He gave my breast one more quick lick. “Do you want my fingers inside you, Abby?”

“Yes,” I moaned. “Please. Now.”

His hand shifted between my thighs, then his thumb stroked gently as one finger slowly slid deep inside me. “Ohhh…” I moaned, as he pressed forward and up, and this new pressure found a hidden sensitive spot. “Jace!” I rocked against his hand and that delicious friction exploded in wave after wave of a throbbing pleasure I’d never imagined. Every muscle I had tightened, clinging to that sensation. Riding it. The world unraveled all around me as he stroked, and sucked, and drew from me a release I hadn’t known my body was capable of.

And as the pleasure finally faded, ebbing with little aftershocks, Jace’s hand withdrew and I fell forward against his chest, resting my cheek on his shoulder. “That was incredible,” I whispered, and his chuckle rumbled through me.

“It was a good start.”

“You’re saying it gets better?”

“Well, generally, as a couple gets to know each other physically, they get more comfortable, and as they learn things about each other, their sex life can reach all new…heights.”

Couple.

Jace was saying he and I were a couple. With a sex life. That concept seemed unbelievably normal and healthy, and almost too good to be true.

He shrugged. “Although you seemed like you had a pretty good time, and they say a good first time can be pretty hard to beat.”

“First?” I sat up and frowned, trying to understand. “But we didn’t even have sex. And I’m not technically a….”

“A virgin?” Jace said, and I could only nod stiffly. His hand slid into my hair again and his gaze locked onto mine. “Abby, sex is intimate and consensual, and neither of those descriptors apply to what happened to you in that cage. But I hope you see how they apply here, with us. And how they always will, as long as you want me.”

I nodded. I did understand that.

“And as for virginity…” He shrugged. “That’s an archaic concept anyway, and a hazy one at best. There’s no biological or physical definition. If you don’t believe me, just try telling a woman who’s only ever enjoyed the company of another woman that she’s still a virgin.”

“So, there’s no such thing as virginity? Seriously?” Why had no one ever told me that?

“Well, I like to think of virginity as a state of sexual inexperience, and I believe that it can’t be taken. It can only be given, in exchange for a consensual, illuminating, and hopefully really fulfilling introduction into the carnal arts,” Jace said, and the heat in his eyes burned right through me.

“So, then…” My heart thundered in my chest, and my cheeks burned. “I just gave you my virginity.”

Jace nodded, and gently pulled me close enough to whisper into my ear. “And I will treasure it for the rest of my life.”

NINE

Jace

Something buzzed in the dark, and it took several seconds for me to recognize the sound of my phone bouncing on a hard surface. At some point, I must have put it on vibrate.

I rolled to my right, reaching for the nightstand, and the soft creak of the mattress beneath me was unfamiliar. I blinked, suddenly wide awake. Unfamiliar beds were nothing new, but I never stayed out overnight unless I had pressing Pride business elsewhere, because an absent Alpha makes for a vulnerable territorial capital. And I would never leave the Pride during a crisis like…

Abby!

I inhaled as my phone vibrated again, and her scent was suddenly everywhere, and it was deliciously multifaceted. I smelled her skin, and her hair, and her sweat, and another, more intimate moisture that had already soaked into her panties by the time I…

My phone clattered again, and when I reached for it, my hand landed on Abby’s warm arm instead. I’d slept on the wrong side of the bed, because the bed was actually the foldout couch in the living room of the west cabin.

I hadn’t left Abby; I’d stayed with her. All night.

Irritated by the buzzing, I reached over her to grab my phone from the end table, my eyes perfectly adjusted in the dark, even in human form. With a glance at the number on the glaringly lit screen, I accepted the call as I slid out of bed, trying not to wake her.

“Just a second, Warner,” I whispered into the phone. I stepped into my underwear on my way into Abby’s brothers’ bedroom, then pulled the door closed at my back. “Okay, what could possibly be wrong at…” I pulled the phone away from my ear to glance at the on-screen clock. “…five in the morning.”

“You mean other than the fact that I’m locked out of my own cabin?” Warner Green and Chase Taylor shared the bedroom across from Luke and Isaac, but I’d asked them both to take a shift in the main lodge overnight as part of the security step-up for my mother and sister. And to give me and Abby some privacy. “Let me in, boss.”

“Abby’s asleep on the couch.”

He huffed. “What a shame cats aren’t famous for their silence and stealth.”

“Smartass.”

“It’s important,” he insisted. “I won’t wake her up.”

I hesitated until I realized that even if I went out instead of letting him in, he’d smell Abby on my skin. I’d known our secret wouldn’t last long, but I’d hoped we’d at least get a chance to shower off each other’s scents before morning.

Reluctantly, I crept back into the living room and quietly unbolted the door, then closed and rebolted it after Warner stole in on bare feet in spite of the near-freezing temperature. He had Hargrove’s laptop and a manila envelope tucked under one arm.

Abby groaned in her sleep and rolled over, but neither the noise nor the cold gust woke her up.

I gestured for Warner to follow me into Luke and Isaac’s room, then closed the door behind us. “What’s so important?” I said, as he opened Hargrove’s laptop on Lucas’s desk.

“Sorry about the timing.” Warner’s face was lit only by the glow from the screen. “Especially…considering.” His pointed glance strayed south of my navel, but my near-nudity wasn’t the issue. I never slept in clothes, and even though Warner preferred guys, he knew I did not.

His point was that he could smell Abby on me.