Tangled

40 Ava: Make Your Decision

Selene’s words echo in my mind for a long time.

41 Ava: Virgin Heat (1)

41 Ava: Virgin Heat (I)

I brace myself against the slick tiles, my chest heaving with harsh, ragged breaths as Clayton’s eyes blaze into mine. The heat between us is a living, breathing thing, a palpable force that crackles in the air like an electric

current.

“Clayton,” I manage, my voice a breathless rasp. “We need to… call the guards.”

My words would probably have a little more punch if I wasn’t still working my fingers between my thighs. His eyes fall from my face to my hands, and he steps

forward.

A thrill rushes through me, and I spread my legs a little farther. “The guards,” I prompt, even as I bring myself to yet another orgasm, panting as my face flushes with

its heat.

I want his fingers, not mine.

I want his tongue, not his fingers.

I want his cock, not his tongue.

I want…

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41 Ava: Virgin Heat (1)

Fuck, I can’t handle this.

His nostrils flare at the sound of my voice, his jaw clenching as a muscle ticks in his chiseled cheek. I can see the war raging within him, the primal alpha instincts battling against his ironclad control.

“Ava,” he growls, and the sound of my name on his lips sends a fresh wave of desire crashing through me. I whimper, my thighs clenching tight as I struggle to stay standing.

Clayton’s eyes zero in on the motion, darkening to smoky jade as a low rumble builds in his chest. He takes a step forward, his movements slow and deliberate, like a predator stalking its prey.

“You’re playing with fire, little one,” he warns, his voice a low, gravelly purr that sends shivers racing down my spine. “I can smell your need from here. It’s taking everything I have not to take you right now.”

A whine escapes me at his words, my body arching helplessly towards him. The heat is a living inferno now, an all–consuming blaze that threatens to reduce me to ashes if I don’t find release soon.

“Please,” I beg, the word torn from my lips in a

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41 Ava: Virgin Heat (1)

desperate, keening cry. “I need…”

I can’t bring myself to say it, to voice the craving that consumes me from the inside out. But Clayton seems to understand, his eyes glittering with a feral light as he takes another step forward.

“You need your alpha,” he finishes, his tone a dark promise that has my core clenching with fresh need. “You need to be claimed, don’t you, little one? Filled and bred until that delicious heat of yours is sated at

last.”

A broken moan spills from my lips as images explode behind my eyes–Clayton pinning me down, spearing into me over and over as he takes me with brutal, claiming force. His knot swelling inside me, locking us together as he floods me with his seed, branding me as his mate from the inside out.

It’s everything my body craves, everything this maddening heat demands. But some small, rational part of me knows that it isn’t right, that Clayton isn’t my fated mate, no matter how badly my instincts are screaming for me to let him claim me.

No claiming.

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41 Ava: Virgin Heat (1)

Just sex.

Just relief from all this.

But-

“Guards,” I force out, my voice cracking with strain. “We need… the guards.” I’m trying to maintain rationality, and yet I hold out my hand, beckoning him

closer.

A low, rumbling snarl builds in Clayton’s chest as he prowls closer, his eyes blazing like twin emerald flames. “No guards, little one,” he counters, his tone laced with steel. “Just you… and me.”

He closes the distance between us in two long strides, his hands slamming against the tile on either side of my head as he cages me in. I can feel the scorching heat of his body, can smell the heady, musky scent of his arousal mingling with mine in the steamy air. He’s soaked from the water, and I struggle with the urge to lick every drop off his skin.

“Let me take care of you, Ava,” he murmurs, his breath fanning hot across my lips. “Let me claim what’s mine.”

mouth crashes down on

as he kinnon

murarica na ha

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foracious

417

Ava: Virgin Heat (1)

plunges past my lips, stroking against mine in a blatant possession that has me arching into him with a desperate

of his kiss and the hard planes of his body pressed against mine. My fingers tangle in his

away the last vestiges

into my hair, yanking my head back as he plunders my mouth.

groaning at the feel of rough, wet denim against my core. The friction is maddeningly delicious

there, twisting, pinching, rubbing in turns until I’m writhing and riding his leg in a way I never knew I could, exploding from

alone.

whispers, biting at my

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Virgin Heat

need–the bed. We need to get to the

as his fingers take the

pain blossoms into the

Fuck.

Fuck me.

Oh, my God.

movements as his fingers curl, abusing that spot just inside that I can

I might be screaming, because I can’t

of me knows that this is wrong, that I shouldn’t be letting this happen. But that voice is a mere whisper against the roar of instinct, against the primal cravings that consume me from the inside

how badly I need my alpha to claim me and sate this maddening blaze. Clayton’s tongue

41 Ava: Virgin Heat (1)

beg

He’ll be mine, if

66

interested in Ava and her journey to find herself (it’s there in the plot somewhere between all the smoot smoot), or if you shamelessly are just here for the spice (TOTALLY OKAY,

Lenaleia

Creator’s Thought

Comment 12

sighs. It was a consideration, she says, and leaves

first time, I think I’m truly grateful that I was a defect. If I’d had Selene–if I’d gone into heat like

I would lead

with the symptoms of heat, too. Nothing like an instant turn–off even in the face of

by my heat, if it’s because of the Lycan

has me narrowing my eyes at

child. A heat does not overcome me in that

young and inexperienced, and therefore I

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Ava: Make Your Decision

slutty ball of desire when I go through heat?

careful, Selene says

alone. My heat isn’t

control. What?

come through the window.

are unaware.

Shit.

do I

tell the

claiming, if you want. You don’t have to

Um.

I wish Selene was here so I could stare at her. I thought you didn’t want me to mate with Clayton.

whoever you choose. I don’t think you need to be loyal to a fate who didn’t recognize what he had. I just think

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Make Your Decision

when you’re more clear–minded.”

Oh.

that makes sense.

I

been nothing but kind and respectful. He’s provided

Even now, with my heat driving us both to the brink of insanity, he’s doing everything in his power to protect me. Guards stand outside my door, ready to intervene if he loses control. He’s prioritizing my safety and well–being, even at the cost of

comfort.

contrast to Lucas.

so callously after our moment in the garden. Lucas, who made mé feel like

heart and left me questioning my own

And yet…

the meals left at my door. Is

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3.10

Ava: Make Your

pain

know what to think anymore.

whole. But my mind reminds me of the agony that followed, of

his rejection.

to give in to the temptation, to give in to my heat and do what my body’s urging me to do. To mate with a

veins.

I truly want? Or is it just the heat talking, clouding

I don’t know.

don’t know what to do.

expectations of others. I can choose my own path, my

that I have a choice, it feels

make it.

Make Your Decision‘

need to make a choice, Ava. Alert your nurses or choose Clayton. Hurry. He’s almost there. If you can’t make

against the frigid tiles of the shower stall. The icy water cascades over my body, but it does nothing to quell the searing flames that lick at my insides. I’m already struggling to think, going in