Beast Untamed: Beasts of Bodmin Moor, Book 3 by Faye Avalon Page B

go first.”
    She opened the back door to the yard and Willa shot out. Nathan came up behind Erin, nuzzling at her neck.
    “You smell good. I meant to tell you that earlier.” His arms came around her from behind and he drew her back against him. He inhaled, deeply. “Yeah. You smell really good.”
    She placed her hands over his and wriggled back against him. She could feel his erection nudging against her back and the contact sent shockwaves of awareness from her hardened nipples straight to her pussy.
    She ground against him, sliding her hands along his wrists and lower arms, taking care to keep the movement slow and seductive. She’d never taken the initiative with a man before, but now she reveled in it. Just as she did the hitch of Nathan’s breath, the thump of his heart against her shoulder blades.
    “Fuck, Erin,” Nathan grated against her ear. “For pity’s sake, let me have you.”
    She tilted her head, enjoying the way he planted openmouthed kisses on her neck. Seconds later, with her legs in danger of losing all feeling, she turned in his arms. She met his lips as they slanted over hers and slid her arms around his neck. His hands moved to cup her backside, and he pulled her up hard against his erection. The breath caught between her ribs, and all she could do was moan with pleasure.
    Willa jumped at her back, pushing her at Nathan. The dog barked before bustling back into an attack position, displaying her teeth in a snarl.
    “It’s okay,” Erin said, coming out of his arms and bending to take Willa’s head in her hands. “It’s okay, baby girl.” She looked up to where Nathan stood in the doorway, a dark look on his face. “She’s protective. She doesn’t like anyone touching me.”
    Nathan’s frown deepened. Erin hoped to heaven he wasn’t going to press the issue and ask why. But since he was on a promise of sex, she imagined that, in line with most every other man on the planet, there wasn’t much in the way of thinking going on in his head right then. At least not of the variety that didn’t involve getting her naked, and pronto.
    True to her expectations, he remained silent, and Erin breathed an inner sigh of relief. After locking the door, she calmed Willa down with a few steadying strokes of her glossy fur, then put her down for the night in her bed and gave her the nighttime chews.
    While Willa was distracted, she beckoned Nathan through to the sitting room and closed the door. Since the stairs were in the corner of the room, Erin led the way over. Nathan took her arm as she reached the first step.
    “Do you want to tell me what that was about?”
    Damn it. Why did she have to have a man with a thinking brain, when for the first time in her life she was focused on sex? “Like I said, she’s protective.”
    “Did someone hurt you?”
    The intense look on his face, the dark promise of retribution that shone from his eyes, made Erin shake her head. “No. At least not in the way you think.”
    How easily the lie had tripped from her tongue. But even if she were ever to tell anyone about her past, which she didn’t intend to do, this was neither the time nor place for such a confession.
    Nathan ran his hand through his hair. “Erin, you need to know that you were right about me.”
    She frowned. “How?”
    “That night, at the hotel. You said that no woman in her right mind would allow herself to get involved with the likes of me. You were right.”
    “I can’t be in my right mind, then, can I?”
    “If someone has hurt you before, then you need to understand how it is with me.”
    He thought she’d been hurt emotionally by someone who had let her down. While he was correct on one level, Justin had let her down, he was way off course if he thought Justin had broken her heart because she loved him.
    While she appreciated Nathan’s concern, she didn’t welcome his need to point out the obvious. That he wasn’t a forever kind of guy.
    She faced him squarely. “I’m not