There was nothing I could do about that, nothing I could do to change his opinion of himself immediately, but I was so grateful that I’d come here first with him. That we had this time together before the others. If he thought less of himself, then I needed him to know that I didn’t feel the same way.

I pushed my forehead into his again, then muttered, “You can think you’re not as strong as Ethan and Eli, but I don’t agree. You’re not just the reserve mate here, Austin. You know that, don’t you?”

His hands moved to my back, sliding over the gentle slope of it. “I’m okay with being lesser,” he told me, and his cheeky voice put me on edge.

I squinted up at him, leaning up slightly to peer at him. “Huh?”

He grinned. “Means I get more time with you.” His hands squeezed my butt, and I laughed, giggling with him as he rolled me over.

“You like tumbling about on the forest floor, don’t you?” I chided, well aware I had to look like a real mess, what with leaves in my hair and after what he’d done to it when he’d grabbed chunks of it to watch what I was doing to his dick earlier.

“Yeah,” he admitted, no ounce of shame in the admission.

Not that there needed to be any shame in his words, but still, it amused me.

He was as playful in sex as he was in life.

It fit him.

It fit us.

The us we’d be when it was just me and him.

I saw that now. This time together merely confirmed it.

“This is going to happen with each of them, isn’t it?” he asked, like he was thinking on the same track as me.

“Can you read my thoughts here?”

He shook his head. “Surprisingly, no. Not like back where we’re—”

“From? It does feel like that, doesn’t it?”

He hummed. “Another dimension, but that makes it sound like we’re on an episode of Star Trek or something.”

I grinned at him. “You like Star Trek?”

“Don’t tell Ethan. He gives me shit over it.”

I snorted. “You know Next Gen is on Netflix, don’t you?”

His eyes twinkled. “You like it?”

I fucking loved that twinkle. “I love it.” Not as much as the twinkle, but there you go. Some things a woman had to keep to herself.

“We can watch it together. I haven’t watched the last season yet.”

“How come?”

He shrugged. “It’s stupid.”

“Nothing’s stupid.”

His nose crinkled. “Mom, although…I guess she wasn’t actually, but Rebekkah died that year.” He blew out a breath. “And that time was crazy. Not nice. I remembered that coming to an end, and it just made me sad, so I avoided it.”

“Do you want to avoid it forever or watch it together?” I questioned softly, pleased he’d shared that with me.

“No, we can watch it together.” His grin made a swift appearance. “After we’ve binge watched the other seasons.”

I laughed. “You got it.”

He stared down at me with such love in his eyes that it made me feel like I was glowing with it. Like that feeling had an energy, and it was blanketing every part of me.

Maybe, in this place, wherever this place was, love did have an energy.

I hummed at the thought, and said, “I’m glad we have this time together.”

He ran his nose along mine. “Me too.” He sighed as he began to press kisses to the line of my chin, down to my jaw and up to my ear. I felt his dick harden against me, and the pressure made me squirm.

Kali Sara, that felt good.

He was a thick and heavy presence against my belly, and it was such a delight to feel all of him—his muscles, the heat and power of him—that I let my arms drift up and over his shoulders.

When I dug my nails into him, then raked them down his spine, he grunted at the sensation and rocked his hips, digging his shaft harder into the softness of my belly.

In the face of an Adonis like him, I’d thought I’d be a little embarrassed by my body. By no state of anyone’s imagination was I a gorgeous supermodel. I had stretch marks on my belly, my butt wasn’t as nice as it should be, considering how much exercise I had to do in the form of hard work around the carnival—someone had to clean that damn place, and it usually fell to the female acts… Chauvinism wasn’t dead in Ollywood—and my body was just, well, blah to the average man who was used to pneumatic porn stars.

I’d never been ashamed of it, aside from as a teen when I’d always been faintly embarrassed by the size of my breasts, but I was proud of the marks that were proof I’d carried a child, proud of the curves and the scars. I knew I was beautiful, even as I’d known I was no Giselle Bündchen. But here? Now?

I felt like a woman worthy of her Adonis.

I was proud of every inch of me. Unashamed of my nudity, loving that he reveled in it as much as I reveled in his hard form, the muscles that were delineated, cut out by a master carver for my enjoyment.

I shuddered as his tongue traced over my earlobe, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge. For some reason, that had my she-wolf coming out to party.

I could feel her inside me, like another energy that was alien and yet mine at the same time.

She didn’t try to overtake me, didn’t do anything other than hover there, apparently enjoying Austin’s ministrations as much as I was.

It was then, at that moment, that I sensed his wolf, and I swear, that was the most surreal experience of my life.

It beat everything that had happened thus far. Everything from being able to make Austin experience my father’s rages to being in another place, another dimension or whatever the heck this was. Feeling his wolf emerge?

Epic.

Crazy, but epic.

I shivered as his moves suddenly had a different edge to them.

Not nasty, just harder.

He was a little more aggressive.

Instead of tracing my earlobe with his tongue, he nipped it. Hard enough to hurt, but the pain was absorbed by the she-wolf, and it had me rocking my butt into the earth, even as my back arched with the pleasure of it.

I moaned, and my hands came up, spearing through his hair pretty much like his had done earlier, and when I stroked him, when my nails scored over his scalp, he growled.

The sound had me freezing.

Every part of me tensed up in a way that was my she-wolf’s visceral response to—

Shit.

She loved it.

I could feel it.

She loved that he was dominant.

She loved that he was powerful.

I felt her emotions, felt her arousal, and I absorbed it into me. I let her take control of me, not because I had no option, but because she was loving every second of this.

He nipped at me, sensing my enjoyment, my pleasure, his wolf detecting mine, and I groaned as he began to nibble and nip the curvy flesh of my breast, not stopping until he came to my nipple. He sucked on it. Hard. Harder than I knew a playful man like Austin would ever touch me, and that was proof he wasn’t in charge either.

Just like I wasn’t.

This was the wolves’ time, and they weren’t afraid to go exploring.

He bit the tip of my nipple, raking the nub with a ferociousness that had my pussy turning molten with heat. Every nip and bite, every tug connected deep into my core, and I was thrashing by the time he got to my other nipple.