Forever (Shifter Island Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

allowed us to endure for hundreds of years. For the most part, we’re peaceful. Not violent.” He pulled in a breath. “In spite of that, I admit it would bring me a considerable amount of pleasure to chase down both those men and tear their throats out with my teeth.”
    For a moment, Abby didn’t seem to know how to react. Then a single note of nervous laughter squeaked out of her.
    Aaron sat down beside her on the bed and wrapped an arm around her. He set the cup aside, then used that hand to stroke her hair away from her face. “I’ll never let anyone harm you, Abby. With words or with deeds. The bond brings us together as partners, to ensure that our line will continue and be strong. But I promise you more than that. I promise to defend you.”
    He paused again, examining the look on her face, then said firmly, “I promise to stand with you so that you can defend yourself.”
    As if a dam had broken, tears began to pour down her face. She seemed embarrassed at first, then clutched his shirt with both hands and tried to smile.
    “Nobody ever—” she stammered.
    “Let it begin now, then. You have my word.”
    He intended simply to stay there with her for a while, either sitting beside her or holding her in his arms until she felt ready to venture out into the world again, but the wolf didn’t feel like sitting. It nudged at him until he surrendered to kissing Abby tenderly and gently, tending to her with his lips the way the wolf would have licked her in the wild.
    After a minute she shifted around so he could hold her more comfortably, looping her arms around his neck and shoulders, and began to return his kiss. He listened to her breathing even out, smiling at the way her heartbeat had moved into a different rhythm, one that said that yes, she was his mate, that she wanted him in every possible way and was having no more thoughts of leaving him.
    His hands moved to her back to find the zipper of her dress and pulled it down so that he could slide the dress away from her shoulders, from her beautiful breasts.
    After their swim she had put back on one of those little scraps of fabric humans called a bra—this one a delicate blue, mostly made of lace. Here in the dim light of the cabin, he was awed by it for a moment, as if he’d suddenly come upon a little nest of wildflowers he’d never seen before.
    “This one clips in the front,” she said, and moved her still trembling hands to unfasten it.
    He stopped her, capturing her hands in his own. “No. I want to look at it.”
    “You’ve seen me wear them before.”
    “I know. But you always take them off so quickly.”
    He ran a finger along the edge of the lace lightly enough to make her giggle, then pushed the top of her dress down as far as it would go and leaned down to lick one of her breasts through the lace and pinch the nipple between his teeth.
    “Do you like it?” she whispered.
    “I want to tear it off you,” he said against her skin. “But I don’t want to ruin it. I want to see it again.”
    “Just unfasten it.”
    “Our females—”
    “They don’t wear bras? I guess not. They’re really kind of stupid. And kind of uncomfortable, most of the time.”
    Aaron got off the bed and tugged Abby off to stand in front of him, then pushed her dress down past her hips to puddle on the floor. Her lower undergarment wasn’t nearly as interesting as the bra, though it was the same color and was trimmed with the same lace. The bra intrigued him, the way it held her breasts up so that they pointed at him, almost begging him to ravage them.
    Then again, that lower garment was shielding her sweet sex, preventing him from plunging into it.
    He nearly leaped at her, intent on tearing those little bits of fabric away in spite of his desire to play with them again, but Abby gestured for him to wait. With her gaze locked on his, she hooked her thumbs underneath the waistband of the lower garment and began to inch it slowly down over her hips.
    His cock