Chapter 3 Lyra's POV

If sin had a scent, it would be his. The moment I slide into the passenger seat, I realize too late how short my dress is...The fabric climbs high up my thighs as I sit, baring more skin than I mean to. I tug it down instinctively but his eyes catch the movement.

His gaze drops slowly and deliberately lands exactly where my fingers are. Heat shoots up my spine. I snap my legs together, pressing my knees shut like I can trap my dignity between them. His eyes lift settling on my face with a knowing look that makes my stomach flutter painfully.

He smirks.

"Close them faster next time," he murmurs.

My breath stumbles. "That... that wasn't-"

"An invitation?" he finishes for me, his voice low, almost amused. "You'd be surprised how loud your body speaks, Lyra."

I stare straight ahead, refusing to look at him, but that only makes the air tighter. His presence fills the car-heat, dominance, dark patience. When he starts the engine, the vibration under me feels too intimate, too much, and I curse my own heartbeat for reacting.

As the car begins moving, the interior lights glow soft and gold. Enough for me to see him clearly. Too clearly. That's when I notice it, his gaze isn't on the road, it's on me, on my thighs, on the beautiful curves that bobbed before my chest, on the dip of the dress stretched tight across my chest.

I swallow hard. He notices.

His fingers flex once on the steering wheel.

I shift in my seat, thighs pressing together again, but it only makes the fabric of my dress slide higher. His eyes flicker at the movement, darkening with something that makes heat curl low and desperate inside me.

"Does that dress ever stay in place?" he murmurs.

"It's not- it's just the fabric," I whisper.

His mouth curves, cruel in its softness. "Then stop moving."

Too late his shaft stood triumphant, unmistakably hungry.

I turn away pretending, cheeks burning, but that only makes me more aware of him-how big he is, how close, and how his breath deepens every time his eyes brush over me.

My thoughts slip, dangerous, filthy things that I shouldn't be thinking about a stranger, let alone an Alpha, let alone a man who hasn't even kissed me yet, but somehow feels like he already has.

He shifts slightly in his seat battling his urges maybe.

He knows I noticed.

His jaw flexes once, and without warning, he reaches up and dims the interior light.

A long beat of silence stretches between us.

"Better," he mutters. "For both of us."

But the darkness doesn't help. If anything, it makes everything sharper: the sound of his breath, the heat radiating from his body, the soft brush of his fingers against the steering wheel, and the way I feel his attention on me like a hand sliding down my skin.

I longed to caressed his rod, thoughts of my tongue lapping on his cock filled my mind.

By the time he turns onto the gravel road leading to his villa, I'm certain of one thing:

If he doesn't kiss me soon, I might break first.

The car rolls to a stop. No one moved, not until he finally turns his head toward me slowly and his eyes land on my lips like he's already chosen what he's going to do to them.

"Get out," he murmurs, voice low and rough.

My breath shatters.

He still doesn't tell me his name or who he is. Instead, he walks me to a convertible parked at the other side of the road, not saying a word until we arrive at a villa on the outskirts of the town.

Beauty doesn't even begin to describe how it looks, with vines climbing the ceiling-to-floor windows and the flicker of lights coming from a room upstairs. This place feels wrong for a stranger like me. Too wild. Too alive. Too aware. As if the walls themselves are holding their breath, waiting for what he's about to do to me.

He leads the way, his tall frame easily towering over me as we walk through a dark hallway. He walks like he owns the room, like everyone bows to him when he appears.

And there is this flicker of power underneath, something that compels me to keep moving, rather than turning around as every rationality screams in me.

But I have nothing to return to.

"Stay here," he says as we reach the cozy living area. "I'll be right back." His voice dips low, velvet, commanding. It slides down my spine in a way that makes my thighs press together. Not out of fear. Out of the dangerous, shameful anticipation pooling low in my stomach.

It feels like nature is watching us, with all the trees around me. I hear a waterfall crashing in the distance, and my eyes find it at the far corner through the window, breathtakingly imposing.

"You found it," he murmurs, striding back into the living room. "It was the reason I built this place. I get to watch it in peace."

"In peace?"

He hands me a glass of water. "Don't leave a drop in it." His fingers brush mine for barely half a second. Barely. Yet heat knifes up my arm so violently I almost drop the glass. His eyes flick to my lips when I gasp. A slow, knowing drag of his gaze. Like he felt it too.

Nodding, I throw my head back and gulp down its contents, aware of his gaze licking every corner of my skin. It burns where his eyes touch, and I feel something warm in the pit of my stomach.

When I hand him the glass, his fingers graze mine. A jolt of electricity washes through me suddenly, and I jump back. He must have felt it too, but he gives nothing away, still maintaining that cool demeanour that fills me with the need to see beneath it.

"This was a bad idea," I whisper, my voice coming out husky. He arches a brow, then slides the glass onto the table behind us.

"Lyra..."

"I should go."

He steps in. One step. Just enough for his chest to brush mine, for his breath to ghost my cheek.

At first, it seems like he is going to argue. But he nods and nudges me towards the door. "My driver will take you back," he says, his hands in his pockets as we reach the doors.

I try to ignore the strange hurt in my chest, but it comes out through my tone. "You're not taking me yourself."

"If you leave now," he murmurs, "I will follow." My heartbeat stutters violently. "Why?" His eyes drop slowly to my mouth

He shakes his head. "You said it yourself. This is a bad idea."

"Will you tell me your name?"

His gaze washes through my features, and with the light flickering behind him, he looks so ethereal that it leaves a hitch in my throat.

He moves slowly, stalking me like a predator until my back hits the wall next to the door. His eyes fall on my lips, just as I hear a click next to me. The dense air from the hallway creeps into the living room.

"Go, Lyra. Leave while you can."

I stare up at him with huge eyes, unable to move an inch.

"Lyra," he breathes, my name falling from his lips like a whisper on a rainy day. "I don't think I will be able to let you go if you stay here for another minute, and I can't guarantee what will happen next."

My hands reach for the door, and I slam it shut, still looking at him.

His eyes grow even darker, as the second the door clicks shut behind us, the world narrows to his breath and the heat coming off his skin. "Lyra," he murmurs a warning or plea, I can't tell. I barely manage a breath before his mouth crashes into mine not gentle, not testing but hungry. His lips claim mine like he's been starving for years and I'm the first taste of anything real. My back hits the wall, his hand tangling in my hair, angling my head just the way he wants. A broken sound slips from my throat, and he answers it with a low groan that burns through my stomach.

My back is arched, and my legs pressed to the wall, and his tongue finds mine. I have never been kissed before, yet I can tell that this is far from soft and sweet.

He kisses me like he is missing something. Like he wants to lay a claim on me and watch the whole world burn from the aftermath of his decision. I kiss him back with all I have in me, my kisses made sloppy because of the liquor.

But he doesn't seem to mind as he lifts me into the air. Instinctively, I wrap my legs around his waist as he moves back to the window, from where we can see the waterfall. My body is pinned between the window and him as his lips devour me, leaving only heat in his wake.

The glass chills my back while his heat sears my front. His hands roam-slow, deliberate, claiming every inch of skin like he's mapping me for a war he's about to start. "Look," he growls softly, turning my chin toward the waterfall outside. "I want you to remember what you were seeing the first time I made you shake for me."

I angle my head as his lips trail down my nape. I feel it in my core, my thighs pressed against each other, and my back arched into him. I try to tell myself why this is wrong, but all I can think of is the man in front of me, as he has consumed every fragment of my being.

One hand hooks around my waist, pulling me impossibly closer to him. A moan slips free from my lips as his other hand cups my boobs through my shirt. My head falls back when his hand slips lower, allowing the wave of passion to hit me.

A delicious ripple goes up my spine as he turns me around suddenly so that I am looking out into the night. He rips my clothes off me in one go, and the cool air caresses my skin. But the chill doesn't last as his hands find my naked frame.

My breath rages all around me, as his hands roam my skin, touching me in places I never knew were possible. And when he buries himself inside me, a loud gasp finds its way out of my lips.

"Fuck!" He whispers. "You are a virgin."

I don't trust my lips to say anything coherent, but I nod.

His breath stutters against my neck, his grip tightening on my hips. "You should have told me," he rasps. "I didn't think-" Lost in the heat of passion. "You didn't think I'd take you this hard?" His voice is a low, dangerous growl. "Or you didn't think I'd stop?"

He lifts me again and takes me to the bedroom, lowering me into the bed. As he carries me, the medallion at his throat flashes again-brighter, sharper. My wolf, weak for years, jolts under my skin as if shocked awake by lightning. I gasp.

He freezes. "What was that?" he whispers. I don't know. But the air tastes charged, like the night itself is holding its breath for what we're doing.

With one hand, he parts my legs open like a lab specimen and with the other, he made his way into my cunt, gently at first and roughly as I dripped slick juices on his fingers.

My hand wound around the fist, and the other buries in the thick strands of his hair as he thrusts.

Nothing makes sense in this moment, other than this. I feel every part of my body quiver as a blind wave of intense passion hits. I hear a scream in the room, but I am not sure if it is from me.

Minutes later he buried his face into my core, taking in my scent until I felt his tongue sucking deep on my cunt, licking up every juice I produced and sending me on a wild erratic pleasure.

"Please don't stop, I want your cock in me," I said to my chagrin.

That was all the permission he needed, as he slides his rod into me, slowly at first then ramming into me at high speed, banging the walls of my womb with each thrust.

My world breaks open. My back bows, his name ripping from my throat as something ancient detonates inside me-heat, power, hunger and a sticky liquid surging out so violently my vision whites out.The medallion on his chest flares brilliant green. He shudders above me, cursing into my neck as he follows me over the edge, his body shaking against mine.

Hours later, at the crack of dawn, I am sheathed in his arms, staring up at his flawless face. My brain nudges at me, as the familiarity I didn't realize last night begins to return.

My eyes widen as I push off him suddenly.

I just had sex with my mate's father. Alpha Kael, the Alpha of the Mystic Hollows Pack. This is all Aiden's plan. I can't believe I was so foolish as to fall for it.

Slipping out of bed, I try to find my clothes on the floor, but come up with nothing. I remember he took them off in the living room and I make to go out.

But my feet halt again when I see the glow on his neck again, this time, brighter. It is coming from something that looks like a crest, but in a half-moon shape. The closer I get to it, the brighter it glows. The medallion. His medallion. My hand reaches for it before my mind catches up, unable to stop myself as I take it off him-drawn, pulled, claimed by something older than either of us. The second my fingers close around it, the light lashes out like lightning. And then, I vanish.