His breath hitches, then comes faster. His jaw shifts, like he’s biting the inside of his mouth. The skin of my thigh glistens under his eyes, and his fingers tighten around my flesh, on the verge of something wonderful, something we both want.

But Lowe talks himself out of it. He squeezes his eyes and stands to take care of my back.

I swallow a whimper. “Coward,” I whisper good-naturedly.

In retaliation, he leans in to kiss my nape like he did on the plane—sucking and licking and some gentle biting. A subtle reminder that he’s different from me, a whole other species. If we do this, we’ll have to work things out.

“Do you . . . How do Weres have sex?”

He laughs softly against my skin, but I sense an edge. “Are you worried?”

I tip my head back. “Should I be?”

He massages my sternum. “I’m not going to hurt you. Not ever.”

“I know. I’m not sure why I asked.” I close my eyes, and he takes the invitation as what it is.

I lose myself in his touch, wondering how something that requires so little can feel so good. He lingers on my breasts, around my hips, but also everywhere else. All the curves and angles, all the soft, vulnerable places. My skin tingles, simmering with an unknown sort of pleasure. Lowe is painstaking: he finds spots he wants to explore, slows down, and his breath grows heavy in my ears, broken by soft hums of approval. He takes his time, delays moving on until he’s satisfied that his task has been completed. There is something patently sexual about this, no question, but it goes beyond. I’m being discovered. Mapped. Soothed and ignited at once.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispers, an absentminded thought more than a declaration, and suddenly I can’t stand it anymore. Eyes closed, my hand searches for his under the water. I braid our fingers together and guide them to my inner thigh. It’s a silent plea.

“I’m just so tired.” I sigh. “And I really want it.”

“God, Misery.” His heartbeat smells like he’d die for this. And yet he’s about to ask me if I’m really sure, and I’m going to laugh at him. Or snarl.

“Lowe. Will you help? Please?”

His “Fuck” is soft and awestruck, but his fingers shift to where I need them. Barely a brush of knuckles against my labia, but I hiss right as he inhales. Our breaths catch together, balancing in the room. “Okay.” A rumble from deep in his chest. “Okay.”

The pad of his thumb finds my clit in warm, rhythmic circles. Lowe licks his lips and half asks, half growls, “Like this?”

I nod. It’s not what I’d do for myself, but it works, somehow even better. There is some clumsiness on both our ends, but he figures out where to touch me. How long. How hard. “Yes.” I bite into my lower lip, fangs exposed, and press into him.

“The night we met, when you came down the mezzanine stairs,” he groans against my shoulder, “I thought about doing this.”

There must be something dramatically, massively compatible between us, because I feel every stroke of his fingers deep inside this soul that I’m not supposed to have. “Yeah?” The hot, mounting sensation in my lower belly knots into a tangle of heat. I squirm, arch my back. Cool air sweeps over my wet nipples.

“You looked cold in your jumpsuit.” He sucks at the same spot on my neck that he fixated on back at Emery’s, on the tarmac. “You looked so lovely, and so determined, and so fucking lonely.”

I grind against his hand, shamelessly whimpering at the empty, swollen feeling inside me, clutching blindly at his muscled arm with both hands.

“I thought about taking you away. I thought about getting you a blanket.” His index finger slips inside me, and with a brief adjustment, I push against it. “I thought about making you come with my mouth until you couldn’t take it anymore.”

The pleasure snaps inside me like fireworks, a glow of heat and relief. I clench around Lowe’s hand, curling into his arm, shaking all over it. A scream burns in my throat, but I swallow it down into a small moan, and then it’s a mess, cobbled together with fluttering heartbeats and gasping breaths. Lowe is staring at me, mouth parted, throat bobbing. His icy eyes flare into mine, and I . . .

I laugh, throaty and raspy.

“What?” he sounds winded. Just a hairbreadth from an unspecified turning point. I’m still pulsating around his hand, and he stares at the water sloshing around my hard nipples while licking his lips.

“Just . . .” I clear my throat, still laughing. “Could we kiss?”

“What?”

“We haven’t yet. It’d be nice, if we did. At some point.”

“At some point,” he repeats in a haze. His hand cups the slick inside of my thigh, vibrating with restraint.

“Now, if you want. Though I’m worried.”

He scowls. “Worried?”

“About my fangs. What if I cut you? Or bite your lips accidentally?”

“You’ve bitten me before. I didn’t mind then.” He leans forward, eager. “I won’t mind now.”

It doesn’t immediately work. My nose bumps against his, I cock my head a little too quickly, my hands glide off the slippery edge of the tub. “Misery,” he murmurs against the corner of my mouth, when his lips somehow end up there, sounding more delighted than dismayed by my lack of skills.

But then we get the hang of it, and oh.

It’s a messy kiss. Instantly, stunningly good. I’m cautious, afraid I’ll hurt him, but Lowe’s the unrestrained one. Feral. He’s the one who moves everything along, who nibbles and sucks and bruises. He uses his thumb to tilt my jaw upward, gripping my neck with his large palm once he’s satisfied with my position. It’s very deep, very quickly, and I give myself to it, to the filthy way he angles me as though he wants to know my taste from every side.

I pull back to breathe, but he only gives me a second before asking for more. He licks my fangs, and I feel it deep in my core. His desire bursts between us, longing, frustrated. I want to do something about it.

For him.

“Lowe,” I mumble against his mouth, forcing myself to stand. Warm water sluices over my skin, and he follows the journey of every single drop. He leans forward to press his lips to the soft skin underneath my belly button, then rises to towel me dry.

The front of his shirt is wet. My lashes are clumpy, beaded with water, and he kisses the drops out of my eyes. “I was scared.” It comes out like a confession. “You went limp in my arms, and I was so fucking scared.”

I nod. “I was, too.”

His eyes are paler than ever. “Come here.”

He picks me up again, and I want to remind him that I’m not defenseless, but this might be more for him than me. So I bury my face into his neck, and instinctively dart my tongue to lick the glands he told me about.

His entire body shudders, and then we’re in my room. I expect us to tumble onto my mattress, but he lowers me inside the closet, on the mound of blankets and pillows I’ve assembled. Then instantly pulls back.

“Lowe?”

The timbre of his voice is rough and low. “You smell like you just came.”

I stare back, speechless at his directness. I did just come.

“And I need to eat you out.”

He needs to. “Okay?”

“It’s a Were thing,” he says, almost apologetic.

I nod, and when he bends to nip at my hipbone, I close my eyes and welcome it: the stretch of my thighs as they are spread out, the hitch of his breath as he looks and looks and looks some more, his raspy groan, and then the contact with his mouth.

There is something beseeching about the way he licks and sucks, something not quite in control, and when the pleasure begins fizzing in my stomach again, I writhe against his lips and give him what he wants. I comb my fingers in his short hair, but he takes my hands, both wrists locked in his large fingers, and pins them to my side. “Be still,” he orders, and the sight of me restrained must do something for him, because his other arm disappears down his body, the rhythmic flex of his corded shoulder a mesmerizing sight. He’s touching himself because what he’s doing to me makes him want to, and the idea is like fire in my belly.