The Snow Wolf's Mate

Dreams That Burn:

[POV: Aria]

I woke up gasping. My skin burned.

The sheets tangled around my legs felt too hot, too heavy, soaked with heat that wasn’t mine alone. But it was the dream—still clinging to the back of my eyelids like fog—that had me trembling.

Hayden.

It felt real. Too real.

The way his hands slid up my thighs, slow and reverent, like he was memorizing me. The way his voice rasped my name like it was both a question and a vow.

And goddess… the way he kissed me. Not rushed or careless. Not rough.

But deep. Hungry. Like he’d waited years for the right moment, and now that he had it, he would never let it go.

I curled onto my side and squeezed my eyes shut, willing the memory to fade, but it only sharpened. As if the dream weren’t just a fantasy but a continuation—a consequence—of everything that happened in the forest.

It had started the same way as was in the forest.

His voice. That growl. That storm in his eyes after seeing Cole. His jealousy had cracked something open between us, something raw and terrifying.

And in the dream, he didn’t hold back. In the dream, he claimed me.

I remembered the way he’d pressed me against the tree, his body a wall of heat and tension. But in the dream, it hadn’t stopped there.

He undressed me slowly, never breaking eye contact.

Every button undone was a promise. Every inch of exposed skin, a temptation fulfilled.

I could still feel his fingertips brushing along my collarbone, down my sides, slipping under the hem of my clothes.

His mouth followed the trail his fingers left, warm and demanding, lips parting against the curve of my shoulder, the dip of my spine, the inside of my thighs.

I had moaned. Not just in the dream, but now, in waking.

It slipped from me like a secret, flushed and helpless. His mouth, his tongue, his fingers… there.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek and squeezed my thighs together, but it didn’t help. Nothing could ease the ache that bloomed inside me.

The memory of his hands was seared into my skin. The rough scrape of his calluses, the way his palm pressed over my ribs like he was grounding me, claiming me, owning me.

And then—his mouth on mine.

Finally.

It wasn’t gentle. It was desperate. As if kissing me was the only thing keeping him from losing control completely.

His teeth scraped my lip. His tongue claimed my mouth like he had the right to it. And I gave in without hesitation, arms curling around his shoulders, nails digging into his back, needing more.

In the dream, there was no Piper to interrupt us.

No fear. No shame. Only him. Only us. And the truth we’d both been too afraid to admit.

I wanted him. Desperately.