Wild Love (Wilding Pack Wolves 2) - New Adult Paranormal Romance by Alisa Woods Page A

scooted closer again, putting her arms around his neck and brushing his lips with hers.
    But she was shaking.
    He stopped her. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing, I just…” She swallowed. “I just… haven’t done this in a while. Out of practice. That’s all.”
    He held still, even more unsure now. His first thought at their original hookup was that she was far too nervous—that maybe this was her first time, not just with a WildLove hookup, but with sex of any kind. That thought came rushing back—if she simply didn’t want to admit it before, for some odd reason… “Are you sure this isn’t, you know, actually your first time doing this?” he asked as gently as he could.
    She pulled back, suddenly cold, and he instantly regretted the words. “Very sure.” She wrapped her arms tight around her chest, locking him out completely.
    God, he was an idiot. “Emily, it’s really okay if it is. I didn’t mean anything bad, I just—”
    “It was my uncle.”
    Her words stopped him cold. His entire body froze while his mind sprinted to catch up. “Your what?”
    She stared at the couch between them. “My uncle. Just once. I was sixteen.” Her hands were turning white with how hard each finger was digging into her arms.
    His skin was ice cold, a frozen sheet that barely contained the surging anger of his beast. His mouth struggled for words while his mind fought to keep his wolf inside, contained… because all of sudden, it wanted to kill something.
    Her brow scrunched up, and she slowly dragged her gaze up to his. She was expecting him to say something—to respond, for fuck’s sake—but he was still molten lava under the ice sheet, barely keeping himself together.
    “Is he still alive?” Noah had to force the words out. They were rough. Abrasive.
    She leaned back, like that was the last thing she expected him to say. “No. Car crash. Couple years ago.”
    The ice holding him together broke, but he didn’t explode. Didn’t shift. Instead, it was just enough release to keep him human.
    “Good,” he said, voice still rough. “Otherwise, I would have had to kill him.”
    Her eyes went wide.
    He rubbed both hands over his face, still trying to come back from losing it altogether. He meant every word, and he would gladly have ripped that goddamn rapist uncle into small, bloody chunks, but he knew that wasn’t what this was really about—her uncle wasn’t the man Noah truly wanted to kill. That volcanic anger was years of wanting to kill the one man he never could… his father.
    For doing exactly that to Noah’s mother. Repeatedly. For years.
    He swallowed down the sickness rising at the back of his throat—the memories flooded back, the barely suppressed knowledge that he had, as a child, known all along what was happening to his mother. Straight up until he found her bleeding out on the kitchen floor.
    “I… I should probably go.” Emily’s whispery voice barely registered.
    But when it did, it snapped him out of his haze. “What?”
    But she was already scrambling off the couch. “I understand,” she said.
    “Understand what?” He caught her around the waist, holding her from fleeing. She was trying to leave. Because he fucking handled this like a moron. An emotionally crippled moron.
    “It’s okay,” she mumbled, pushing ineffectually at his hands holding her. “Most guys wouldn’t want to… it’s okay. I understand.”
    “No.” He lurched up off the couch, looming over her, stopping her frantic attempts to run away, before he thought about what he was doing. She cringed under him, eyes flying wide and terrified. He immediately softened his hold on her waist, then let her go, and eased back, not touching her any longer. “Emily, please don’t leave.” He swallowed down his regret for not doing this better and poured every bit of non-verbal beseeching he could into his eyes. “Please stay. Let me explain.”
    The wildness in her eyes calmed, and a small puzzled look took over