Slick trickled out to tempt him, Shepherd flicking his tongue in the river of fluid, lost at only one taste. While he lapped up every drop, Claire moaned like a whore, rolling her hips to each flick of his tongue, grinding against his face when he burrowed that writhing muscle deep in her pussy.

With her mind still in that place she’d always imagined for herself, with her body in the hands of an expert Alpha she pretended might be the husband she once longed for, the feeling of a powerful climax swelled—something mindlessly perfect almost in her grasp.

Then Shepherd stopped, he stopped at the pivotal moment, and held her spread to watch her pink little pussy flutter as she tried to buck up to the mouth hovering warm above her. When she whined, his tongue stretched out and gave the lightest of licks, taunting her.

Fighting to move, to find relief from the coil of need he engorged with each darted swipe of his tongue, Claire’s agitation turned to anger.

She had given him pleasure, and now her mate was contorting the vision, denying her the perfection of the dream by toying with her. Looking down between her spread thighs to glare at her tormentor, Claire aggressively growled.

The mass of muscle, the thing that was supposed to be fucking her with his tongue, prowled possessively over her body, negating her hips’ movement each time Claire tried to rub against him for relief.

Brushing his wet lips over hers, Shepherd purred deeply. “Kiss me, little one, and I will give you great pleasure in any and every way you wish.”

Wound up tight, instant wrath drove away all reason. Eager to punish for his attempt to claim something that was not his, to discipline for destroying the perfection of her dream, Claire pulled her lips back from her teeth. Nails scraped the hardness of sinew, her mouth attacking the bulging muscles between his shoulder and neck. In a rush, she pressed her teeth to his flesh and bit down with all the strength of her jaw, heard him catch his breath in surprise, and sunk her bite even deeper.

She wounded Shepherd with all the power of her indignation, all of the rage building up since she’d first looked at the behemoth, and the unfulfilled lust he had taught her body to crave and thought to use against her.

She didn’t even want to fuck anymore; she just wanted him to bleed.

When the head of his cock skimmed between her folds, she dug in her claws and refused to let go. Shepherd penetrated her anyway, his warm lips at her ear where she could hear every gasped groan as he invaded her sopping cunt in erratic, desperate thrusts of his hips.