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“Are you going to believe me?” she whispered.

At any rate, she had proof. When she came to him a newling, he would know no other male had—

“I can smell him on you.”

She jerked back at the harsh sound of his voice.

Butch’s eyes opened slowly and they seemed black, not hazel. “I can smell him all over you. Because it wasn’t from the wrist.”

She didn’t know how to respond. Especially as he focused on her mouth and said, “I saw the marks on his throat. And your scent was all over him, too.”

When Butch reached out, she flinched. But all he did was stroke her cheek with his forefinger, light as a sigh.

“How long did it take?” he asked.

She stayed silent, instinct telling her the less he knew the better.

As he took his hand back, his face was hard and weary. Emotionless. “I believe you. About the sex.”

“You don’t look as if you do.”

“Sorry, I’m a little distracted. I’m trying to convince myself I’m okay with tonight.”

She looked down at her hands. “It felt all wrong to me, too. I cried the whole time.”

Butch inhaled sharply, then all the tension went out of the air between them. He sat up and put his hands on her shoulders. “Oh, God…baby, I’m sorry I’m such a pain in the ass—”

“No, I’m sorry that I have to—”

“Shh, it’s not your fault. Marissa, this is not your fault—”

“It feels that way—”

“My deficiency, not yours.” His arms, those wonderful, heavy arms, slid around her and gathered her close to his bare chest. In return, she hung on to him for dear life.

As he kissed her temple, he murmured, “Not your fault. Ever. And I wish I could handle it better, I truly do. I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time with this.”

She pulled back abruptly, seized by an urgency she didn’t question. “Butch, lay with me. Mate with me. Now.”

“Oh…Marissa…I would love to, I really would.” He smoothed her hair gently. “But not like this. I’m drunk and your first time should be—”

She cut him off with her mouth, tasting the Scotch and the male in him while she pushed him down on the mattress. When she slid her hand between his legs, he groaned and hardened right in her palm.

“I need you in me,” she said roughly. “If not your blood, then your sex. In me. Now.”

She kissed him again and as his tongue shot into her mouth she knew she had him. And oh, he was so good. He rolled her over and swept his hand from her neck to her breasts, then followed the path with his lips. When he got to the bodice of her gown, he stopped and his face grew hard again. With a savage movement, he gripped the silk and ripped the front of the dress clean apart. And he didn’t stop at the waist. He kept going, his big hands and veined forearms working as he tore the satin right down the middle, all the way to the hem of the skirt.

“Take it off,” he demanded.

She stripped the remnants from her shoulders, and when she lifted her hips, he yanked the dress out from under her, wadded it up, and pitched it across the room.

Eyes fierce, he came back at her, shoved her slip up, and spread her thighs. Looking at her over her body, his voice raw, he said, “Never wear that thing again.”

As she nodded, he pushed her panties to the side and put his mouth right on her core. The orgasm he gave her was a claim staked, a mate’s marking, and he made her ride it out until she was limp and shaking.

Then he tenderly eased her legs back together. Though she was the one who’d had the release, he was so much more relaxed as he prowled up her body. In a daze from what he’d done to her, she was weak and unresisting as he stripped her naked and then got up and took off his boxers.

As she looked at the size of him and realized what was coming next, fear tickled the edges of her consciousness. But she was too blissed out to care much.

He was all male animal as he got back on the bed, his sex hard and thick, ready to penetrate. She opened her legs for him, except he lay beside her, not on top of her.

Now he went slowly. He kissed her long and sweet, his broad palm traveling