this way?”

I flushed, heat spreading over my bare breasts, the candlelight not nearly enough to hide my sudden shyness. “Um, no. Not exactly.”

River rose on his elbows, muscles flexing in his broad shoulders, studying me intently.

I bit my lip. No going back now. “You’re my first. And since we’ve never been together outside of a projection, technically I’ve never been with anyone physically.”

His tongue began tracing very tiny circles. I groaned, legs starting to shake. River held my thighs splayed open in warm hands, tongue continuing to stroke and dip. Wolves are very oral creatures. We bite to mate. We leave rough kisses down our mate’s throat as a way of marking during sex. And we’re highly turned on by scent.

He lifted my hood again, sucking lightly. I cried out, arching off the bed, hot, dizzying pressure swirling low in my hips.

Kissing you here, where your scent is strongest, feeling you respond to my tongue, hearing you moan as you try to come up off the bed— He growled. Fuck, Ellie. Sometimes I lie awake all night, hard as steel, picturing the next time I can taste you.

“Inside me,” I panted, arching up to meet him. “I need you.”

With a feral growl, he stood, lowering his fly so his cock sprang free. Breath coming in low pants, I took in the corded muscles of his chest and the hard, flat plane of his stomach as he stripped off his jeans and moved over me on the bed.

He rolled on a condom, just as he did every time, even though it was only a projection.

“I’m on the pill.”

“We still have to be careful.”

“This isn’t real.”

“I don’t know what’s real anymore.” He entered me in one deep thrust, caging me in his arms as I whimpered and writhed, seeking friction.

Do you have any idea how amazing you feel when I’m inside you?You’re so tight right now I can barely move and… God, Ellie, if you knew the things I want to do to you right now.

He pushed into me in a purposeful rhythm as our mouths met in a long, slow kiss. River was an Alpha wolf, always the dominant one when we fucked. He kissed me like I was his to lay claim to, his fingers tangling in my hair, his tongue hard and demanding in my mouth, his kisses allowing me no respite, like I was the very air he needed to breathe.

“Fuck, Ellie,” he growled, softly biting my swollen bottom lip when we finally came up for air. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”